Bk XII:429-535. A centaur.
A monster half-woman, half-snake mother of Cerberus, Chimacra, the Hydra, and the Sphinx.
Bk IV:464-511. Her venom is part of Tisiphone’s poisonous brew.
Bk VII:404-424. Mother of Cerberus.
A group of islands off the mouth of the River Acheloüs, in Acarnania, opposite the island of Cephallenia.
Bk VIII:547-610. They were nymphs turned into islands by the river-god.
Bk III:115-137. One of the five surviving heroes sprung from the dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus. He married Agave, the daughter of Cadmus.
Bk III:511-527. Bk III:692-733. He was the father of Pentheus.
Bk X:681-707. He built a temple to Cybele.
Son of Mercury. The swiftest runner.
Bk VIII:260-328. He is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk VIII:329-375. He throws his spear ineffectually at the boar.
Bk III:511-527. Bk III:692-733. An epithet of Pentheus as son of Echion.
Bk III:339-358. A nymph whose voice gave rise to the name for a reverberating sound.
Bk III:359-401. Juno limits her powers of speech. She falls in love with Narcissus and is rejected. She dwindles to sound alone.
Bk III:474-510. She pities Narcissus and echoes his farewells and mourns for him and echoes his sister’s lamentations.
(See John William Waterhouse’s painting – Echo and Narcissus – Walker Art Gallery, Merseyside, England)
Bk XI:67-84. The Edonians were a Thracian people, ruled at one time by Lycurgus who was destroyed by Bacchus for opposing his worship. The Edonides, the women of the Edoni, and worshippers of Bacchus, murdered Orpheus, and were turned into oak trees.
Bk XII:64-145. The king of Thebes, in Mysia, and father of Andromache the wife of Hector.
Bk XV:479-546. An Italian nymph, wife of Numa. Unconsoled at his death she is turned into a fountain, and its attendant streams (at Le Mole, by Nemi in Aricia). She was worshipped as a minor deity of childbirth at Aricia, and later in Rome. (outside the Porta Capena: see Frazer’s ‘The Golden Bough’ Chapter I.)
Bk XII:146-209. Bk XII:429-535. A prince of the Lapithae, father of Caenis.
Bk IV:1-30. A name for Bacchus from the wild cries of the Bacchantes.
A city in Attica, famous for the worship of Ceres-Demeter.
Bk V:642-678. Triptolemus is the son of the king there, though Eleusis is not mentioned by name at this point in the Latin text.
Bk VII:425-452. Sacred to Ceres, the Mother, and Persephone, the Maiden. The place where Theseus defeated Cercyon.
Bk II:676-701. A city and country in the western Peloponnese.
Bk V:487-532. The native country of Arethusa.
Bk V:572-641. Land of the river-god Alpheus.
Bk V:572-641. The city reached by Arethusa in her flight.
Bk VIII:260-328. Sends Phyleus to the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk IX:159-210. In the Fifth Labour Hercules cleanses the stables of King Augeas of Elis.
Bk XII:536-579. Hercules destroyed the city.
Bk XIV:320-396. Site of the quinquennial games.
Bk XIV:223-319. A comrade of Ulysses. The Odyssey describes his death when he tumbles from the roof of Circe’s house, the morning after a heavy bout of drinking. His ghost begs Ulysses for proper burial, and for the oar that he pulled with his comrades to be set up over his grave. His ashes were entombed on Mount Circeo.
Bk XII:429-535. A centaur.
Bk XIV:101-153. The Paradise of the afterlife, home of the blessed spirits in the Underworld.
Bk XIV:101-153. Of Elysium, the paradise of the Underworld.
The daughters of Pierus, king of Emathia in Macedonia.
Bk V:294-331. They challenge the Muses to a contest, and one sings of Typhoeus and the flight of the gods to Egypt.
Bk V:642-678. They are defeated and turned into magpies for their insolence.
Bk V:74-106. An old man killed by Chromis in the fight between Phineus and Perseus.
Bk XII:429-535. Bk XV:745-842. Of Emathia, a district of Macedonia.
Bk VIII:260-328. Bk VIII:329-375. Son of Hippocoön, killed at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk I:568-587. A river in Thessaly.
Bk VI:103-128. Disguised as the river-god, Neptune rapes Iphimedia and begets the Aloïdae.
Bk VII:179-233. Medea gathers magic herbs there.
Bk XIII:123-381. A Lycian, killed by Ulysses.
Bk II:752-786. She is sent by Minerva to punish Aglauros.
Bk II:150-177. One of the four horses of the Sun.
Bk I:747-764. The son of Io and Jupiter, grandson of Inachus, worshipped as a god in Egypt alongside his mother. Io is therefore synonymous with Isis (or Hathor the cow-headed goddess with whom she was often confused), and Epaphus with Horus.
Bk II:227-271. Bk VII:350-403. The city north of Mycenae, on the Isthmus between Attica and the Argolis. Ephyre is an ancient name for the city.
Bk III:273-315. A city in Argolis, sacred to Aesculapius. The pre-Greek god Maleas was later equated with Apollo, and he and his son Aesculapius were worshipped there. There were games in honour of the god every four years, and from 395BC a drama festival. The impressive ancient theatre has been restored and plays are performed there. From the end of the 5th c. BC the cult of Asklepios spread widely through the ancient world reaching Athens in 420BC and Rome (as Aesculapius) in 293BC.
Bk VII:425-452. The scene of Theseus’s defeat of Periphetes.
Bk XV:622-745. Bk XV:622-745. The home of Aesculapius.
