top of page
Myths
One major difference that the Greeks had from us was all the myths they had, the Greeks had myths about everything why the sun goes through the sky, why spiders spin their webs, why we have seasons and many more, there’s so many characters in all of these myths it would be near impossible to tell you about all of them, so instead we’ll just learn about three.
King Midas
King Midas was a fabled king who managed to find Silenus, a satyr who was a foster father to the god Dionysus, when Midas told Dionysus he had found Silenus, Dionysus was so happy that he granted Midas one wish, Midas wished for anything he touched to be turned to gold. But eventually Midas made a grave mistake, he could not eat because all the food he touched turned to gold, and when he tried to greet his daughter with a hug he accidently turned her into gold, taking her life, so Midas begged to Dionysus to cure him, and Dionysus responded, Dionysus told Midas to bathe in the river Pactolus, and so he did when Midas washed himself and all of his golden powers washed away into the river, making the river rich in resources especially gold.
King Midas turning his daughter to gold
Perseus
Perseus was in so many adventures you could fill pages writing them all down, so instead I’ll just give you one of the most classic ones.A king was told by an oracle that his daughter's son would kill him so he locked up his daughter, but not all was lost because one day a god came to her and asked her to be his wife.The king’s daughter wasn’t sure what god it was, but she married him anyway, soon after the daughters prison cell was transformed into a field, sadly afterwards the king found out, and sent his guards to investigate, they found the king’s daughter with a son in her lap. The king was so scared of the child who was supposed to kill him, that he decided that the only way to stay safe was lock them up and throw his daughter and her son into the ocean locked in a crate, but the gods watched over them, and granted the a safe travel leading them to Seriphos. In Seriphos the king thought that Danae (The other kings daughter) was so beautiful that he wanted her as a slave in her castle, so he planned to get rid of her child by sending him to an impossible task that would lead him to his demise.The king sent the child (who had now grown into a man) to go slay Medusa the most powerful of the 3 Gorgons, anyone who dared to look into her eyes were instantly turned into stone, even though the man was strong, he knew he could not do it himself. His first step to slaying Medusa was to find her, he managed to trick the eyeless sisters who had the all seeing eye into showing him the lair, after this the gods heard about his task and granted him gifts to help him slay the beast, winged sandals and a sickle from Hermes, and a shield from Athena which he could use to see Medusa through the reflection. The man put on the sandals he received from Hermes, took his shield and sickle in hand, and flew to the Gorgon’s lair, when he reached the lair he remembered Athena’s words of wisdom, to only look at Medusa through the sword’s reflection, and so he did, he snuck up behind Medusa and chopped off her head, and then he fled the scene with Medusa’s head stashed in his bag. The man was the ever legendary Perseus.
A statue of Perseus holding Medusa's head
Map
bottom of page