Hades
( Aides, Dis, Plutos )
"The Unseen One". Greek god of the underworld. Since riches were commonly buried in the ground, he also figured as a god of wealth, Plutos, although the latter is often considered a separate deity. Son of Cronos and Rhea. Brother of Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter and Hestia. After Zeus killed Cronos, dominion over the Underworld fell to Hades, while Zeus claimed the heavens and Poseidon the seas. He became the husband of Persephone after abducting her (for this story see the entries for Demeter and Persephone). His home in the underworld was often referred to as the "House of Hades". The tasks of judging the souls of the deceased and of punishing sins were assigned to other underworld deities. His cult was restricted to Pylos. He was depicted as dark bearded, bearing a sceptre and a key.
Hamadryads
( Dryads )
Greek tree nymphs. See Dryads.
Harpies
( sing. Harpy )
"Snatchers". Greek winged female monsters or demons. They may have originated as wind spirits - in Homer they were merely described as winds that swept people away. They were usually three in number, the most common names being Aello, Kelaino (Podarge) and Okypete. Daughters of Thaumas and Elektra, or of Poseidon and Gaia. In early myths they were described as beautiful, but later writers depicted them as ugly bird-like monsters with large claws. In one version, the Harpies were eventually killed by Calais and Zetes.
Hebe
( none )
"Bloom of Youth". Greek goddess of youth. Daughter of Zeus and Hera. Her consort was the deified Heracles. She was the cup-bearer of the gods at Olympus until replaced by Ganymede. Her Roman counterpart was Juventus. Her cult was most popular at Phlious and Sicyon.
Hecatoncheires
( none )
According to Hesiod, the Hecatoncheires were born of Gaia and Ouranus. They were stronger, more overbearing, and more fierce than even the mighty Cyclopes. They had 100 arms and 50 heads each. Their names were Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges.
Ouranus was disgusted by these children, so in a fit of outrage he cast them into Tartarus to be locked up forever. Gaia was distressed about this and asked the Titans for help in retrieving them. Only Cronos agreed to help. Cronos waited for Ouranus under his bed. That night, when Ouranus laid with Gaia, Cronos castrated Ouranus and cast his genitals behind his head and into the sea. This caused foam in the sea and blood drops on the land. The foam was the birthplace of Aphrodite, and of horses. The blood drops gave birth to the Erinyes, the giants, and the nymphs.
Hecate
( Hekate )
Greek goddess associated with the underworld and with magic. Not mentioned in Homer, she is believed to have originated in Caria in southwest Anatolia. According to Hesiod she was the daughter of the Titan Perses and the nymph Asteria. Elsewhere she is said to be the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She was also a goddess of crossroads and waysides, and pillars known as Hekataea were commonly erected at crossroads and doorways, perhaps to ward off evil. She was especially associated with travel by night, although it is not clear whether she was regarded as the protectress of night travellers or their chief peril. Hecate was also considered a patron of Medea and of witches, and she had an occult following among women in Thessaly, where she was regarded as a moon goddess. She assisted in the search for Persephone after her abduction by Hades. In this connection, as well as in connection with her role in night travel, she was depicted bearing a torch. In later representations, she was shown as having three bodies, particularly in the Hekataea which allowed her to keep watch over all roads at once. Her epithets included Enodia, a reference to her role as a goddess of waysides, and Trioditis, a reference to her role as a tri-form goddess of crossroads.
Helene
( Helen )
Originated as goddess of vegetation.
Helios
( Helius, Sol )
"Sun". Greek sun god. According to Hesiod, he is the son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia. His siblings were Eos (dawn) and Selene (moon). He drove his four-horsed chariot across the sky each day from east to west, descending beneath the ocean at night and returning by its northern stream to the east. According to one story, Helios was absent when Zeus divided the world among the gods, and he was given the island of Rhodes, which had just risen from the sea, in compensation. Rhodes was the centre of his cult, where he was the dominant deity at least as early as the 5th century BC. The famous Colossus of Rhodes was an image of Helios. A festival of Helios was also celebrated on Rhodes, during which a four-horsed chariot was driven off a cliff, symbolizing the setting of the sun beneath the sea. He was depicted driving a four-horsed chariot, and with a halo of rays about his head. The Romans worshipped Helios as Sol.
Hemera
( none )
"Day". Greek goddess of the day. Hesiod gives her as the daughter of Erebus and Nyx. She may also have been the consort of her brother Aether.
