The Greek Myths

by Robin Waterfield

  War against the Giants

  The Titans were defeated, but still there were challenges to Zeus’ rule. Not long later—but after many centuries of human time—he had to face the Giants, born of the blood of Uranus. The Giants had various forms and features, just as do the children of men, except that in place of legs they had the sinuous strength of huge snakes, and they were wild and shaggy all over. They were a force for disorder and chaos, rapists, thieves, and murderers, and they could not be allowed to co-exist with the new order. Things came to a head when the Giants rustled the cattle of Helios, the sun-god. It was the last straw. War was declared, and the uncouth and unkempt Giants stormed heaven with boulders and burning brands.

  There were so many of them that Zeus could not handle them alone, and for the first time the gods worked together as a team. Even so, they could not prevail against the hostile mob. For it was foretold that the Giants could be defeated only by a force that included a mortal. But no mortal then alive would last more than an instant against the Giants: this was not yet the Age of Heroes. It would be like pitting a candle flame against a tempest. And the Giants, knowing this, were sure of their final victory.

  Zeus concocted an awful plan. The only human ally he wanted was Heracles, but Heracles had not yet been born. Zeus reached into the future and pulled Heracles back through time to help against the Giants. To Heracles, it seemed a lucid dream, one never to be forgotten—a dream filled with fire and pain and awesome deeds. In desperation at Zeus’ cunning, Gaia sought a unique herb that would give her foul children true immortality, even against Heracles. But Zeus, learning of her quest, forbade the sun and the moon and dawn to shine, so that Gaia could not find the plant and Zeus plucked it for himself.

  The greatest of the Giants was Alcyoneus, who could not be killed while he was in touch with the land from which he had sprung, the Pallene peninsula. Heracles shot Alcyoneus with his bow, but no sooner had the Giant crashed to the ground than he sprang up again, reinvigorated. Heracles was at a loss: again and again he shot him, and every time the same thing happened. Then wise Athena told him Alcyoneus’ secret, and summoned indomitable Sleep, and the giant fell into a deep slumber. While he was asleep, Heracles laid hold of him and dragged him off Pallene. The Giant awoke, briefly struggled, and breathed his last.

  But Porphyrion, equal in might to his brother Alcyoneus, and the leader of the Giants, overwhelmed the goddess Hera and began to rip off her clothes, desiring to take her against her will. Zeus stunned the savage Giant with a thunderbolt, and Heracles finished him off with his bow. Dionysus, surrounded by wild animals and riding into battle on a donkey whose braying cowed his enemies, smote Eurytus with his thyrsus staff, while foul Clytius fell before the flaming brands of the dread witch-goddess Hecate. Mimas died horribly, his body boiled by molten metal poured from Hephaestus’ crucible.

  Fearsome Athena buried Enceladus under Sicily, and then turned to Pallas; she flayed him alive and wore his raw skin, sticky with blood, as a shield. Poseidon broke off part of the island of Cos and crushed Polybotes with it. Hermes, wearing Hades’ cap of invisibility, killed Hippolytus, and Artemis did away with Gration. Apollo shot out the left eye of Ephialtes, while Heracles’ arrow lodged deep in the other. The Fates, wielding massive clubs of bronze, crushed the skulls of Thoas and fierce Agrius. The rest were scattered by Zeus’ thunderbolts and, to fulfill the prophecy, shot down by Heracles as he raced after them on his chariot. Gaia implored Zeus for the lives of her children, but he was not to be swayed. There should be none to challenge him.

  “The Fates, wielding massive clubs of bronze, crushed the skulls of Thoas and fierce Agrius.”[7]

  After bitter war, peace came to Olympus. For a brief while, the heavens were untroubled, and Zeus began to make provisions for his newly acquired realm. But then there arose a new contender for the throne of the world. Gaia was saddened by the defeat and death of her offspring, the Giants, born of the blood of Uranus. But she had to admit that Zeus was proving himself a worthy king. She devised for him one final test, so that all might see his kingly qualities, or his humiliation.

