World of The Ancients

Terms in this set (56)

WORLD OF THE ANCIENTS

Of or relating to Aeolis or its people or culture

The daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta. She performed funeral rites over her brother's body in defiance of her uncle Creon

"Foam born" in the aftermath of Uranos' castration; goddess of love and beauty; she is also a fertility goddess, but of human fertility

Considered to be the "most Greek" of the gods. Archer, poet, athlete, musician; god of prophecy and medicine. He catches Hermes stealing his cattle

giant with 100 eyes who was made guardian of Io and was later slain by Hermes

Daughter of Zeus and Metis (born of Zeus's head); goddess of war and strategy; she favored Hercules and Odysseus, helping them often. She is a good counter-weight to Ares

A legendary island in the Atlantic Ocean west of Gibraltar, said by Plato to have sunk beneath the sea during an earthquake

a god of wine and giver of ecstasy, identified with Dionysus

The muse of heroic poetry

one of a race of monsters having the head, trunk, and arms of a man, and the body and legs of a horse

fire-breathing monster, commonly represented with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail

Cupid and Psyche

a story originally from Metamorphoses and their ultimate union in a sacred marriage. cupid is a god of love psyche is goddess of soul

an Athenian architect who built the labyrinth for Minos and made wings for himself and his son Icarus to escape from Crete

the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra who incited her brother Orestes to kill Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus

the Greek god of erotic love

a spirit of punishment, often represented as one of three goddesses who executed the curses pronounced upon criminals, tortured the guilty with stings of conscience, and inflicted famines and pestilences

a fleece of pure gold, kept at Colchis by King Aeëtes from whom it was stolen by Jason and the Argonauts with the help of Aeëtes's daughter, Medea

each of three sisters, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, with snakes for hair, who had the power to turn anyone who looked at them to stone

a story in Greek mythology about the halcyon bird, which had the power to calm the rough ocean waves every December so she could nest. Like those calm waters, halcyon has come to mean a sense of peace or tranquility

the eldest son of Priam and husband of Andromache: the greatest Trojan hero in the Trojan War, killed by Achilles

the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and was a sister of Castor, Pollux, and Clytemnestra. In Greek myths, she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world

the son of Zeus, who performed the Twelve Labours after killing his wife and children in a fit of madness

a many-headed serpent or monster in Greek mythology that was slain by Hercules and each head of which when cut off was replaced by two others

is the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the creator of the Labyrinth

a hero, the leader of the Argonauts, who at the request of his uncle Pelias retrieved the Golden Fleece from King Aeëtes of Colchis with the help of Medea

mythological possessor of the "Midas touch", the power to transmute whatever he touched into gold. Midas was a king of Phrygia, a region nowadays part of Turkey

Leda and the Swan

Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces or rapes Leda

a sorceress from Colchis who helped Jason gain the Golden Fleece

the son of Zeus and the Pleiad Maia, and the second youngest of the Olympian gods. Hermes is considered a god of transitions and boundarie

memories or relation to memories

Morpheus was the God of Dreams, the one with the amazing ability of appearing in dreams of mortals in any form

the dwelling place of the greater gods also the highest mountain in greece

the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts

a beautiful youth who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool. Because he was unable to tear himself away from the image, he wasted away and died

the god of freshwater and the sea in Roman religion. He is the counterpart of the Greek god Poseidon

an ancient Greek epic by Homer that recounts the adventures of Odysseus during his return from the war in Troy to his home in the Greek island of Ithaca

a son of Laius and Jocasta, who was abandoned at birth and unwittingly killed his father and then married his mother

Orpheus and Eurydice

the ancient legend of Orpheus and Eurydice concerns the fateful love of Orpheus of Thrace, son of Apollo and the muse Calliope, for the beautiful Eurydice

a box that Zeus gave to Pandora, the first woman, with strict instructions that she not open it. Pandora's curiosity soon got the better of her, and she opened the box. All the evils and miseries of the world flew out to afflict mankind

he is a winged divine stallion also known as a horse usually depicted as pure white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as horse-god, and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa

the son of Danaë and Zeus and husband of Andromeda who killed the Gorgon Medusa. 2. A constellation in the Northern Hemisphere near Andromeda and Auriga

a long-lived bird that is cyclically regenerated or reborn. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor

Pyramus and Thisbe

two young lovers of Babylon who held conversations clandestinely, and in defiance of their parents, through a crack in a wall. On believing Thisbe dead, Pyramus killed himself. When Thisbe discovered his body she committed suicide

a Titan best known as the deity in Greek mythology who was the creator of mankind and its greatest benefactor, who stole fire from Mount Olympus and gave it to mankind

a king of Cyprus who carved and then fell in love with a statue of a woman, which Aphrodite brought to life as Galatea

Pyrrhic victory

a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way; however, the heavy toll negates any sense of achievement or profit

was the king of Ephyra. He was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, repeating this action for eternity

a deity and a river that forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld

a Greek mythological figure, most famous for his eternal punishment in Tartarus. He was made to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches, with the fruit ever eluding his grasp, and the water always receding before he could take a drink

a king of Athens in Greek mythology who kills Procrustes and the Minotaur before defeating the Amazons and marrying their queen

any of the older gods who preceded the Olympians and were the children of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth). Led by Cronus, they overthrew Uranus; Cronus' son, Zeus, then rebelled against his father and eventually defeated the Titans

a gigantic hollow wooden horse, left by the Greeks upon their pretended abandonment of the siege of Troy. The Trojans took it into Troy and Greek soldiers concealed in the horse opened the gates to the Greek army at night and conquered the city

is the god of fire including the fire of volcanoes, metalworking, and the forge in ancient Roman religion and myth

the supreme deity of the ancient Greeks, a son of Cronus and Rhea, brother of Demeter, Hades, Hera, Hestia, and Poseidon, and father of a number of gods, demigods, and mortals; the god of the heavens, identified by the Romans with Jupiter

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