Greek Myths :: Gods, Heroes & Monsters, Explained and Retold

Greek Myths

Greek Myths are stories that ancient Greeks were telling about their gods, goddesses and magical beings.

Many of them begin with the origin of the world. According to Hesiod’s Theogony (116–138), Chaos came first, followed by Earth, Tartarus and Eros; Earth then bore Heaven and, together with him, the Titans. Cronus overthrew his father Uranus with a sickle his mother made (154–182), and Zeus in turn overthrew Cronus after a ten-year war between the Olympians and the Titans (617–720), told in Titanomachy. The Gigantomachy recounts a later challenge to the gods’ rule, and The Creation tells how the cosmos took shape.

The rest of the myths follow heroes and the gods who help or oppose them. The Adventures of Perseus, the Labours of Heracles, the exploits of Theseus and the voyage of the Argonauts are the great hero stories, while the Trojan War, told in the Iliad, and the homeward journey of Odysseus in the Odyssey form the two Homeric epics. Smaller tales, such as Orpheus and Eurydice, Eros and Psyche or the Judgement of Paris, are gathered here too, along with pages on groups of gods such as the sea gods and the gods of the Underworld.