  Out of her most hidden depths Earth heaved forth a terrifying monster. A hundred snake-heads sprouted from Typhoeus’ shoulders, and the forked tongues flickering from their mouths matched the fiery flashes from two hundred eyes. But the sounds the gigantic creature emitted were the worst: not just the hissing of snakes, but the baying of hounds, the bellowing of bulls, and the roar of lions; not just recognizable and comprehensible sounds, but sounds that were never heard before or since, that had meaning, but no meaning anyone could grasp. The part-human, part-serpentine body of the beast was as strong as a mountain, and he advanced on Olympus with his confidence high, ready to institute a new and terrible order for gods and men.

  At the sight of the monster all the gods fled from Olympus to Egypt and disguised themselves as innocuous animals. But Zeus came down from the high mountain to meet the challenge. Had there been onlookers, it would have seemed as though the land and the sea were consumed by a horrific storm. Swollen purple and black clouds shrouded the battle, and all that could be seen were flashes of fire and lightning, and the billowing and surging and whirling of the clouds. The noise was abominable—the crashing of the thunder, the crack of lightning, the hiss of flames extinguished in the sea, the cries of pain from Typhoeus, magnified a hundred times by a hundred howling heads.

  Zeus attacked without mercy, blinding the creature with fire and shriveling his heads black with lightning. Typhoeus leapt into the sea to extinguish the flames that erupted all over his body, but Zeus smote him again and again, until the rocks of the battlefield melted like wax, the sea boiled, and the tormented, smoking ground shook and cracked open black and gaping maws. And Zeus finally hurled the monster into the greatest of these chasms all the way down to Tartarus, and piled Mount Etna on top and pounded its roots deep into the ground, to contain Typhoeus forever. Only once in a while is he able to wriggle a bit, and then mortal men, little that they know, say that the Sicilian volcano is rumbling.

  But the sounds of the volcano are no more than faint echoes of his voices of old, and its power the merest sliver of Typhoeus’ former strength. All he left behind were his children, the winds of destruction and the many-headed monsters: Cerberus, the hell-hound that guards the entrance to the underworld, with his three savage heads and tails of venomous serpents; the nine-headed, marsh-dwelling Hydra; two-headed Orthus, protector of the red cattle of Geryon; and the Chimera, whose foreparts were those of a lion, but her tail was a living serpent, and a goat made up her trunk, and all three heads hissed and roared and spat with indiscriminate fury.

  Zeus and His Brothers

  Zeus had cleared the world of the most potent forces of disorder and chaos, a burden that would also fall on some of the heroes of later time, in proportion to their lesser abilities. By force of arms, he had confirmed his right to the high, golden throne of heavenly Olympus.

  In order to ensure ongoing stability, every major domain of life on earth was given into the care of one of the gods, so that each had his or her unique province and none should be dissatisfied. Above, there spread the wide heavens; below, the misty underworld stretched down to Tartarus, the place of woe; between lay the surface of the earth. Great Zeus, the wielder of the thunderbolt and lightning, took for himself the heavens and the halls of Olympus, but treated his two brothers as equals. Dark Hades became lord of the underworld, while horse-loving Poseidon gained the surface of the earth, and especially its waters.

  And so Zeus is the cloud-gatherer, the hurler of thunderbolts, the shining lord of sky and weather. Men pray to him for many things, for all the other gods obey his commands; but especially they pray for sufficient rain to impregnate the earth, so that their flocks fatten and their crops multiply.

  From high Olympus he looks down on the earth and ponders its fate. Effortlessly, he raises a man up or brings him low, makes the crooked straight and humbles the proud. The earth trembles
at his nod. If he descends to earth, he comes as a flash of lightning, and the scorched ground where he alights from his chariot is sacred. His majesty is second to none, and he may also appear as a soaring eagle, aloof and magnificent. He speaks to mortal men through the rustling of his sacred oak at Dodona; the oracle at Olympia is his, and the four-yearly games there are sacred to him.

  Men think of Poseidon as the trident-bearing lord of the sea, and they pray to him for safety, for they and their craft are puny, and he is mighty and of uncertain temper. But he is also the earth-shaker, the maker of earthquakes, when the very land seems to ripple like the sea and yearn to be water. And he delights in horses, for a free-running horse flows like a mighty wave, with muscles gleaming and tail streaming. All he has to do is stamp a hoof, or strike a blow with his trident, and sweet water gushes from solid rock. His wife is Amphitrite, who dwells in the booming of the sea and the whisper of the sea-shell, though he had children by many another nymph and goddess too. Poseidon drives over the sea in a chariot drawn by horses with brazen hoofs and golden manes, and at his approach the waves die down and the sea gives him passage.