Hephaestus
( Hephaistos, Hephaestos )
Greek god of fire and patron of blacksmiths. Son of Zeus and Hera. In the Iliad, Homer made him the husband of Charis. However, in the Odyssey he was said to be the consort of Aphrodite, and this rather unlikely pairing became the more widely accepted version. Although considered one of the twelve Olympians, he was thrown from the heavens by Hera, who could not accept a child born with deformed legs. According to one legend, he spent the first nine years of his life in the sea, cared for by Eurynome and Thetis. According to another legend, he was taken in and cared for by the people of Lemnos, on whose island he had an important sanctuary. The cult of Hephaestus appears to have originated in Greek Anatolia, or perhaps on Lemnos. His cult seems never to have been very popular in mainland Greece, although he did have a sanctuary in Athens. He also had an important shrine at Ephesus in Anatolia. Despite his lameness, Hephaestus was famed as a blacksmith of extraordinary skill. His smithy was said to be under Mt Aetna, where he was believed to work with his assistants, the Cyclopes. He was credited with fashioning the sceptre of Zeus, the Aegis of Athena, the chariot of Helios, arms for Achilles and Aeneas, and the shield of Heracles. Hephaestus was never very lucky in love. His nominal consort, Aphrodite, was never faithful to him, and few if any of her children were fathered by the lame smith god. On one occasion, Hephaestus attempted to force himself on Athena, but she evaded him and his semen fell to the earth where it gave birth to the Athenian serpent-king Erechtheus.
Hera
( none )
Greek queen of heaven. Daughter of Cronos and Rhea. Sister and wife of Zeus. Mother of Ares, Hephaestus, Hebe and Eileithyia. Though widely worshipped throughout the Greek world, Hera was chiefly known as the jealous and often vindictive wife of the philandering Zeus. In her own right, she was worshipped as a goddess of marriage, of childbirth, and of the life of women in general. Her marriage was said to have resulted after Zeus seduced her in the form of a peacock, although in some versions it was Hera who seduced Zeus with the aid of a magic girdle. At Athens and Samos their marriage was celebrated as the hieros gamos ("sacred marriage"), even though the conduct of Zeus would seem to have made a mockery of this notion. The morality of Hera's conduct was also questionable by modern standards, as she mercilessly persecuted mortal women for the crime of having been raped by her husband. Her chief cult centre was at Argos, where the Heraeum boasted a statue of Hera in ivory and gold by Polycletus. Other important sanctuaries were at Athens and on Crete and Samos, although she had sanctuaries throughout the Greek world. A festival of women's games was also held in her honour every four years at Olympus. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her, and the apple and the pomegranate were her sacred fruits. She was often depicted as a matronly figure seated on a throne, bearing a diadem and a sceptre.
Heracles
( Herakles, Roman Hercules )
Greek hero, worshipped as a deity. It has been variously speculated that the mythical Heracles may have derived from an actual Greek chieftain or shaman who protected his people from external dangers which later became the Labours of Heracles. Some parallels can be seen with the Mesopotamian figures of Ninurta and Gilgamesh.
Heracles was the son of Zeus and Alkmene, and the husband of Megara and Deianeira and the lover of many, many women. Hera was very spiteful towards Heracles, perhaps because Zeus supposedly brought Heracles to Olympus as an infant saying he had found this orphan. Hera breast fed the infant until she learned it was Heracles, whom she detested as another of the illegitimate offspring of Zeus. She pulled Heracles away from her breast and the gushing milk formed the Milky Way. Also his name (beloved of Hera) was a sarcastic jibe and she never forgave Alkmene for the slight. Heracles was conceived by Zeus but at nearly the same time Eurystheus (also spelled Iphicles) was conceived in her womb by her husband Amphytrion. Eurystheus and Heracles are therefore twins. Hera retarded the birth of Heracles so that the prophecy of Zeus that the oldest son born of Alkmene would be king of Mycenae.
The jealous Hera sent two snakes to kill Heracles in his cradle, but the infant strangled them. Later Hera made him crazy and he strangled his wife Megara but when he recovered and overcame his remorse, he remarried. While growing up he was taught to drive the chariot by Amphitryon, to wrestle by Autolycus, the art of archery by Eurytus , to fence by Castor, and to play the lyre by Linus. Unfortunately for Linus, one day Linus struck Heracles for punishment and Heracles struck Linus back with the lyre, killing him instantly. As he grew older he received a sword from Hermes, bow and arrows from Apollo, a golden breastplate from Hephaestus, and a robe from Athena.