Bk I:381-415. A Titan, the brother of Prometheus. He was the father of Pyrrha, wife to Deucalion her cousin. He married Pandora who opened the box that Prometheus had warned them to keep closed, releasing illness, old age, work, passion, vice and madness into the world.
Bk I:381-415. Pyrrha, the daughter of Epimetheus, brother of Prometheus.
A region in northern Greece containing Dodona.
Bk VIII:260-328. Described as grassy. Noted for its massive bulls.
Bk XIII:705-737. Contains the city of Buthrotos.
Bk III:597-637. A seaman, companion of Acoetes.
Bk XIV:609-622. One of the Alban kings.
Bk XV:259-306. A river in Argolis. The river Stymphelos, in Arcadia, that reappears in the Argolis, on Mount Chaon, after running underground. (See Pausanias II 24, and VIII 22)
Bk V:533-571. Bk X:1-85. Bk XIV:397-434. A name for the underworld.
King of Athens, son of Pandion, father of Orithyia and Procris.
Book VI:675-721. He inherits the kingdom from Pandion, and is noted for his sound government and military effectiveness.
Bk VII:425-452. Used to signify Athens and the Athenians.
Bk VII:661-758. He married his daughter Procris to Cephalus.
Bk VIII:547-610. His kingship of Athens remembered.
Bk II:531-565. A son of Vulcan (Hephaestus), born without a mother (or born from the Earth after Hephaestus the victim of a deception had been repulsed by Athene). Legendary king of Athens and a skilled charioteer. He is represented by the constellation Auriga the charioteer, containing the star Capella. (Alternatively the constellation represents the she-goat Amaltheia that suckled the infant Jupiter, and the stars ζ (zeta) and η (eta) Aurigae are her Kids. It is a constellation visible in the winter months.)
Bk IX:418-438. His father Vulcan (Mulciber) wishes he might have a second life.
Bk II:301-328. God of the River Po in northern Italy. His river receives the body of Phaethon after the destruction of the sun chariot.
He is represented by the constellation Eridanus, south of Taurus, which meanders across the sky.
Bk XII:429-535. A centaur.
Bk VI:103-128. The daughter of Icarius, loved by Bacchus, and depicted by Arachne on her web. Her country is Panchaia.
Bk X:431-502. She was set in the sky as the constellation Virgo, after her suicide, by hanging, in despair at finding her father Icarius’s body. Icarius is identified with the constellation Boötes. Ovid is contrasting her piety and love for her father with Myrrha’s impiety and carnal desire for hers. In northern latitudes Boötes and Virgo, which are near to each other in the sky, would be declining from the zenith at midnight in late April. Virgo, the second largest constellation, is associated with the goddess of justice holding the scales, but she is also Ceres-Demeter and holds the ear of wheat, the star Spica. (See the Ceres entry). It would not make sense for Virgo to be in the sky at the time of the Greek harvest festival, the Thesmophoria, since that took place in autumn when the sun was in Virgo. However it does make sense for countries where the harvest time is different, as presumably in Panchaia. (The Egyptian harvest for example, geared to the Nile flood-cycle, was in March-April.)
Bk I:199-243. A Fury. The Furies, The Three Sisters, were Alecto, Tisiphone and Megaera, the daughters of Night and Uranus. They were the personified pangs of cruel conscience that pursued the guilty. (See Aeschylus – The Eumenides). Their abode is in Hades by the Styx.
Bk IV:416-463. Juno summons them at the gate of hell.
Bk IV:464-511. Tisiphone maddens Ino and Athamas.
Bk VI:401-438. They attend (invisibly) the wedding of Tereus and Procne.
Bk VI:653-674. Tereus calls on them in his grief and desire for revenge.
Bk VIII:451-514. Althaea calls on them to aid her vengeance.
Bk X:1-85. They weep for the first time at the sound of Orpheus’s song.
Bk X:298-355. They pursued Myrrha.
Bk XI:1-66. A synonym for the madness of the Maenads.
The wife of Amphiaraüs whom she betrayed to Polynices.
Bk VIII:260-328. Her husband is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk IX:394-417. Themis prophesies her murder by her son Alcmaeon in vengeance for his father’s death.
An epithet of Venus from Eryx, a mountain in Sicily sacred to her.
Bk V:332-384. She asks Cupid to make Dis fall in love with Proserpine.
Bk II:227-271. A river and mountain in Arcadia.
Bk II:496-507. Arcas meets his mother Callisto, who is transformed into a bear, while hunting in the woods of Erymanthus.
Bk V:572-641. Passed by Arethusa in her flight.
Bk IX:159-210. In the Fourth Labour, Hercules captured a giant wild boar that lived there.
The son of the Thessalian king Triopas. His daughter is Mestra.
Bk VIII:725-776. He violates the grove of Ceres.
Bk VIII:777-842. In punishment Ceres torments him with Hunger.
Bk VIII:843-884. After living off Mestra’s skills he ends by consuming himself.
Bk V:74-106. The son of Actor, companion of Phineus. There is possibly confusion here with Eurytus(3).
Bk II:201-226. A mountain on the north-western tip of Sicily sacred to Venus Aphrodite. Daedalus made a golden honeycomb for her shrine there, after fleeing from Crete via Cumae.
Bk XIV:75-100. Acestes. A son of Venus (Eryx), half-brother of Aeneas.
Bk V:149-199. An opponent of Perseus, petrified by the Gorgon’s head.