  Poseidon’s realm is the sea, but he is also the earth-shaker, and patron of the horse.[8]

  What can be said about Hades? No living man has ever beheld his face, and the dead do not return from his mirthless domain. He is the invincible one, for death awaits all; with his staff, he drives all in their time into the echoing vaults of his palace. No one knows for sure where the entrance is to his subterranean realm. Some say that it is in the far west, where the sun goes down to darkness; others that certain caves or chasms conceal an entrance.

  Through the gloom of his underworld realm flit the feeble remnants of men of old, pale spirits, gibbering and forlorn, and dust and mist is all their food; and the River Styx, never to be re-crossed, surrounds the domain of Hades, as Ocean surrounds the continents of the earth and the Milky Way surrounds the heavens. Charon the ferryman, dreaded by all, transports the dead across the river to their eternal home, if they bring the coin to pay him. Otherwise, they remain as pale ghosts, whimpering feebly on the banks of the river and imploring all-comers for a proper burial; but those who come are only the dead themselves, and can help no more.

  This is the doom that awaits us, except for the few, righteous or unrighteous. Those whose brief dances have pleased the gods are allowed to dwell forever on the Isles of the Blessed, or in the Elysian Fields, where temperate breezes gently stir meadow flowers, nurtured by sweet springs and showers. But warmongers and tyrants, murderers and rapists, perpetrators of all foul and abnormal crimes against the gods or hospitality or parents, are cast into the depths of Tartarus and suffer endless torment. Hades is the lord of the dead, but his lady Persephone shares his powers, and the souls of the dead are judged by three stern judges: the two wise sons of Europa by Zeus, Minos and Rhadamanthys of Crete, and Aeacus, son of Zeus and Aegina. And Hades is also Pluto, the giver of wealth, because all crops arise out of the under-earth, and he bears rich minerals deep in his secret places.

  Chapter Three

  THE GODS OF OLYMPUS

  Zeus the King

  The regime of Zeus is marked by order. Essentially, the world is stable: goats are not born to men or cows, but only to goats, and deformed monstrosities—hybrid creatures, or distorted versions of the species—are no longer born, or only rarely. The sun rises where it should day by day; the seasons follow in an orderly fashion. This was the change that marked the end of the era of Cronus and the beginning of our familiar world. And it was the job of many of the heroes to tame the world.

  The will of Zeus is that the world should continue as a stable entity. Just as no single one of the natural elements of earth, water, fire, and air prevails, so the power of one deity cannot usurp pride of place. Each of the gods is, on his or her own, invincible. If Aphrodite prevailed, the world would be nothing but copulating couples; if Ares prevailed, the madness of war would be all that we know. The cloud-gatherer has no need to move from his throne. He rules by wisdom, but he brooks no disagreement. Even his wife Hera, when she displeased him, had her hands bound with golden chains, and was suspended from heaven on a rope, with anvils attached to her feet. The strength of Zeus is such that it surpasses that of all the other gods put together, and they dare not oppose his will, even if they desired it.

  The gods that dwell with Zeus on high Olympus are these: Aphrodite, primordial deity; Zeus’ sister-wife Hera, and his other sisters, Demeter and Hestia; and the children of Zeus: Athena, Ares, Hephaestus, the twins Apollo and Artemis, Hermes, and Dionysus. These are the immortal gods who dwell on Olympus, and ichor flows in their veins. They are many, but their purpose is one: to carry out the will of the Father of All. He has no need to move from his throne. He rules by wisdom, but he brooks no disagreement. Even his wife Hera, when she displeased him, had her hands bound with golden chains, and was suspended from heaven on a rope, with anvils attached to her feet. The strength of Zeus is such that it surpasses that of all the other gods put together, and they dare not oppose his will, even if they desired it.