The first of his many lovers he had when he was still a older teenager. King Thespius of Thespiae in Boeotia entertained Heracles for fifty days and each night bedded one of his daughters with him. The children of Heracles by the daughters of Thespius were called Thespiades. Two of them remained in Thebes and seven in Thespiae. All the other Thespiades joined Iolaus in the founding of a colony in Sardinia. Erginus was king of the Minyans. He imposed a tribute to the Thebans after his father was killed by Perieres. Heracles met the heralds on their way to Thebes to demand this tribute, and he cut off their ears, noses and hands, and send them back to Erginus. Indignant at this outrage, Erginus marched against Thebes. But Heracles, having received weapons from Athena and taken the command, killed Erginus, defeated the Minyans, and demanded to pay double the tribute to Thebes. In this war Amphitryon was killed. As a reward Thebes gave him Megara, daughter of the king of Thebes, Creon. His children were Therimachus, Deicoon, Creontiades and Ophites. To cleanse himself of the sin of killing all these children and his wife, the Delphi oracle sent him to labour under King Eurystheus (his twin brother) for 12 years. Each year he performed a labour, and together they were:
(1) the slaying of the Nemean lion,
(2) the slaying of the Lernaean Hydra,
(3) the capture of the Arcadian stag,
(4) the destruction of the Erymanthian boar,
(5) the cleansing of the Augean stables,
(6) the shooting of the man-eating birds of the Stymphalian marshes,
(7) the capture of the Cretan bull,
(8) the capture of the man-eating horses of Diomedes,
(9) the theft of the girdle of the Amazon queen Hippolyta,
(10) the capture of the cattle of Geryon,
(11) the acquisition of the golden apples of the Hesperides, and
(12) the capture of Cerberus.
The twelfth Labour which Eurystheus imposed on Heracles was to bring Cerberus from Hades [see Cerberus for a description of this peculiar dog]. Before performing this Labour Heracles went to Eleusis to be initiated and later he descended to Hades in Taenarum in Laconia. In Hades he saw Theseus, who was not supposed to be there yet, and he rescued him. When Heracles asked Hades for Cerberus, Hades told him to take it provided he mastered him without any weapons. Heracles flung his arms round Cerberus head (one of them!), and though the dragon in the dog's tail bit him, he did not released the beast. Having ascended in Troezen, he showed Cerberus to Eurystheus and carried him back to Hades.
Having completed the twelve labours, Heracles went on to have many more battles and escapades. It was also during this latter period that he wed Deianeira. On the way home, the centaur Nessus tried to rape her, and Heracles shot him with a poisoned arrow. The dying centaur told Deianeira to preserve some of the blood from his wound, as it had the power of making whomever she wished fall in love with her. Some years later, Heracles fell in love with Iole. Deianeira devised a robe with some of the centaur's blood smeared on it and sent it to Heracles, thinking to win back his love. Instead, the blood poisoned Heracles, causing a painful death. His body was burned on a pyre on Mt. Oita. After his death, Heracles was deified and given the task of guarding the gates to Olympus. There he became the consort of the goddess Hebe. The cult of Heracles was widespread, and he had sanctuaries on Thasos and Mt. Oita, where sacrificial fire festivals were held every four years to commemorate his death. The Dorian kings regarded Heracles as their ancestral god. He was commonly depicted wearing the skin of the Nemean lion, bearing either a bow or a club, or performing one of his labours. Adephagos (the glutton) was a name for Heracles because of two incidents where he ate one, in one case even two oxen at a single meal.
Hermanubis
( none )
Deity combining the Greek Hermes with the Egyptian Anubis.
Hermaphroditos
( Hermaphroditus )
Greek androgynous deity. The cult of Hermaphroditos appeared first in Cyprus, but never became prominent in the rest of the Greek world until the Hellenistic period. Originally the son of Hermes and Aphrodite. The Naiad Salmakis (associated with a fountain of the same name in Caria, a region of Anatolia) fell so passionately in love with him that their bodies merged into one. In some versions, it was her entreaties to the gods that finally resulted in their becoming one being.
Hermaphroditus
( none )
In English this is a man and a woman both. In Greek mythology he was born the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, according to one and only one source, namely Ovid in his play Metamorphoses. He was born a male, nursed by Neiads in the caves of Mount Ida in Asia Minor. At 15 he decided to wander and did so through the lands of Lycia and Caria. Somewhere in his travels he discovered a pool of clear water.
In that pool lived the Naiad Salmacius who preferred to gather flowers than keep up with Artemis in her hunting expeditions. She immediately sang to him her love, but he was not interested and so rejected, she turned away. Hermaphroditus, thinking he is safe, decides to take a swim in the pool. Salmacius grabs him and tries to arouse him. He fights her but she beseeches the gods to make her one with him so that she can be with him forever. The gods grant this wish, as selfish and one sided as it is, and so from that moment forth he is both man and woman.