Bk IX:394-417. The son of Oedipus and Iocasta, brother of Polynices who fights against him in the war of the Seven against Thebes. The two brothers kill each other.
Bk V:149-199. A Nabatean opponent of Perseus, killed by him.
Bk I:765-779. The country in northeast Africa.
Bk II:227-271. The people acquire black skins.
Bk IV:663-705. The country of Cepheus.
Bk II:201-226. The volcanic mountain in eastern Sicily.
A country in Central Italy. Its people are the Etrurians or Etruscans. Hence Tuscany in modern Italy.
Bk XIV:445-482. The Tyrrhenians. They go to war with Aeneas and his Trojans.
Bk XV:552-621. Noted for their seers’ ability to tell the future.
Bk XII:290-326. One of the Lapithae.
The son of Carmentis, emigrated from Pallantium in Arcadia before the Trojan War and founded the city of Pallanteum in Latium, on the future site of Rome (The Palatine Hill).
Bk XIV:445-482. He gives help to Aeneas in the war.
Bk VII:179-233. Bk XIII:898-968. The large island close to eastern Greece separated from it by the Euboean Gulf. It contains Eretria and Aegae. Anthedon is on the mainland across the Gulf from Euboea.
Bk IX:89-158. Hercules conquers King Eurytus at Oechalia and sacrifices to Jupiter at Cenaeum in the north-west of the island.
Bk IX:211-272. Lichas becomes an island of that name in the Euboean Gulf.
Bk XIII:123-381. Aulis faces it.
Bk XIII:640-674. Two of Anius’s daughters flee there from Delos.
Bk XIV:1-74. Glaucus fishes its waters.
Bk XIV:154-222. Euboean colonists founded Cumae in Italy.
Bk VIII:515-546. A river of Aetolia near Calydon.
Bk IX:89-158. The scene of the rape of Deianira.
Bk IV:1-30. An epithet for Bacchus from the cries of his followers.
Bk V:294-331. The wife of Pierus, and mother of the Pierides.
Bk VII:350-403. The father of Botres.
Bk VI:401-438. ‘The kindly Goddesses’, an ironic euphemism for the Furies or Erinyes.
Bk VIII:451-514. Althaea calls on them to aid her vengeance.
Bk IX:394-417. Themis prophesies that they will pursue Alcmaeon.
Bk X:1-85. They weep for the first time at the sound of Orpheus’s song.
A mythical Thracian singer, priest of Ceres-Demeter, who brought the Eleusinian mysteries to Attica.
Bk XI:85-145. He was taught the rites along with Midas by Orpheus.
Bk VIII:329-375. One of the heroes in the Calydonian Boar Hunt. Knocked down by the boar’s charge.
The son of Panthoüs, a Trojan killed by Menelaüs.
BkXV:143-175. A previous incarnation of Pythagoras.
Bk II:227-271. The river of ancient Babylon in modern Iraq.
Bk II:833-875. Daughter of Agenor, king of Phoenicia, and sister of Cadmus, abducted by Jupiter disguised as a white bull. ( See Paolo Veronese’s painting – The Rape of Europa – Palazzo Ducale, Venice)
Bk VI:103-128. Depicted by Arachne.
Bk VIII:1-80. Minos is her son.
Bk II:227-271. A river in Laconia in southern Greece.
Bk X:143-219. Phoebus haunts it when in love with Hyacinthus.
Bk I:52-68. Bk VIII:1-80. The East Wind. Auster is the South Wind, Zephyrus the West Wind, and Boreas is the North Wind.
Bk X:1-85. The wife of Orpheus, who died after being bitten by a snake. Orpheus went to the Underworld to ask for her life, but lost her when he broke the injunction not to look back at her. (See Rilke’s poem, ‘Orpheus, Eurydice, Hermes’, and his ‘Sonnets to Orpheus’, and Gluck’s Opera ‘Orphée’).
Bk XI:1-66. Orpheus finds her again after his death.
Bk XIV:223-319. A companion of Ulysses, who escapes Circe’s transformation of Ulysses’s crew.
Bk XIII:738-788. Telemus, son of Eurymus.
Bk IV:190-213. The primal Goddess, mother of the Graces (Charites). A goddess, with Thetis, of the sea. Ovid makes her the mother of Leucothoë, by Orchamus of Babylon and Persia. In all her manifestations she is the Great Goddess.
Bk IV:214-255. Sol disguises himself as her to approach Leucothoë.
Bk XII:290-326. A centaur.
Bk VII:350-403.A king of Cos, slain by Hercules. His city was Astypalaea.
A Thessalian hero at Troy.
Bk XIII:1-122. He does not compete for the arms of Achilles.
The king of Mycenae, son of Sthenelus.
Bk IX:159-210. Jupiter boasted that he had fathered a son who would be called Heracles (Hercules) the ‘glory of Hera (Juno)’ and rule the house of Perseus. Juno made him promise that any king born before nightfall would be High King. She then hastened the birth of Eurystheus to Nicippe wife of King Sthenelus. Eurystheus ruled Hercules and set him the Twelve Labours to perform. Hercules treats him and Juno as endlessly hostile to himself.
Bk IX:273-323. He pursues his hatred of Hercules through the generations.
Bk VIII:329-375. Hippasus, son of Eurytus, one of the heroes in the Calydonian Boar Hunt. His thigh is ripped open by the boar’s tusk.
Bk VIII:260-328. He is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk IX:394-417. Iole, daughter of Eurytus.
Bk IX:89-158. Bk IX:324-393.The father of Iole and Dryope. The king of Oechalia. He names his grandson, Dryope’s child, Amphissus.
