Aphrodite is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretized Roman counterpart Venus, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. Aphrodite's major symbols include seashells, myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans. The cult of Aphrodite was largely derived from that of the Phoenician goddess Astarte, a cognate of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar, whose cult was based on the Sumerian cult of Inanna. Aphrodite's main cult centers were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and Athens. Her main festival was the Aphrodisia, which was celebrated annually in midsummer. In Laconia, Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess. She was also the patron goddess of prostitutes, an association which led early scholars to propose the concept of "sacred prostitution" in Greco-Roman culture, an idea which is now generally seen as erroneous.
Ares is the Greek god of war and courage. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. The Greeks were ambivalent towards him. He embodies the physical valor necessary for success in war but can also personify sheer brutality and bloodlust, in contrast to his sister Athena, whose martial functions include military strategy and generalship. An association with Ares endows places, objects, and other deities with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality.
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Demeter is the Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over crops, grains, food, and the fertility of the earth. Although Demeter is mostly known as a grain goddess, she also appeared as a goddess of health, birth, and marriage, and had connections to the Underworld. She is also called Deo. In Greek tradition, Demeter is the second child of the Titans Rhea and Cronus, and sister to Hestia, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. Like her other siblings except Zeus, she was swallowed by her father as an infant and rescued by Zeus.
Hephaestus is the Greek god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes. Hephaestus's Roman counterpart is Vulcan. In Greek mythology, Hephaestus was the son of Hera, either on her own or by her husband Zeus. He was cast off Mount Olympus by his mother Hera because of his lameness, the result of a congenital impairment; or in another account, by Zeus for protecting Hera from his advances.
Castalia, in ancient Greek and Roman literature, was the name of a spring near Delphi, sacred to the Muses; it is also known as the Castalian Spring. It is said to have derived its name from Castalia, a naiad-nymph, daughter of the river-god Achelous, who is said to have flung herself into the spring when pursued by the god Apollo.
In Greek mythology, Adonis was the mortal lover of the goddesses Aphrodite and Persephone. He was famous and considered to be the ideal of male beauty in classical antiquity.
In Greek mythology and religion, Eurus is the god and personification of the east wind, although sometimes he is also said to be southeast specifically. He is one of the four principal wind gods, the Anemoi, alongside Boreas, Zephyrus and Notus. Eurus is featured rarely in ancient literature and art, appearing together with his three brothers as part of a whole if at all, and virtually has no individual mythology of his own. Often he is excluded from the group entirely, leaving Boreas, Zephyrus and Notus to represent the Anemoi. His Roman equivalent is the god Vulturnus.
In Greek mythology, the Aloadae or Aloads were Otus or Otos and Ephialtes, Thessalian sons of Princess Iphimedia, wife of Aloeus, by Poseidon, whom she induced to make her pregnant by going to the seashore and disporting herself in the surf or scooping seawater into her bosom. From Aloeus, sometimes their real father, they received their patronymic, the Aloadae. They had a sister Pancratis (Pancrato) who was renowned for her great beauty.
In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, Minthe is an Underworld Naiad associated with the river Cocytus. She was beloved by Hades, the King of the Underworld, and became his mistress. But she was transformed into a mint plant by either his wife Persephone or her mother Demeter. The plant was also called by some as hedyosmos, which means "sweet-smelling".
In Greek mythology, Ariadne was a Cretan princess, the daughter of King Minos of Crete. There are different variations of Ariadne's myth, but she is known for helping Theseus escape from the Minotaur and being abandoned by him on the island of Naxos. There, Dionysus saw Ariadne sleeping, fell in love with her, and later married her. Many versions of the myth recount Dionysus throwing Ariadne's jeweled crown into the sky to create a constellation, the Corona Borealis.
Nyctimene was, according to Greek and Roman mythology, a princess and a rape victim, the daughter of Epopeus, a king of Lesbos. She was transformed into an owl by the goddess Athena, who took pity on her for her gruesome fate. The owl was one of Athena's most prominent and important symbols.
In Greek mythology, Priapus is a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens, and male genitalia. Priapus is marked by his oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term priapism. He became a popular figure in Roman erotic art and Latin literature, and is the subject of the often humorously obscene collection of verse called the Priapeia.
In Greek mythology, Admete was one of the 3,000 Oceanids, daughters of the Titans Oceanus and his sister-wife Tethys. The name of Admete/ Admeta was the female form of Admetus. Along with her other sisters, Admete was one of the companions of Persephone in Sicily when the god Hades abducted the daughter of Demeter.
Dione is the name of four women in ancient Greek mythology, and one in the Phoenician religion described by Sanchuniathon. Dione is translated as "Goddess", and given the same etymological derivation as the names Zeus, Diana, et al. Very little information exists about these nymphs or goddesses, although at least one is described as beautiful and is sometimes associated with water or the sea. Perhaps this same one was worshiped as a mother goddess who presided over the oracle at Dodona, Greece and was called the mother of Aphrodite.
In Greek and Roman mythology, Peristera is a nymph who was transformed into a dove, one of Aphrodite's sacred birds and symbols, explaining the bird's connection to the goddess. This myth survives in the works of Latin grammarian Lactantius Placidus and the first of the three anonymous Vatican Mythographers, whose works were discovered in a single manuscript in 1401.
In Greek mythology, Myrina or perhaps more correctly Myrtea is a minor mythological figure, a young priestess connected to myrtle and Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love. Her story is attested in the works of two authors; Maurus Servius Honoratus, a Latin grammarian who lived during the early fifth century AD, and the anonymous second Vatican Mythographer, whose work survives in a single manuscript that was found in 1401.
In Greek mythology, Myrsine is an Attic girl who won the favour of Athena thanks to her impressive athletic achievements and her beauty, and the envy of the other Atticans for the same reason. Her brief tale survives in the Geoponica, a Byzantine Greek collection of agricultural lore, compiled during the tenth century in Constantinople for the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus.
In Greek mythology Nyctaea is a princess featuring in two stories about father-daughter incest, who is eventually turned into an owl by the goddess Athena. Both her tales are preserved in the works of pseudo-Lactantius Placidus, a Latin grammarian of the third century AD.
In Greek mythology, Ictinus is a minor figure who tried to violate his daughter and was transformed into a bird, in part of an aetiological myth that attempts to explain the nature of trees and birds. His brief tale survives in the works of Dionysius Periegetes, and might have been an original invention.
Rhodanthe is the name of a supposed Corinthian queen in Greek mythology who attracted a great number of suitors due to her beauty. Her story however is not attested in any ancient Greek or Roman source, and is instead a case of pseudo-mythology.
