Trojan War
Greatest war in Greek myth and the subject of Homer’s grand epic, The Iliad (although the Greeks themselves thought of it as history, not myth at all). The Trojan War began when Paris, handsome son of King Priam of Troy, left Sparta with Helen, beautiful queen of Sparta. Menelaus, Sparta’s king and Helen’s husband, was the brother of Agamemnon, the most powerful Greek ruler, and Agamemnon summoned all Greece to help him revenge the insult to his family’s honor. The Trojans responded by calling on their allies across Asia. When the Greeks landed on the beach near Troy, they had no way of capturing the high-walled city. So the war became a series of individual combats between heroes that could become full-scale battles. At times the Greeks were victorious, nearing the gates of Troy; at times the Trojans, led by Priam’s eldest son, Prince Hector, drove the Greeks almost back to their ships. (Paris did little fighting.) The Greek cause was harmed by quarrels between Agamemnon and young Prince Achilles, their finest warrior, when Achilles refused to fight. Only after Patroclus, Achilles’ best friend, was killed did Achilles return to the war, slaying Hector before being killed himself. Troy was finally captured using the now-famous Trojan Horse ruse. The Greeks pretended to sail away, leaving a huge wooden horse as an offering to the gods. Delighted, the Trojans took the horse inside their city. But the horse was hollow, and filled with warriors. That night the Greeks inside emerged from its wooden belly to open the gates and let other Greeks in.
Troy was sacked and its people killed or enslaved—except for Helen, who was restored to Menelaus, and Aeneas, hero of The Aeneid, who escaped with his father.
(See Amazons, Aphrodite, Athena, Eris, Helen, Hera, Iliad, Ithaca, Minos, Nereids, Odysseus, Odyssey, Poseidon, Zeus)
Typhon
Monstrous son of Gaia (earth) and the god Tartarus. Typhon was as large as a mountain, with a hundred dragon heads, a snake’s body, and blazing eyes. He fathered other monsters, such as the Hydra and chimera, and for a time so frightened many Greek gods that they fled to Egypt, disguising themselves as animals (this is how the Greeks explained Egypt’s animal-headed gods such as Anubis). Zeus and Hermes finally trapped Typhon under Mount Etna in Sicily, from the volcanic depths of which he still spouted fire and sent forth sudden storms: typhoons, which were named for him.
(See Chimera, Echidna, Harpies, Hydra)
U
Underworld
Gloomy realm beneath the earth to which the spirits of almost all the dead went, ruled by the god Hades who name the Greeks preferred not to utter. (Hades also became another name for the Underworld.) (See Aeneas, Cerberus, Charon, Circe, Demeter, Elysian Fields/Elysium, Fields of Asphodel, Hades, Helm of Darkness, Hercules, Kronos, Mount Olympus, Odysseus, Orpheus, Persephone, Poseidon, River Lethe, River Styx, Tartarus, Theseus, Zeus)
Z
Zephyr
God of the west wind, the gentlest of the four winds, associated with the soft, sweet-smelling showers of spring. (The others were Boreas, the north wind; Notus, the south wind; and Eurus, the east wind.) Zephyr’s wife was the flower goddess Chloris, and their son was Carpus, which meant harvest or fruits. But Zephyr also married Chloris’s sister Iris, goddess of the rainbow.
(See Aphrodite)
Zeus
King of the gods and lord of the sky. Zeus was the supreme patriarchal god, who ruled both Mount Olympus, home of the twelve Olympian gods, and the world of men below. Zeus was the son of the Titans Rhea and Kronos. Kronos had swallowed his other sons for fear they would overthrow him, but Rhea saved Zeus by offering her husband a stone instead and hiding the baby on Mount Ida in Crete, where he was brought up by nymphs. Zeus later deposed Kronos, making him vomit the other gods back up. Among them were Poseidon and Hades, with whom Zeus divided the world: Zeus took the skies, Poseidon the oceans, and Hades the Underworld. The other Titans revolted against this new order but were suppressed in battle. From then on Zeus governed the cosmos. His thunderbolt was his most dramatic weapon, with which he blasted any who opposed him, but all men, including kings, and all the other gods had to obey him. Zeus was a king, however, not a tyrant. He himself obeyed the cosmic laws of Fate. Zeus was the supreme guardian of justice, human and divine, punishing wrong-doers, and was the protector of strangers and of beggars. He married Hera, his sister, whose heart he had won by taking the form of a cuckoo, and she became queen of Olympus. The divine couple did not get along, however. Hera objected violently to Zeus’ colorful love life, for he was a notorious seducer of women, both mortal and divine, often taking the shape of animals to do so. Among his conquests were Leto, a Titaness and the mother of Apollo and Artemis, who became Olympian gods; Themis, another Titaness, who gave birth to the Horae, the goddesses of the hours; Europa, the daughter of the Phoenician (Lebanese) king Agenor, whom Zeus carried off while in the guise of a bull to Crete, where she gave birth to Minos and Rhadamanthys; and Leda, whom he seduced disguised as a swan, and who gave birth to the incomparably beautiful Helen, later the cause of the Trojan War. Having Zeus as a lover could be dangerous for mortals. The Theban princess Semele, whom Zeus always visited in the dark, insisted on seeing him in his full glory. When he finally revealed his divinity, she was burnt up. However, Zeus did save her unborn child, who became Dionysus, the wine god. Athena, the patron goddess of Athens, was Zeus’ most original offspring, for she sprang, fully formed and already armed, from his forehead. Zeus was identified with the Roman Jupiter and has obvious affinities with the Sanskrit (early Hindu) sky god Dyaus Pater. Zeus was worshipped across Greece, and the grandest temples and most opulent statues—such as the huge gold and ivory statue made by the sculptor Pheidias at Olympia, site of the Olympic Games—were created in his honor. The oldest oracle in Greece was that of Zeus at Dodona, where the god’s pronouncements were written on oak leaves.