Bk XII:210-244. The centaur. He precipitates the battle between the Lapithae and the Centaurs by attempting to carry off Hippodamia.
Bk VIII:260-328. The son of Actor, and the father of Hippasus and brother of Cleatus. Possibly there is confusion here with Eurytus(4).
Bk V:74-106. The son of Actor. A companion of Phineus. He is killed by Perseus, with a heavy mixing bowl. Possibly there is confusion here with Eurytus(3).
Bk XII:245-289. One of the Lapithae. He killed Gryneus at the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs.
Bk IX:89-158.Rumour, personified. She comes to Deianira.
Bk XII:39-63. The House of Rumour described.
Bk XV:1-59. The harbinger of glory.
Bk VIII:777-842. Famine, a hag, the personification of hunger. Ceres sends her to torment Erysichthon.
Bk VIII:843-884. She leaves him with an incurable and growing hunger.
Bk XIV:320-396. A tributary of the Tiber.
Bk II:633-675. The three Fates were born of Erebus and Night. Clothed in white, they spin, measure out, and sever the thread of each human life. Clotho spins the thread. Lachesis measures it. Atropos wields the shears.
Bk XV:745-842. The gods cannot overrule them, and prevent Caesar’s assassination.
Bk XIV:445-482. Latinus, son of Faunus.
Bk I:177-198. The fauns. Demi-gods. Rural deities with horns and tails.
Bk XIII:738-788. Father of Acis. An ancient king of Latium.
Bk XIV:445-482. Father of Latinus.
Bk VI:313-381. A god of the fields and flocks, identified with Pan. Worshipped by country people.
Bk I:177-198. Bk VI:382-400 . Fauni, Demi-gods, ranked with Satyrs.
Bk IX:595-665. The west wind, bringer of warmth and spring.
Bk II:111-149. Bk XIII:1-122. Goddess of fortune, chance, fate. Her attributes are the wheel, the globe, the ship’s rudder and prow, and the cornucopia. She is sometimes winged, and blindfolded. (See Leonardo’s drawings.)
Bk IX:273-323. Handmaid to Alcmena. She deceives Lucina the goddess of childbirth, and is punished by being turned into a weasel, with the same tawny hair. (Weasels in England are reddish-brown. Ovid says ‘flava comus’ which suggests reddish-yellow. The birth of its young through its mouth has, of course, no biological validity, but Graves suggests it derives from the weasel’s habit of carrying its young in its mouth from place to place!)
A sea nymph, daughter of Nereus and Doris. ( See the fresco ‘Galatea’ by Raphael, Rome, Farnesina)
Bk XIII:738-788. She tells her story to Scylla. Loving Acis, she is pursued by Polyphemus.
Bk XIII:789-869. She hears Polyphemus’s complaint.
Bk XIII:870-897. When Acis is crushed by the rock, thrown at him by Polyphemus, she changes Acis into his ancestral form of a river.
Bk XIII:898-968. She ends her story to Scylla and departs.
Bk II:227-271. Bk IV:1-30. Bk V:30-73. The sacred river of northern India.
Bk VI:619-652. The area along its banks is inhabited by tigers.
The son of Tros, brother of Ilus and Assaracus, loved by Jupiter because of his great beauty.
Bk X:143-219. Bk XI:749-795. Jupiter, in the form of an eagle, abducted him and made him his cup-bearer, against Juno’s will. Ganymede’s name was given to the largest moon of the planet Jupiter.
Bk III:138-164. A valley and sacred spring in Boeotia sacred to Diana, where Actaeon sees her bathing.
Bk I:525-552. The Roman province, in the region of modern France.
Bk IX:159-210. The monster with three bodies, killed by Hercules. In the Tenth Labour, Hercules brought back Geryon’s famous herd of cattle after shooting three arrows through the three bodies. Geryon was the son of Chrysaor and Callirhoë, and King of Tartessus in Spain.
Bk I:151-176. Bk I:177-198. Bk X:143-219. Monsters, sons of Tartarus and Earth, with many arms and serpent feet, who made war on the gods by piling up the mountains, and overthrown by Jupiter. They were buried under Sicily.
Bk X:143-219. Orpheus sang their war with the gods.
Bk VII:179-233. A fisherman of Anthedon in Boeotia.
Bk XIII:898-968. He is transformed into a sea god, and tells the story of his transformation to Scylla who rejects him.
Bk XIV:1-74. He asks Circe for a charm to make Scylla love him, but she transforms Scylla into a sea-monster instead.
The daughter of Oeneus, king of Calydon, sister of Meleager.
Bk VIII:515-546. She is spared by Diana from being turned into a bird.
The best known of the Three Gorgons, the daughters of Phorcys. A winged monster with snake locks, glaring eyes and brazen claws whose gaze turns men to stone. Her sisters were Stheino and Euryale.
Bk IV:604-662, Bk IV:663-705. Perseus has been helped by Athene and Hermes to overcome Medusa. He was not to look at her head directly but only in a brightly-polished shield. He cut off her head with an adamantine sickle, at which Pegasus the winged horse and the warrior Chrysaor sprang from her body. He now uses her head to petrify Atlas, and tells Cepheus and Cassiope of the exploit.
Bk IV:753-803. Perseus tells of how he took her severed head, and of how Minerva placed snakes on her head, because Medusa was violated by Neptune in Minerva’s temple.
Bk V:149-199 . Perseus uses the head against his enemies.
