Demi Gods and Heroes
The house of Perseus
Compare this animation to the movie, Clash of the Titans. What differences are between the movie and the historical story?
Heracles "Hercules"
Heracles, born Alcaeus or Alcides, was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmena, foster son of Amphitryon. He was a great-grandson and half-brother of Perseus.
After Hercules killed his wife and children, he went to the oracle at Delphi. He prayed to the god Apollo for guidance.
Hercules was told to serve the king of Mycenae, Eurystheus, for 12 years.
During these 12 years, Hercules is sent to perform twelve difficult feats, called labours.
Heracles' twin sons : Romulus and Remus
Birth of an Empire
The Family of Cretheus, king of Iolcus
Jason and the argonauts
Jason was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcus. When Aeson was overthrown by his brother Pelias, he sent Jason to be raised by the wise centaur, Chiron. Later Jason returned to Iolcus to claim the throne. Pelias agreed to give it to him if he first found and brought back the Golden Fleece from Colchis—which Pelias knew to be an almost impossible task.
The Golden Fleece was the hide of a golden ram sent by the gods to save Phrixus and Helle, two royal children of the land of Iolcus whose lives were threatened by their stepmother. As the ram carried them to safety, Helle fell into the sea and drowned. The area where she fell (the Dardanelles in present-day Turkey) became known as Hellespont. Phrixus reached Colchis safely. There he sacrificed the ram to the goddess Hera*, his protector. The fleece was hung on a tree in a sacred grove and guarded by a serpent dragon that never slept.
Jason ordered a ship, the Argo, to be built and sent messengers throughout Greece asking others to join him in his quest for the Golden Fleece. After assembling a group of 50 heroes, Jason set off. The Argonauts' first adventure was on the island of Lemnos, which was populated only by women. As a result of a dispute between husbands and wives, the women had killed all the men. The women received the Argonauts with great hospitality, and the heroes began to forget their quest. One of the Argonauts stood firm, however. This was Hercules (Heracles)*, a hero known for his strength. Hercules persuaded the other Argonauts to return to the ship... and the adventure continued.
For a short time, Heracles joined the Argonauts during one of his own quests.
Theseus
Theseus was widely considered the greatest Athenian hero, the king who managed to politically unify Attica under the aegis of Athens.
Son of Aegeus, the king of Athens, and Aethra, a princess. Theseus was raised by his mother in the palaces of Troezen.
Upon reaching adulthood and finding out the identity of his father, he set out on a journey to Athens, during which he managed to outwit and overpower few notorious brigands: Periphetes, Sinis, Phaea, Sciron, Cercyon, and Procrustes.
In Athens, after thwarting Medea’s attempts to eliminate him and capturing the Marathonian Bull, he volunteered to be one of the fourteen young Athenians sent to Crete as a sacrifice to the Minotaur so as to be able to kill the monster inside his Labyrinth. With the help of Ariadne, who gave him a ball of thread to navigate himself inside the maze, Theseus managed to find and slay the Minotaur, after which he set sail back to Athens. There he ruled admirably for many years before an unsuccessful attempt (taken with his friend Pirithious) to abduct Persephone from the Underworld resulted in his deposition and, consequently, treacherous murder by Lycomedes of Scyros.
The House of Atreus
Oedipus and the Sphinx
Oedipus meets the Sphinx at the crossroads on his journey between Thebes and Delphi. Oedipus must answer the Sphinx's riddle correctly in order to pass. Failure means his own death and that of the besieged Thebans.
The riddle was: "What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three at night?".
Oedipus answered: "Man: as an infant, he crawls on all fours; as an adult, he walks on two legs and; in old age, he uses a walking stick". Oedipus was the first to answer the riddle correctly and, having heard Oedipus' answer, the Sphinx was astounded and inexplicably killed herself by throwing herself into the sea.