Reference · Quick-start guide
Greek myths, quick-start: everything you need before your first explainer
No homework, no family-tree headaches. Read the 60-second version, skim the cheat sheet, and you are ready for any myth on this site.
All of Greek myth in 60 seconds
- In the beginning came Chaos, then Earth (Gaia) and Sky (Uranus), whose children were the giant gods called Titans.
- The Titan Cronus overthrew his father, and then his own son Zeus overthrew him in a ten-year war.
- Zeus and his brothers and sisters became the Olympian gods, ruling from Mount Olympus, the sea and the underworld.
- Below them lived heroes and ordinary humans, who were rewarded for courage and kindness and punished for pride.
- Ancient Greeks told and retold these stories for centuries, so almost every myth exists in several versions.
The four generations, in one line each
Chaos, Gaia (Earth), Uranus (Sky). More forces of nature than people.
Cronus, Rhea, Prometheus, Atlas and more. The old regime.
Zeus and family. The ones in most of the stories.
Perseus, Orpheus, Icarus and everyone else who gets into trouble.
Olympian cheat sheet
Lists of the “twelve Olympians” vary a little; Hestia and Dionysus sometimes swap places. Hades lives in the underworld, so he is usually left off.
| Greek name | In charge of | Roman name | Look for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zeus | Sky, weather, king of the gods | Jupiter | Thunderbolt, eagle |
| Hera | Marriage, queen of the gods | Juno | Peacock, diadem |
| Poseidon | Sea, earthquakes, horses | Neptune | Trident |
| Demeter | Grain, harvest | Ceres | Ears of wheat |
| Athena | Wisdom, crafts, strategy | Minerva | Owl, olive tree |
| Apollo | Music, light, prophecy | Apollo | Lyre, laurel |
| Artemis | Hunting, wild places | Diana | Bow, deer |
| Ares | War | Mars | Spear, helmet |
| Aphrodite | Love, beauty | Venus | Dove, scallop shell |
| Hephaestus | Fire, metalwork | Vulcan | Hammer, anvil |
| Hermes | Messages, travellers, trade | Mercury | Winged sandals |
| Dionysus | Wine, theatre, celebration | Bacchus | Grapevine, ivy |
Where do the stories actually come from?
- Homer: the Iliad and the Odyssey, epic poems about the Trojan War and its aftermath.
- Hesiod: the Theogony, the family history of the gods, and Works and Days.
- The Homeric Hymns: poems to individual gods, such as Demeter and Hermes, by unknown authors.
- Athenian playwrights such as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, who turned myths into theatre.
- Ovid: a Roman poet whose Metamorphoses retells dozens of Greek myths; many famous versions are really his.
- Apollodorus: an ancient handbook, the Library, that summarizes the myths in order.
Free, public-domain translations live on Project Gutenberg and the Perseus Digital Library. Look for H. G. Evelyn-White’s Hesiod (1914), Samuel Butler’s Homer and J. G. Frazer’s Apollodorus (1921).
Myth or folklore?
Myths are the ancient stories of gods and heroes, known mostly from texts written down thousands of years ago. Folklore is the living tradition of ordinary people: customs, sayings and tales passed on by word of mouth, often much later. Our kallikantzaroi explainer is folklore; the rest are myths.
Five rules that Greek myths keep repeating
- Never claim you are better than a god. It always ends badly.
- Be kind to strangers. The scruffy traveller at your door might be Zeus in disguise.
- Read the instructions. Don’t look back, don’t fly too high, don’t open the box.
- Don’t eat the food in the underworld. Ask Persephone.
- Nothing in excess. Too much pride, ambition or grief tends to get punished.
Where to go next
Pick any explainer. Each starts with a TL;DR and the myth in 60 seconds, so you can stop there or keep going into the Q&A.