Bk VII:759-795. From Gortyn in Crete, hence Cretan. Its bows noted for the swiftness of the arrow in flight.
Bk VI:401-438. Bk XIV:805-828. An epithet of Mars.
Bk XV:843-870. Mars, the father of Romulus (Quirinus).
The three daughters of Ceto and Phorcys, sisters of the Gorgons, fair-faced and swanlike but with hair grey from birth and one eye and one tooth between them. Their names were Deino, Enyo and Pemphredo.
Bk IV:753-803. Perseus visits them in their cave under Mount Atlas and steals the single eye.
Bk XIII:123-381. The country in southern Europe, bordering on the Ionian, Cretan and Aegean Seas.
Bk XV:622-745 et.al. Grecian.
Bk XI:749-795. A river and river god of Asia Minor, father of Alexiroë. Site of a famous victory of Alexander the Great.
The three sisters, daughters of Jupiter and Eurynome, attendants to Venus, used collectively, Gratia. Often depicted with arms entwined in dance (See Botticelli’s ‘Primavera’) their names were Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia. They signified giving, receiving, and thanking, later the Platonic triad, love, beauty, truth.
Bk VI:401-438. Attendant on wedding ceremonies.
Bk XII:245-289. A centaur. He kills Broteas, and Orios the son of Mycale. He is killed by Exadius at the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs.
Bk V:250-293. An island of the Cyclades.
Bk VII:453-500. Not allied to Crete.
Bk IV:416-465. The underworld, the kingdom of Dis.
Bk XIV:698-771. The Kids, two stars in Auriga the Charioteer, treated as a constellation by the ancients. See Erichthonius.
Bk I: 568-587. Bk V:294-331. The ancient name for Thessaly from Haemon father of Thessalos.
Bk II:63-89. Used as an adjective for the constellation Sagittarius the Archer, the zodiacal sign formed when the Thessalian centaur Chiron was placed among the stars by Zeus.
Bk VII:159-178. The parents of the Argonauts are Haemonians.
Bk VIII:777-842. The land of Erysichthon.
Bk XI:221-265. Thetis’s cave is on its shores.
Bk XI:346-409. The land of Acastus, king of Iolchos.
Bk XI:650-709. Trachin in Haemonia.
Bk XII:210-244. The country of Caeneus and Pirithoüs.
Thessalian, from Haemonia.
Bk VII:100-158. Used of Jason.
Bk XII:64-145. Used of Achilles.
Bk II:201-226. A mountain in Thrace.
Bk VI:70-102. Supposed to be a mortal turned into a mountain for assuming the name of a great god.
Bk X:1-85. Orpheus flees there after losing Eurydice a second time.
Bk V:107-148. A companion of Phineus from Bactria, killed by Perseus.
Bk XII:429-535. One of the Lapithae.
Bk XIII:123-381. A Lycian, killed by Ulysses.
Bk I:689-722. A wood nymph.
See Ammon.
Bk III:115-137. The wife of Cadmus and daughter of Mars and Venus.
Bk IV:563-603. She is turned with him into a snake.
Bk IX:394-417. At her marriage to Cadmus, Venus gave her the fatal necklace that conferred irresistible beauty.
Bk VII:1-73. The ‘snatchers’, Aellopus and Ocypete, the fair-haired, loathsome, winged daughters of Thaumas and the ocean nymph Electra, who snatch up criminals for punishment by the Furies. They live in a cave in Cretan Dicte. They plagued Phineus of Salmydessus, the blind prophet, and were chased away by the winged sons of Boreas.
Bk XIII:705-737. An alternative myth has Phineus drive them away to the Strophades where Ovid has Aeneas meet the harpy Aëllo, and Virgil, Celaeno. They are foul-bellied birds with girls’ faces, and clawed hands, and their faces are pale with hunger. (See Virgil Aeneid III:190-220)
Bk IX:666-713. The infant Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris. The Egyptian god, misinterpreted as a god of silence by the Greeks, as he is represented sitting on his mother’s lap with his thumb in his mouth.
The daughter of Iuno, born without a father.
Bk IX:394-417. She is the wife of Hercules after his deification, and has the power to renew life.
Bk II:227-271. Bk XI:1-66.The river in Thrace down which Orpheus’s head was washed to the sea.
The daughter of the Titans Perses and Asterie, Latona’s sister. A Thracian goddess of witches, her name is a feminine form of Apollo’s title ‘the far-darter’ . She was a lunar goddess, with shining Titans for parents. In Hades she was Prytania of the dead, or the Invincible Queen. She gave riches, wisdom, and victory, and presided over flocks and navigation. She had three bodies and three heads, those of a lioness, a bitch, and a mare. Her ancient power was to give to or withhold from mortals any gift. She was sometimes merged with the lunar aspect of Diana-Artemis, and presided over purifications and expiations. She was the goddess of enchantments and magic charms, and sent demons to earth to torture mortals. At night she appeared with her retinue of infernal dogs, haunting crossroads (as Trivia), tombs and the scenes of crimes. At crossroads her columns or statues had three faces – the Triple Hecates – and offerings were made at the full moon to propitiate her.
Bk VI:129-145. Goddess of magical herbs, used by Minerva.
Bk VII:74-99. Medea the Thracian witch makes Jason promise to marry her, taking his oath on the altar of Hecate, and gives him magic herbs to carry out his tasks.
Bk VII:159-178. Medea invokes her aid in her attempt to renew Aeson’s life.
Bk VII:179-233. Goddess of witchcraft.
Bk VII:234-293. Medea sacrifices to her.