  Athena the wise is the goddess of craft and the skills of warfare.[9]

  Hera

  Sister-wife of lord Zeus, white-armed Hera preserves the sanctity of marriage and guards the keys of wedlock. Unlike him, she has no time for the frivolity of extramarital affairs. She is held in respect as the golden-throned queen of heaven, and she is called cow-eyed, for she looks on the world with stately and serene regality; all mortal queens should aspire to be like her. She it is to whom women pray for a good marriage, and for healthy offspring, for along with her daughter Eileithyia, Hera is the goddess of childbirth.

  Though she sleeps with her husband—and it is said that meadows bloom beneath them as they make love—she renews her virginity each year by bathing in a spring at Nauplia. She is virgin, wife, and matron, and all womanly life is hers. When Heracles was born, Zeus brought him to Hera to suckle, hoping thereby to make his favored son immortal. But the strapping babe bit her nipple, and in shock Hera pushed him away. The divine milk spraying from her breasts formed the Milky Way, though some fell to earth and from the rich drops sprouted pure-white lilies.

  Though Hera is known to be the faithful consort of the Ruler of All, yet the tale is told of Ixion, king of wide lands in Thessaly, who fell prey to his passion for the fair queen of heaven when he came to the hallowed halls of Olympus, invited guest of Zeus himself. For Zeus had offered to purify Ixion after he had killed his father-in-law. Ixion sought to betray his host, another heinous crime, but Zeus was not caught unawares, and fashioned a replica of his wife from mist. This cloud, Nephele, lay with Ixion, who believed he made love to Hera.

  But disaster comes to all who seek to deceive the gods. For his transgression, for desiring golden-sandaled Hera, though he lay not with her in truth, Zeus had him lashed to a fiery wheel, which revolves through the universe for eternity.

  As for Nephele, though she was more form than substance, yet she conceived from Ixion and bore Centaurus, a son to break a mother’s heart, for he honored neither men nor the laws of the gods. He coupled with the mares on Pelion’s slopes and fathered the race of Centaurs, half-man and half-horse, with strong appetites for carnal pleasure and destruction.

  For the sin of desiring Hera, Ixion spins forever lashed to a fiery wheel.[10]

  Hestia

  Hestia is the first born of Cronus and Rhea. Hers is the hearth and its sacred fire, the source of life and prosperity to every home and every settlement, and her dark hair flows with rich oil. Her seat is at the center of every home there has ever been. When land grows scarce and younger brothers band together to seek a new home abroad, they carry with them the sacred fire of the mother city, to bless their venture. Although she was wooed by her brother Poseidon and her nephew Apollo, she swore on the head of Zeus to remain a virgin, so that she would dwell equally and impartially at the heart of every household. She has no need of a temple, for the hearth f
ire of every community and household is her sanctuary, a place of rest and asylum, from which none can be turned away. She it is who oversees the introduction of new members of the family, and at their leaving she is extinguished and renewed. But the exemplary goddess never leaves Zeus’ wide halls, and little rumor or fable of her has reached the ears of man.

  Demeter

  Demeter is the goddess of cereal crops—of lovely wheat and barley, oats and rye. Without her blessing, mortal men face sure starvation, for her fare is staple in every culture. She watches over the plowing and the sowing, the reaping and the threshing, and the storage of crops. She is every ear of grain on every stem that has ever grown. She is the foundation of law and morality, for without food in their bellies men turn to crime.

  Now, Demeter had by Zeus a daughter, and she loved Persephone with all her heart. But Zeus promised the maiden goddess to his brother Hades, dark lord of the underworld. One day, Persephone was out gathering flowers with her friends, the Ocean nymphs, in the garden of the gods. And Gaia, the Earth, put forth a new flower, never before seen, of especial beauty, the narcissus; and the sweetness of its fragrance made the earth smile and the seas laugh aloud.

  Persephone, straying from her friends, found the precious flower. But when she reached out her hand for the pale bloom, the earth split open and Hades emerged on his chariot and snatched her away. The maiden’s cries to her father fell on deaf ears. No one heard her, none of the gods, save Hecate in her distant cave, conjuring spirits. And in a moment Persephone’s screams of terror faded as Hades bore her down, down into the depths of the underworld—but a last, faint cry came to the ears of her mother, borne by a kindly wind.