Greek Mythology: Who’s Who
Short entries on 76 Titans, primordial gods, heroes and mortals of Greek myth — Cronus, Gaia, Prometheus, Achilles, Perseus and more.
Gaia盖亚
The Earth · mother of all
One of the first beings to emerge from Chaos. Sky, mountains, sea and the Titans were all her children, and she had a hand in nearly every coup among the gods.
Cyclopes独眼巨人
One-eyed giants
The first three Cyclopes were sons of Gaia and master smiths who forged Zeus's thunderbolt and Poseidon's trident. The Cyclopes of later tales, like Polyphemus, are savage shepherds.
Tartarus塔耳塔洛斯
The deepest pit beneath the earth
A prison far below even the underworld — an anvil dropped from earth was said to fall nine days and nights to reach it. The defeated Titans were confined here.
Amalthea阿玛尔忒亚
The goat that nursed Zeus
She suckled the infant Zeus in a cave on Crete. One of her horns, broken off, is said to have become the inexhaustible cornucopia.
Hades哈迪斯
Lord of the underworld · brother of Zeus
He drew the underworld by lot and rules the dead. He owns a helmet of invisibility and rarely leaves his kingdom, which is why he is not usually counted among the twelve Olympians.
Maia迈亚
Mountain nymph · mother of Hermes
Eldest of the seven Pleiades, who lived in a cave on Mount Cyllene. The month of May is said to be named for her.
Thetis忒提斯
Sea-nymph · mother of Achilles
She sheltered the cast-out Hephaestus and once freed Zeus from his bonds. Because her son was fated to be greater than his father, the gods dared not marry her and gave her to the mortal Peleus.
Strife不和女神
Eris · strife personified
Every god was invited to the wedding of Thetis except her — so she tossed a golden apple inscribed "for the fairest" among the guests.
Hermaphroditus赫耳玛佛洛狄托斯
Child of Hermes and Aphrodite
A beautiful youth to whom the nymph Salmacis clung, praying never to be parted; the two were fused into one body of both sexes.
Asclepius阿斯克勒庇俄斯
God of medicine · son of Apollo
Trained by the centaur Chiron, he grew so skilled he could raise the dead, for which Zeus struck him down; he was later made a god. His single-snake staff is still the emblem of medicine.
Pandora潘多拉
The first woman
Each god gave her a gift — her name means "all-gifted." She opened the jar she should not have, releasing every evil into the world; only Hope stayed inside.
Heracles赫拉克勒斯
Greatest of heroes · son of Zeus
Son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene, of boundless strength. He performed twelve labours to atone for killing his wife and children, and after death became a god on Olympus. The Romans called him Hercules.
Danaë达那厄
Princess of Argos · mother of Perseus
Her father, told that her son would kill him, shut her in a bronze tower. Zeus reached her as a shower of gold through the roof.
Io伊娥
Priestess of Hera · lover of Zeus
Turned into a white cow, then chased across the world by a gadfly sent by Hera, until she regained human form in Egypt. Jupiter's moon Io is named after her.
Argus阿耳戈斯
The hundred-eyed giant
His body was covered with a hundred eyes, some always open even in sleep — the perfect watchman, until Hermes lulled every one of them shut.
Odysseus奥德修斯
King of Ithaca · the cunning hero
The mind behind the Trojan Horse. After the war he wandered the sea for ten more years before reaching home — the journey told in the Odyssey.
Polyphemus波吕斐摩斯
A Cyclops · son of Poseidon
A shepherd giant living in a cave. He ate several of Odysseus's men, was made drunk, and had his single eye put out with a burning stake.
Minotaur弥诺陶洛斯
The bull-headed monster
Kept in the labyrinth of Crete and fed on the youths and maidens Athens sent as tribute, until Theseus killed it.
Medusa美杜莎
The snake-haired Gorgon
The only mortal one of the three Gorgons; anyone who met her eyes turned to stone. Perseus cut off her head.
Arachne阿拉克涅
A weaver of Lydia
A mortal of dazzling skill who dared to challenge Athena. Spiders and their kin — the arachnids — are named after her.
Pythia皮提亚
Priestess of Delphi
Seated on a tripod, she spoke Apollo's oracles in a state of possession. Her answers were famously ambiguous, yet they swayed the wars and colonies of countless cities.
Daphne达芙妮
A river-god's daughter
A nymph sworn never to marry. When Apollo had all but caught her, she begged her father to change her, and became a laurel tree.
Hyacinthus许阿铿托斯
A Spartan youth · beloved of Apollo
Killed by a discus while playing with Apollo — some say the jealous West Wind blew it off course. The hyacinth sprang from his blood.
Actaeon阿克泰翁
A hunter of Thebes
A fine hunter trained by the centaur Chiron. For seeing Artemis bathe he was turned into a stag and killed by his own hounds.
Orion俄里翁
The giant hunter
A handsome giant who could walk on the sea. After his death he was set in the sky as Orion, the brightest constellation of winter.
Agamemnon阿伽门农
King of Mycenae · leader of the Greeks at Troy
To get his fleet to sea he sacrificed his own daughter. Ten years later he came home in triumph and was murdered in his bath by his wife Clytemnestra.
Achilles阿喀琉斯
The greatest warrior at Troy
Son of Thetis, who dipped him in the Styx holding him by the heel — so he was invulnerable everywhere but there. The Iliad is the story of his anger.
Romulus罗慕路斯
Founder of Rome
One of twins born to the war-god and a priestess, abandoned as a baby and suckled by a she-wolf. He killed his brother Remus and founded the city that bears his name.
Adonis阿多尼斯
A youth of matchless beauty
Born from a myrrh tree. Both Aphrodite and Persephone loved him, and Zeus ruled that he divide each year between them.
Pygmalion皮格马利翁
A sculptor of Cyprus
Weary of real women, he fell in love with his own work. The "Pygmalion effect" — expectations becoming reality — is named after him.
Orpheus俄耳甫斯
The greatest of singers
His music tamed beasts and made stones weep. He went down to bring back his dead wife on condition he not look back — and looked back at the last step.
Eurydice欧律狄刻
Wife of Orpheus
Killed by a snakebite soon after her wedding. Her husband almost led her out of the underworld, and lost her a second time with one backward glance.
Theseus忒修斯
Hero-king of Athens
He volunteered as tribute to Crete and killed the Minotaur in the labyrinth. Hippolytus was his son.
Hippolytus希波吕托斯
Son of Theseus
A youth devoted to hunting and chastity. When he rejected his stepmother Phaedra she accused him falsely, and his father's curse had him dragged to death by his own horses.
Admetus阿德墨托斯
A king in Thessaly
He treated the exiled Apollo so well that the god won him a privilege: when his time came, someone else could die for him. Only his wife Alcestis was willing.
Niobe尼俄柏
Queen of Thebes
She boasted of her many children and lost them all. She wept without end until she turned into a rock that still sheds tears.
Erichthonius厄里克托尼俄斯
An early king of Athens
A child born from the earth, part man and part serpent, raised in secret by Athena in a chest. Through him the Athenians claimed to be sprung from their own soil.