Bk XIV:1-74. Bk XIV:397-434. Circe invokes her spells and her presence.
Bk XI:749-795. The Trojan hero, eldest son of Priam and Hecuba.
Bk XII:1-38. Sacrifices at the empty tomb of Aesacus his half-brother.
Bk XII:64-145. He killed Protesilaüs, the first Greek to fall in the Trojan War. His own fate is delayed till the end of the war.
Bk XII:429-535. Nestor compares himself in his prime with Hector.
Bk XII:536-579.Nestor cites him as a famous enemy of the Greeks.
Bk XII:579-628. Neptune reminds Apollo of Hector’s body dragged around the walls of Troy.
Bk XIII:1-122. He torched the Greek ships, and terrifies the Greeks in battle, bringing the gods with him to the battlefield.
Bk XIII:123-381. He promised Dolon the horses of Achilles.
Bk XIII:399-428. Hecuba takes his ashes with her from Troy. His son Astyanax is murdered as the city falls.
Bk XIII:481-575. The agony of his mother Hecuba.
Bk XIII:640-674. His presence had allowed Troy to hold out for so long.
The daughter of Dymas, and wife of Priam, king of Troy.
Bk VII:350-403. Bk XIII:399-428. Changed to a black bitch of Hecate, Maera, and spreading terror with her barking.
Bk XI:749-795. The mother of Hector.
Bk XIII:399-428. She gathers Hectors’s ashes as Ulysses takes her away from Troy.
Bk XIII:429-480. She sees her daughter Polyxena sacrificed to appease the ghost of Achilles.
Bk XIII:481-575. She laments Polyxena, finds and laments the body of Polydorus, kills Polymestor, and turns into the maddened dog, Maera. Her undeserved fate is pitied by the Trojan women, the Greeks, and all the gods, even Juno (who sought the downfall of Troy).
Bk XIII:576-622. Only Aurora’s thoughts are elsewhere.
The daughter of Leda and Jupiter (Tyndareus was her putative father), sister of Clytemnaestra, and the Dioscuri. The wife of Menelaüs.
Bk XIII:123-381. She was taken, by Paris, to Troy, instigating the Trojan War. Ulysses and Menelaüs demanded her return in front of the Trojan senate.
Bk XIV:623-697. Noted for her many suitors.
Bk XV:199-236. She bemoans old age, and the ravages of time.
Bk XIII:1-122. The son of Priam, an augur, captured by Ulysses and Diomede along with Pallas’s sacred image, the Palladium.
Bk XIII:705-737. Aeneas visits him at Buthrotos in Epirus where he has built a second Troy, and Helenus foretells his future.
Bk XV:418-452. He prophesied Aeneas’s future, and that of Rome.
Bk II:329-343. The seven daughters of the Sun god and Clymene.
Bk II 344-346.They mourn their brother Phaethon. Two of them are named. Lampetia and the eldest Phaethüsa. Turned into poplars as they mourn Phaethon their brother, their tears become drops of amber.
Bk X:86-105. The trees are among those gathering to hear Orpheus’s song.
Bk X:243-297. They shed amber tears, and amber adorns Pygmalion’s ivory statue.
Bk XV:259-306. A seaport of Achaea, near Aigion, on the Corinthian Gulf now submerged after an earthquake. Pausanias gives the background. (See Pausanias VII 24)
A name for the constellation of the Great Bear, Ursa Major.
Bk VIII:183-235. Icarus is warned not to fly too near the constellation.
Bk V:74-106. A companion of Phineus, killed by Perseus.
Bk II:201-226. The mountain in Boeotia near the Gulf of Corinth where the Muses lived. The sacred springs of Helicon were Aganippe and Hippocrene, both giving poetic inspiration. The Muses’ other favourite haunt was Mount Parnassus in Phocis with its Castalian Spring. They also guarded the oracle at Delphi.
Bk V:250-293. Minerva visits it to see the fountain of Hippocrene sprung from under the hoof of Pegasus, the winged horse.
Bk V:642-678. A haunt of the Muses.
Bk VIII:515-546. The domain of poetic genius.
Bk XI:194-220. The daughter of Athamas and Nephele, sister of Phrixus. Escaping from Ino on the golden ram, she fell into the sea and was drowned, giving her name to the Hellespont.
The straits that link the Propontis with the Aegean Sea.
Bk XI:194-220. Named after Helle, and close to the site of Troy.
Bk XIII:399-428. The scene of Hecuba’s appearance as the black bitch Maera.
Bk XII:290-326. A centaur.
Bk V:385-424. Of Henna (Enna) a town in Sicily. The plains around it.
Bk XV:622-745. The Roman town near Naples on the slopes of Vesuvius, destroyed with Pompeii by the eruption of 79AD and rediscovered in 1709. It was a residential town surrounded by the villas of wealthy Romans, with a rich artistic life.
The Hero, son of Jupiter. He was set in the sky as the constellation Hercules between Lyra and Corona Borealis.
Bk VII:404-424. He drags the dog Cerberus out of the underworld.