Hermes
( none )
Greek messenger of the gods. Son of Zeus and the nymph Maia. He was believed to have been born on Mt. Cyllene in Arcadia. His cult seems to have originated in Arcadia, where he was a god of fertility depicted in ithyphallic images. His name probably derives from hermaion (pl. herma), the Greek word for a pile of stones used to mark boundaries or as landmarks erected to guide travellers. Stone pillars called hermen were also erected in front of Greek houses, and Hermes was supposed to dwell in these pillars, guarding over the houses. So Hermes was considered a god of travellers and merchants, of roads and of doorways. Paradoxically, he was also a patron of thieves and gamblers, and of good fortune. In his capacity as messenger of the gods he was depicted with a broad-brimmed hat (petasus) appropriate for travel, winged sandals (talaria), and a herald's staff entwined with snakes (kerykeion, Latin caduceus). Hermes is credited with the invention of the lyre (kithara) and with the invention of fire. These feats he performed on the day of his birth, in addition to the theft of Apollo's cattle. His personality had much mischief and trickery about it. He also had the typical sexual appetites of a Greek god. Among the many errands the gods entrusted him with, it was Hermes who was sent to retrieve both Persephone and Eurydice from the underworld. He had many epithets, including Epimelios (guardian of flocks), Nomios (also a reference to his role as guardian of flocks), Hodios (patron of travellers). He was also known as Oneiropompos (conductor of dreams) and Psychopompos (leader of souls in the underworld) in his roles as god of dreams and of passage to the afterlife. In his role as god of doorways he was known as Pylaios or Propylaios. In his capacity as "the good shepherd", he was depicted carrying a sheep on his shoulders, with the epithet of Kriophoros (ram-bearer). In earlier Greek art, he was depicted as bearded, wearing a long tunic, and equipped with his cap, winged sandals and staff (the kerykeion). Later, he came to be portrayed as a beardless youth.
Hermes Trismegistos
( none )
Greek name for Thoth (Egyptian).
Heros
( none )
Thracian deity.
Hesperides
( none )
Greek nymphs who guarded the tree of the golden apples. According to Hesiod, they were the daughters of Erebos and Nyx (night). Other accounts make them the daughters of Atlas and Pleione, Atlas and Hesperis, Phorkys and Ceto, or of Hesperos. Their names were most commonly given as Aegle, Erytheia, and Hesperia (or Arethusa).
Hippolytus
( none )
Minor Greek god.
Horai
( Horae )
The Seasons. Greek goddesses associated with the three Greek seasons: spring, summer and winter. Daughters of Zeus and Themis. Their names were Eunomia (good order), Dike (justice), and Eirene (peace). The Athenians recognized only two Horai: Thallo, associated with the blossoms of spring, and Karpo, associated with the ripened fruit of summer or autumn. The Horai were honoured in the annual festival known as the Horaia. The Horai eventually developed into the four modern seasons.
Hesperos
( Hesperus, Roman Vesper )
Greek god of the evening star. In some versions, the father of the Hesperides.
Hestia
( Roman Vesta )
Greek goddess of fire and the hearth. Daughter of Cronos and Rhea. She remained a virgin all her life, on the assumption that she was wedded to the sacred hearth fire. Her worship was largely focused on household hearths, but public cults later emerged at the civic hearth. Small offerings of food and drink were typically made at household hearths before meals.
Himerus
( Himeros )
Greek god of desire.
Hyacinthus
( Hyakinthos )
Commonly known as a hero from Greek myth, but generally believed to have originated as an ancient pre-Hellenic god, probably of vegetation. In the Greek legend, Hyacinthus was loved by Apollo, who accidentally killed him with a discus. This would suggest that Hyacinthus was originally a dying god like Adonis or the Mesopotamian Dumuzi whose death and resurrection symbolized the natural cycle of cereal vegetation. At Amyklai in Sparta Hyacinthus was regarded as a deified hero well into the Hellenic period. There he was worshipped in an annual festival, the Hyacinthia, where the worshippers passed from mourning for Hyacinthus to celebration for Apollo - certainly suggestive of a rite associated with cereal vegetation where the dead plant gives new life through its seed.
Hygieia
( Hygeia )
Greek goddess of health. Daughter of Asklepios, the god of healing. Some later writers made her the consort of Asklepios. Her sacred animal was the snake, depicted drinking from a saucer or other drinking vessel held in her hand. Her worship spread to Rome in 293 BC, where she came to be identified with Salus.
Hymen
( Hymenaios, Hymenaeus )
Greek god of marriage. He was traditionally said to be the son of Apollo and a Muse, while later writers made him the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite. He was invoked at weddings in the marriage song. He was depicted as a winged youth bearing a wedding torch and a garland.
Hyperion
( none )
Greek god of light. One of the Titans, son of Ouranus (heaven) and Gaia (earth). Consort of Theia. Father of Helios (sun) and Selene (moon). Hyperion may have been little more than a personification of the sun or an epithet of Helios.
Hypnos
( Roman Somnus )
Greek god of sleep. Son of Erebos and Nyx (night). Brother of Thanatos (death).
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