(See Aegis, Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Atlas, Briares, Cadmus and Europa, Calypso, Charybdis and Scylla, Delphi, Demeter, Dionysus, Fates, Ganymede, Golden Fleece, Hades, Helen, Helios, Hekatonkheires, Hephaestus, Hera, Hercules, Hermes, Iris, Kampê, Kronos, Master bolt, Minos, Mount Othrys, Nereids, Odysseus, Ophiotaurus, Oracles, Persephone, Perseus, Poseidon, Prometheus, Selene, Tantalus, Tartarus, Titans, Typhon)
Nigel Rodgers, who has a degree in history and history of art from the University of Cambridge in England, has written widely on history, art, mythology, and philosophy. Among his most recent books are The Ancient Greek World (Lorenz, 2008), Roman Empire (Lorenz, 2006), and Philosophers Behaving Badly (Peter Owen, 2005). His Web site is http://nigelrodgers.co.uk.
1 The original one, not Percy Jackson of The Lightning Thief, etc. The ancient Perseus was the son of Zeus, not Poseidon, so it’s curious that his mother picked that name.
2 Chiron wouldn’t use this example, of course, because in his world there are no such things as wizards. That would be just silly.
3 Just the opposite, since according to the agreement between the Big Three, you should not even exist, and lots of creatures would be trying to arrange it so you didn’t.
4 See previous footnote re: unauthorized offspring.
5 If we lived in the world of Percy and the Olympians, I would definitely wonder about that coffee chain with the mermaid on its logo, for no other reason than convincing mortal society that it is reasonable to pay three dollars for a cup of coffee is surely a plot to speed the end of Western Civilization.
6 Though this would explain a lot about Manhattan cab drivers.
7 By that I mean the mortal world, the immortal world, and the Underworld. Speaking of Hades, he may have a special reason to hate Percy, but all half-bloods should be wary of him. He’s like that kid at your school who never gets invited to play with everyone else, but with superpowers and several thousand years for his temper to come to a boil. Hades is understandably cranky.
8 None of which apparently changes the fact that monsters can smell heroes pretty easily.
9 This isn’t always an oxymoron, any more than “wise hero” is.
1
0 Or, more likely, they just don’t care.
11 Which you wouldn’t, because you can tell the difference between fiction and reality. If you can’t, then you have a bigger problem than mythical monsters.
12 At least in his dealings with monsters. In other matters, he still seems pretty clueless. Romance, for example.
13 This is, perhaps, a product of the hero’s natural attention to so many details at a time, i.e., his ADHD.
14 Rhea, an ancient earth goddess, was the wife of the Titan Kronos and mother of Zeus, Demeter, Hades, Hera, Hestia, and Poseidon.
15 According to the British writer Sir J. G. Frazer, there was also an ancient custom of dressing young boys as girls in order to protect them from the Evil Eye, a kind of curse.
16 The story of Dionysus and Pentheus is told in a play by Euripides (c. 480-406 B.C.) called The Bacchae. My summary of it is based on a re-telling by Michael Grant in Myths of the Greeks and Romans.
17 If you want to see what I mean, take a look at any of the old TV shows from that era.
18 Though the blues and Elvis’s music pre-date the sixties, both channeled a kind of freedom—pure, unrestrained soul—that could be said to be aligned with Dionysian energy.
19 One important exception to this rule is Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who encounters Percy at the Hoover Dam in The Titan’s Curse and sees right through the Mist, much to Percy’s shock. Her ability is not just a one-time aberration due to failure of the Mist itself, either. In The Battle of the Labyrinth, she sees through the Mist at Percy’s new school as a pair of empousai (vampire-like servants of Hecate) attack him. Her vision is even clearer than our half-blood hero’s: whereas Percy is mesmerized by one empousa’s blonde cheerleader charms, it’s Rachel who sees the empousa for the monster she really is, and has to pinch Percy’s arm to snap him out of his illusion. Rachel’s remarkable ability to see through Mist even helps her locate an entrance to the Labyrinth well as to negotiate its perilous twist and turns.
20 As I read the books and grew increasingly fond of loyal Grover, I thought how delighted he must be that the logo of his new hometown was one of his favorite snacks. Okay, New York City is not the Big Enchilada—but Grover does favor apples as well. At least it’s not the Big Tin Can.
21 Some of the spirits and monsters in the series remain true to their origins, but not all. Most Cyclopes are to be feared, but Tyson is a loveable baby who is one of the really good guys, as is Grover, and the Ophiotaurus, though it might be used for ill, is an innocent being. He saves Percy and relates well to Tyson, but the gods fear him, because he could bring an end to their existence. Possibly. Because no one really knows what would happen. Last time the Ophiotaurus was murdered, Zeus thwarted the final deed predicted to demolish the immortals for good. He sent an eagle to grab the poor dead creature’s entrails before they could be cast into a fire.
22 In The Sea of Monsters, Riordan cleverly recreates some of the most memorable episodes in Odysseus’ journey with just those monsters and other mythical creatures. Percy assumes the role of hero doing the rescuing, though in some cases he’s rescued (by Clarisse of all people!) himself. The sirens, who in ancient times seduced Odysseus’ crew with song, lure Annabeth with visions befitting a twenty-first-century half-blood: She sees her mortal dad and goddess mother picnicking with Luke in Central Park. Later Riordan reprises Jason’s ancient quest with his Argonauts.
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Rick Riordan, Demigods and Monsters
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