Bk IX:1-88. The son of Jupiter and Alcmena, the wife of Amphitryon. Called Alcides from Amphitryon’s father Alceus. Called also Amphitryoniades. Called also Tyrinthius from Tiryns his home city in the Argolis. Jupiter predicted at his birth that a scion of Perseus would be born, greater than all other descendants. Juno delayed Hercules birth and hastened that of Eurystheus, grandson of Perseus, making Hercules subservient to him. Hercules was set twelve labours by Eurystheus at Juno’s instigation, Bk IX:159-210:
1. The killing of the Nemean lion.
2. The destruction of the Lernean Hydra. - Bk IX:1-88. He uses the poison from the Hydra for his arrows - Bk IX:89-158.
3. The capture of the stag with golden antlers.
4. The capture of the Erymanthian Boar.
5. The cleansing of the stables of Augeas king of Elis.
6. The killing of the birds of the Stymphalian Lake in Arcadia.
7. The capture of the Cretan wild bull.
8. The capture of the mares of Diomede of Thrace, that ate human flesh.
9. The taking of the girdle of Hippolyte, Queen of the Amazons.
10.The killing of Geryon and the capture of his oxen.
11.The securing of the apples from the Garden of the Hesperides. He held up the sky for Atlas in order to deceive him and obtain them.
12.The bringing of the dog Cerberus from Hades to the upper world.
Bk IX:1-88. He fights with Acheloüs for the hand of Deianira.
Bk IX:89-158. Bk XII:290-326. He marries Deianira, kills Nessus, falls in love with Iole, daughter of Eurytus who has cheated him, and receives the shirt of Nessus from the outraged Deianira. (See Cavalli’s opera with Lully’s dances – Ercole Amante)
Bk IX:159-210. He is tormented by the shirt of Nessus.
(See T.S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets – Little Gidding:
‘Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire’)
Bk IX:159-210. He also killed Busiris, King of Egypt brother of Antaeus, who sacrificed strangers at the altars, to fulfil a prophecy that an eight-year drought and famine would end if he did so.
Bk IX:159-210. He killed King Antaeus of Libya, brother of Busiris, who was a giant, child of mother Earth, by lifting him from the ground that gave him strength, and, cracking his ribs, held him up until he died.
Bk IX:159-210. He fought the Centaurs.
Bk IX:159-210. Tormented by the shirt of Nessus he rages among the mountains.
Bk IX:211-272. He kills the servant Lichas who brought the fatal shirt, then builds a funeral pyre, and becomes a constellation and is deified. (See Canova’s sculpture – Hercules and Lichas – Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Rome)
Bk IX:273-323. He had asked his son Hyllus, by Deianira to marry Iole. His birth is described when the sun is in the tenth sign, Capricorn, i.e. at midwinter, making him a solar god. His mother’s seven night labour would also make his birth at the new year, a week after the winter solstice.
Bk IX:394-417. His nephew and companion is Iolaüs.
Bk XI:194-220. Bk XIII:1-122. He captured Troy and rescued Hesione, with the help of Telamon, and gave her to Telamon in marriage.
Bk XI:573-649. He is hero of the city of Trachin.
Bk XII:536-579. Tlepolemus is his son. Hercules exploits are retold by Nestor.
Bk XIII:1-122. Philoctetes received his bow and arrows after his death, destined to be needed at Troy.
Bk XIII:399-428. Ulysses goes to fetch Philoctetes and the arrows.
Bk XV:199-236. He is a symbol of strength.
Bk XV:259-306. He shot the centaur Pylenor with a poisoned arrow.
Bk IV:274-316. The son of Mercury and Venus, loved by Salmacis.
Bk IV:346-388. Salmacis dives into the pool to pursue him, and is merged with him, and he prays for the waters of the pool to weaken anyone who bathes there.
Bk II:531-565. One of the three daughters of King Cecrops.
Bk II:708-736. The most beautiful of the Athenian virgins and admired by Mercury.
Bk XIV:829-851. The wife of Romulus, deified as Hora.
A daughter of Laomedon, exposed to a sea monster at Neptune’s command.
Bk IX:211-272. Hercules rescued her when passing by Troy.
Bk XI:194-220. She was given in marriage to Telamon.
Bk XI:85-145. The three nymphs who tended the garden with the golden apples on a western island beyond Mount Atlas. Their names were Hespere, Aegle, and Erytheis, the daughters of Night, or of Atlas and Hesperis, the daughter of Hesperus.
Bk IV:604-662. The orchard of Atlas described.
Bk IX:159-210. In the Eleventh Labour, Hercules obtains the golden apples by deceiving Atlas.
Bk XI:749-795. A nymph, daughter of the river god Cebren, loved by Aesacus. She runs from him, and is killed by the bite of a snake.
Bk II:111-149. Bk IV:604-662. Bk V:425-486. The evening star (the planet Venus). It sets after the sun.
Bk VII:294-349. Hibernian, Spanish. Used to denote the oceans of the west, where the sun sets.
Bk XV:1-59. Hercules returns from there with the herds of Geryon.
The correct reading for Eupalamas.
Son of Eurytus.
Bk VIII:260-328. He is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk VIII:329-375. His thigh is ripped open by the boar’s tusk.
Bk XII:290-326. A centaur.
Bk VIII:260-328. King of Amyclae, father of Enaesimus, and others of his sons who were at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk VIII:329-375. Enaesimus is killed by the boar.
Bk V:250-293. A famous spring on Mount Helicon, sacred to the Muses.
Bk VIII:547-610. The father of Perimele.
The daughter of Adrastus, and wife of Pirithoüs.
Bk XII:210-244. Bk XIV:623-697. Eurytus attempts to carry her off at her wedding and precipitates the battle between Lapiths and Centaurs.
Queen of the Amazons, warrior maidens living near the Rivers Tanaïs and Thermodon in Scythia, based on Greek knowledge of the Scythian princesses of the Sarmatian people of the Black Sea region. Burials of warrior princesses have been excavated from the tumuli of the area around Rostov, and north west of the Sea of Azov. See Herodotus IV 110-117, for the Amazons and Scythians.
