Famous Myths

Many Greek myths explained the natural world or warned against pride, which the Greeks called hubris.

Prometheus

The Titan Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity. As punishment Zeus chained him to a rock, where an eagle ate his liver every day, and every night the liver grew back. Heracles eventually set him free.

Pandora

Pandora was the first woman, created by the gods. She opened a jar, not a box, and released all the evils into the world, leaving only hope inside. The word box comes from a sixteenth-century mistranslation.

Persephone

Hades carried Persephone off to the Underworld. Her mother Demeter, goddess of the harvest, grieved and let the crops fail. Because Persephone had eaten pomegranate seeds, she had to spend part of each year below, which the Greeks used to explain the seasons.

Orpheus and Eurydice

The musician Orpheus traveled to the Underworld to bring back his wife Eurydice. Hades agreed on the condition that Orpheus not look back until they reached the surface. He looked back just before the end, and lost her forever.

Icarus

Daedalus built wings of feathers and wax so that he and his son Icarus could escape Crete. Icarus ignored his father's warning, flew too close to the sun, and fell into the sea when the wax melted.

The Trojan War

The goddess Eris threw a golden apple marked for the fairest. Paris of Troy awarded it to Aphrodite, who promised him Helen, the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta. Her abduction led to a ten-year war that ended when the Greeks hid soldiers inside a wooden horse.