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The mythological legacy inherited by the ancient Greeks revolves around the Olympian gods, heroic figures like Heracles and Odysseus, and mythic sagas such...

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Ares

Ares is the son of Zeus and Hera, the war god among the Olympians, and the divine force behind war in its most direct, bloody, and uncontrollable form: the charge, the slaughter, the terror, the roaring, and the chaos before victory is decided. Unlike Athena, who represents ordered strategy and the defense of the city, Ares is closer to the blazing impulse and violence of the battlefield itself. In the *Iliad*, he is powerful yet quick-tempered, brave yet often humiliated, capable of inspiring warriors but also frequently condemned by the gods for recklessness, favoritism, and cruelty.

Hephaestus

Hephaestus is the Olympian god of forging and craft, master of fire, metal, mechanisms, and repair. Often portrayed as lame and treated with contempt, he sustains gods and heroes alike through a skill that is quiet, essential, and impossible to replace.

Hestia

Hestia is the eldest daughter of Cronus and Rhea, and the sister of Zeus, Hera, Demeter, Poseidon, and Hades. She watches over the hearth, the household, the common altar of the city, and the beginning and end of sacrifice. Unlike many Olympian gods, she is not famous for adventures, conflicts, or love affairs, but for refusing marriage, preserving her virginity, and remaining seated at the central fire of gods and mortals. Her stillness is not weakness, but an order that allows families, cities, and rituals to exist.

Asclepius

Asclepius is the god of medicine in Greek mythology, usually regarded as a son of Apollo. He learned the healing arts from the centaur Chiron and eventually offended the order of Zeus by gaining the power to raise the dead, for which he was struck down by a thunderbolt. Later he was worshiped as a god, becoming one of the central symbols of healing, dream-revelation, sacred serpents, and medical craft throughout the Greek world.

Chaos

Chaos is the earliest primordial being to appear in Greek mythology: not a divine king seated on a throne, but a vast, dim, boundless gap from the time before all things had been separated. After Chaos came Gaia, Tartarus, Eros, and other primordial powers; from Chaos itself came Darkness and Night, so that the world began, in silence, to gain its first layers.

Gaia

Gaia is the primordial Earth of Greek mythology, appearing after Chaos: both the foundation of the world that bears all things and the mother of Uranus, the mountains, Pontus, the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Hundred-Handed Ones. When her children were driven into darkness by Uranus, she fashioned a pale-gray sickle and brought about Cronus’s counterstrike, opening the rupture and succession of ancient divine rule. She is warm and profound, but not meek; when oppression, imbalance, or broken oaths weigh upon the world, she often answers with the power of the Earth itself.

Uranus

Uranus is the primordial sky in Greek mythology, born from Gaia, the Earth, without a mate, and later united with Gaia as the father of the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Hundred-Handed Ones. He arched high above the earth, yet out of fear and disgust at his children’s power, he forced them back into the dark depths. His cruelty finally provoked Gaia’s rebellion: the youngest Titan, Cronus, used a sickle to sever his power, driving the sky away from the earth and casting the first shadow of divine succession over the world.

Cronus

Cronus is the son of Gaia and Uranus, the youngest of the Titans, and the ruler who came before the Olympian gods. With a pale gray sickle he overthrew his father, who had oppressed the earth; yet, fearing that his own children would replace him in turn, he swallowed Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. Rhea finally hid Zeus away and deceived Cronus with a swaddled stone, setting his kingship on a path to collapse from within.

Rhea

Rhea is the daughter of Uranus and Gaia, the wife of Cronus, and the mother of Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. In Greek divine genealogy, she stands between the old gods and the new Olympian order: queen of the Titan generation, and also the crucial mother whose cunning preserves Zeus and helps bring about Cronus’s downfall. Her image is often linked with earth, mountains and wild places, motherhood, lions, drumbeats, and the secret nurturing of Crete. Beneath her gentleness lies clarity, endurance, and the sharp edge of resistance to tyranny.

Prometheus

Prometheus is the son of Iapetus and a member of the ancient race of Titans, known for his clear intelligence and his partiality toward humankind. He shaped human forms from clay and asked Athena to breathe divine spirit into them; at Mecone he won sacrificial meat for mortals, and by stealing fire back from Zeus he offended the king of the gods. His gifts gave humanity the beginnings of life, craft, and civilization, but they also brought him the punishment of being chained on Mount Caucasus, where an eagle devoured his liver day after day.

Epimetheus

Epimetheus is the son of Iapetus and Clymene and the brother of Prometheus; his name is often understood as “the one who thinks afterward.” In the Hesiodic tradition, he lacks his brother’s wary foresight and accepts Pandora, the gift sent by Zeus, bringing toil, sickness, and death into human life. He therefore becomes a symbol in Greek mythology of impulse, goodwill, late understanding, and irreversible consequences.

Heracles

Heracles is the son of Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene, born with astonishing divine strength and trapped, even before birth, in Hera’s hatred. He strangled serpents in his cradle, killed his music teacher in a burst of youthful violence, murdered his own family in madness as an adult, and then, following an oracle, submitted to Eurystheus and completed a long series of deadly labors. Afterward he continued to rescue friends, punish evildoers, make mistakes, and seek purification, until at last, in the fire on Mount Oeta, he shed his mortal body and was taken by the gods to Olympus, becoming a complex figure who is both hero and god.

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The mythological legacy inherited by the ancient Greeks revolves around the Olympian gods, heroic figures like Heracles and Odysseus, and mythic sagas such...

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Home›

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Greek Mythology

Characters

The mythological legacy inherited by the ancient Greeks revolves around the Olympian gods, heroic figures like Heracles and Odysseus, and mythic sagas such...

Greek Mythology Characters Archive

Browse Greek Mythology Characters

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