Perseus and Medusa, the labours of Heracles, Jason and the Golden Fleece, Theseus and the Minotaur, the wings of Icarus, Oedipus and Antigone — the heroes of Greek myth, alongside the real sites of Tiryns, Knossos and Thebes, the first performance of a tragedy, and the sculptures and paintings their stories inspired
Group of London B 174 · Public domain · Source
| Story | Source / site | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Perseus and Medusa | Hesiod; Apollodorus; Ovid, Metamorphoses 4–5 | Myth |
| Citadel of Tiryns (14th–13th c. BC) | Argolid; Cyclopean walls | History |
| The twelve labours of Heracles | Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2 | Legend |
| Olympia metopes (c. 470–456 BC) | Temple of Zeus → Olympia Museum, Louvre | History |
| Farnese Hercules found (1546) | Baths of Caracalla, Rome → Naples | History |
| Death and apotheosis of Heracles | Sophocles, Women of Trachis; Metamorphoses 9 | Myth |
| Jason and the Argo | Pindar; Apollonius, Argonautica | Myth |
| Medea | Euripides, Medea | Myth |
| Colchis (6th–4th c. BC) | Western Georgia; gold of Vani | History |
| The Argonautica (3rd c. BC) | Alexandria; Apollonius | History |
| Theseus and the Minotaur | Plutarch, Life of Theseus; Apollodorus | Legend |
| Ariadne on Naxos | Catullus 64; Metamorphoses 8 | Myth |
| Daedalus and Icarus | Metamorphoses 8 | Legend |
| Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (c. 1560) | Bruegel (?); Royal Museums, Brussels | History |
| Excavation of Knossos (1900) | Evans; the “Minoan” civilisation | History |
| Oedipus and the Sphinx | Sophocles; Apollodorus 3 | Legend |
| Oedipus the King first staged (c. 429 BC) | Theatre of Dionysus, Athens | History |
| Antigone | Sophocles, Antigone | Myth |
| Mycenaean Thebes (14th–13th c. BC) | Kadmeia; Linear B tablets | History |
A Greek myth told in Hesiod’s Theogony, Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. With the help of the gods, Perseus, son of Zeus, cut off the head of the Gorgon Medusa, whose gaze turned people to stone, and on his way home rescued Andromeda.
In the 14th–13th centuries BC a Mycenaean citadel rose at Tiryns in the Argolid. Its walls of huge stones, about six metres thick, were so massive that they were said to be the work of the one-eyed giants, the Cyclopes — hence “Cyclopean” walls. The palace fell around 1200 BC.
A Greek myth and legend told in Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca and other works. Driven mad by Hera, Heracles killed his own children, and in atonement served Eurystheus, king of Tiryns (or Mycenae), carrying out twelve labours from the Nemean lion to Cerberus, the hound of the underworld.
Over the front and rear porches of the temple of Zeus built at Olympia around 470–456 BC, twelve metopes showed the twelve labours of Heracles — thought to be the earliest clear example of the set of “twelve labours”.
In 1546 a colossal marble statue of Heracles resting on his club came out of the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. Taken by the Farnese, the family of Pope Paul III, it is known as the Farnese Hercules and is now in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.
A Greek myth told in Sophocles’ tragedy Women of Trachis and Book 9 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, among others. When a robe soaked in the blood of the centaur Nessus — sent by his wife Deianira, who thought it a love charm — burned his flesh, Heracles had a pyre built on Mount Oeta, mounted the flames and rose to Olympus as a god.
A Greek myth told in Pindar’s odes and Apollonius’ Argonautica. To win back his throne, Jason sailed in the ship Argo with heroes such as Heracles and Orpheus to Colchis at the far end of the Black Sea, and with the help of the princess Medea took the Golden Fleece guarded by a dragon.
A Greek myth best known from Euripides’ tragedy Medea (431 BC). Medea, the Colchian princess who followed Jason to Greece, was abandoned in Corinth when Jason sought to marry the king’s daughter; she killed the bride with a poisoned robe, killed her own children and escaped in the chariot of the Sun.
Colchis, at the eastern end of the Black Sea in what is now western Georgia, was known for fine metalwork from the Bronze Age, and from around the 6th century BC Greeks founded colonies such as Phasis on its coast. Gold jewellery from the graves of Vani shows why the Greeks called it rich in gold.
In the 3rd century BC, in Ptolemaic Alexandria, the poet and scholar Apollonius composed the Argonautica, an epic in four books on the voyage of the Argo. Its searching portrait of Medea’s love for Jason influenced Virgil’s Aeneid.
A Greek myth and legend told in Plutarch’s Life of Theseus, Apollodorus and Ovid, among others. Theseus, prince of Athens, killed the bull-headed Minotaur shut in the Labyrinth of King Minos of Crete, and found his way out by the thread given him by the princess Ariadne.
A Greek myth told by Hesiod’s Theogony, Catullus and Ovid. Ariadne, who left Crete with Theseus, was abandoned on the island of Naxos; the wine god Dionysus found her, made her his wife and set her crown among the stars.
A Greek myth and legend told in Book 8 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and by Apollodorus. Imprisoned on Crete, the craftsman Daedalus made wings of feathers and wax and flew away with his son Icarus, but Icarus flew too high, the sun melted the wax and he fell into the sea.
Around 1560 the Landscape with the Fall of Icarus was painted in Flanders after a composition by Pieter Bruegel. In a calm scene of a ploughman and ships at sea, only Icarus’ legs can be seen in a corner of the water. Whether the painting in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels is by Bruegel’s own hand is debated.
In March 1900 the British archaeologist Arthur Evans began excavating Knossos on Crete, uncovering a great palace, the “Throne of Minos” and inscribed tablets. He named the civilisation “Minoan” after the legendary King Minos.
A Greek myth and legend told in Sophocles’ tragedies and by Apollodorus. Exposed at birth because of an oracle that he would kill his father and marry his mother, Oedipus unknowingly killed his father Laius on the road, solved the riddle of the Sphinx that plagued Thebes, became king and married the queen, Jocasta.
Around 429 BC Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus the King was first performed at the City Dionysia in the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens. It won only second prize that year, but Aristotle held it up in his Poetics as the model of tragedy, and it has become the most famous Greek tragedy.
A Greek myth told in Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone (c. 441 BC). Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, defied King Creon’s order that her brother Polynices, killed attacking Thebes, should lie unburied; she buried him, was shut alive in a tomb and took her own life.
In the 14th–13th centuries BC a Mycenaean palace stood on the Kadmeia hill at Thebes in Boeotia. It burned at the end of the 13th century BC, and nearly 250 Linear B tablets found in the 1990s show that Thebes was a major centre of the Mycenaean world.
British archaeologist who excavated the palace of Knossos on Crete from 1900 and named the “Minoan” civilisation
Tragic poet of ancient Athens, author of Oedipus the King and Antigone, counted with Aeschylus and Euripides among the three great tragedians