Bk IX:159-210. In the Ninth Labour, Hercules obtained the golden girdle of Hippolyte.
Bk XV:479-546. The son of Theseus and the Amazon Hippolyte. He was admired by Phaedra, his step-mother, and was killed at Troezen, after meeting ‘a bull from the sea’. He was brought to life again by Aesculapius, and hidden by Diana (Cynthia, the moon-goddess) who set him down in the sacred grove at Arician Nemi, where he became Virbius, the consort of the goddess (as Adonis was of Venus, and Attis of Cybele), and the King of the Wood (Rex Nemorensis). All this is retold and developed in Frazer’s monumental work, on magic and religion, ‘The Golden Bough’ (see Chapter I et seq.). (See also Euripides’s play ‘Hippolytos’, and Racine’s ‘Phaedra’.)
The son of Megareus. Great-grandson of Neptune.
Bk X:560-637. Falling in love with Atalanta, he determines to race against her, on penalty of death for failure.
Bk X:638-680. By means of the golden apples he wins the race and claims Atalanta.
Bk X:681-707. He desecrates Cybele’s sacred cave with the sexual act and is turned, with Atalanta, into a lion.
Bk XI:410-473. Bk XIV:75-100. Bk XIV:223-319.
Bk XV:622-745. Aeolus, as son of Hippotas.
Bk VIII:260-328. He is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk II:227-271. The Lower Danube running to the Black Sea.
Bk V:74-106. An Ethiopian in the court of Cepheus, the most senior next to the king, killed by Clymenus a follower of Phineus.
Bk XII:429-535. A centaur.
Bk XIV:829-851. The name given to Hersilia after her deification and reunion with Romulus.
Bk II:1-30. The Hours, attendants of the Sun.
Bk II:111-149. Yoke up the Sun-god’s horses to his chariot.
Bk X:143-219. A festival in honour of Hyacinthus, at Amyclae.
Son of Amyclas, king of Amyclae, hence he is called Amyclides.
Bk X:143-219. His home was Amyclae, in Taenarus, near Sparta. Loved by Phoebus, he was killed by a discus while they were competing. Phoebus turned him into a hyacinth (the blue larkspur, hyacinthos grapta) that has the marks AI AI (woe! woe!) of early Greek letters on the base of its petals, and was sacred to Cretan Hyacinthus. Later it was linked to Ajax. Sparta celebrated the Hyacinthia festival in his honour.
Bk XIII:382-398. He shares the flower with Ajax whose name has similar markings, ΑΙΑΣ.
Bk III:572-596. The daughters of Atlas and Aethra, half-sisters of the Pleiades. They lived on Mount Nysa and nurtured the infant Bacchus. The Hyades are the star-cluster forming the ‘face’ of the constellation Taurus the Bull. The cluster is used as the first step in the distance scale of the galaxy.
Bk XIII:123-381. The stars are engraved on Achilles’s shield.
Bk III:165-205. One of Diana’s nymphs.
Bk III:138-164. Boeotian, applied to Actaeon.
Bk V:294-331. Applied to the Heliconian fountain of Aganippe.
Bk VIII:260-328. Home of Iolaüs, present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk II:633-675. The many-headed water-serpent, born of Typhon and Echidna, that lived at Lerna near Argos. Its destruction was the Second Labour of Hercules(Heracles).
Bk IX:159-210.Hercules used the Hydra’s venom to tip his poisoned arrows, and struck Chiron his old friend inadvertently while fighting the Centaurs (The Fourth Labour). Chiron was in agony but could not die. Prometheus offered to die in his place. Zeus approved and Chiron was able to choose death.
Bk IX:1-88. Hercules describes his fight with the Hydra while taunting Acheloüs. (See Gustave Moreau’s painting – Hercules and the Lernean Hydra – in the Art Institute of Chicago)
Bk IX:89-158. The shirt of Nessus is soaked with its venom.
Bk XII:290-326. A centaur.
Bk VIII:260-328. He is present at the Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Bk XIII:675-704. From Hyle, a town in Boeotia. The home town of Alcon the engraver.
Bk IX:273-323. The son of Hercules and Deianira. Hercules has him marry Iole.
Bk XII:393-428. A female centaur, loved by Cyllarus. Inseparable in life, they died together, she killing herself to join him.
Bk I: 473-503. Bk IV:753-803. Bk VI:401-438. God of marriage.
Bk IX:764-797. He attends the wedding with Venus, the goddess of love, and Juno, the goddess of brides.
Bk X:1-85. He attends the wedding of Orpheus and Eurydice but fails to bring his usual blessings.
A mountain in Attica south of Athens. It was famous for its wild-flower pasture for bees (See Pausanias I 32 i.) and had a shrine and statue of Zeus of Rain and Far-seeing. (The long Hymettos ridge bounds the plain of Attica on the east, made up of bluish-grey Hymettian marble overlying Pentelic marble, which was worked in ancient times. The hills were then heavily forested.)
Bk VII:661-758. Aurora sees Cephalus from there.
Bk X:243-297. Its bees’ wax is used for moulding casts for statues etc.
BkVI:1-25 A town in Lydia. The home of Arachne.
Bk XI:146-171. It is overlooked by Mount Tmolus.
Bk XV:259-306. A river in Sarmatia. A main tributary of the Dnieper. The waters are sweet in their higher reaches, but are joined by a bitter stream flowing out of Scythia. See Herodotus IV 52.