Percy Jackson Tour

The Minotaur and Knossos palace

The Greek legend of the Minotaur and the city of Knossos have long been the subjects of artistic fascination. Merging history, mythology, and art, we take a closer look at the legacy of the Minotaur in art.

The origins of the Minotaur, half bull and half man, lie in the ruins of Knossos; the main city of the bronze Minoan civilization in the Greek island of Crete. A mixture of fact and mythology, this ancient civilization revered the monstrous bull-like creature, and there are many remnants of its presence in Minoan culture. A bust of the Minotaur can be seen in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

The monster was believed by the Minoans to have lived below the palace of King Minos in a dark labyrinth. This labyrinth was designed by Daedalus, so skillfully that no one could ever escape. The Minotaur lurked among its dark passages waiting to attack his victims. No one ever left the labyrinth alive.

One idea is that the labyrinth could have been based on the plan of the building. Perhaps there was a labyrinth underneath the palace, but no evidence has yet been found. The plan of the palace itself looks like a labyrinth, and some archaeologists have suggested a connection.

The origin of the Minotaur may also be based on geographical location, as Knossos lies in the center of an earthquake zone. The earthquakes’ roaring sound was rumored to be made by a great roaring bull below the palace, creating loud quakes.

Of the many stories of the Minotaur, there is the famous legend that once a year the people of Athens had to send seven boys and seven girls to be fed to the Minotaur. One year Theseus, son of Aegeus the King of Athens, offered to take his place among the young men. He devised a plot to kill the Minotaur.

When Theseus arrived at Knossos, Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, fell in love with him. She gave Theseus two gifts, a sword to kill the Minotaur and a ball of thread. Ariadne told Theseus to fasten one end to the entrance of the labyrinth, hold the ball and after he had killed the Minotaur he could find his way swiftly back to daylight by following the thread.

Images of the bull and Minotaur were very popular in Minoan times and the modern day depiction of the Minotaur is borrowed from Minoan artistic creations. The Minoans were a peaceful, trade faring civilization, as well as being rich and advanced.

The Minotaur is not fully human, animal or God. The ambiguity of the figure places him outside the bounds of morals and reason. Images and stories of the Minotaur still influence European writers and artists.

An example of this monstrous creature in modern Greek art can be seen in the 1961 work Theseus with Founstanella and the Minotaur by the artist Nikos Engonopoulos.

One artist who deeply explored the subject of the Minotaur in his work is Pablo Picasso. Some of his work show the Minotaur as violent; a rapist and a murderer. In other works, he is depicted as a lover rather than a monster, appearing to be in a consensual relationship with women. In some paintings he draws directly on the homage to the myths of Theseus and the Minotaur and also the Minoan tradition of bull-leaping.

Greek Mythology

Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods

Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods is a collection of short stories about Greek mythology as narrated by Percy Jackson. It was written by Rick Riordan and was released on August 19, 2014. It features Percy Jackson giving his own take on the Greek myths in a humorous way and point of view.

Characters

Protogenoi

In Greek mythology, the primordial deities are the first gods and goddesses born from the void of Chaos. In Orphic tradition, they are born from Chronos and Ananke. Hesiod’s first are Gaia, Tartarus, Eros, Erebus and Nyx. The primordial deities Gaia and Uranus give birth to the Titans and Aphrodite. The Titans Cronus and Rhea give birth to Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Hera and Demeter who overthrow the Titans. The warring of the gods ends with the reign of Zeus.

1. Chaos

Refers to the void state preceding the creation of the universe or cosmos in the Greek creation myths, or to the initial “gap” created by the original separation of heaven and earth. In Hesiod’s Theogony, Chaos was the first of the primordial deities, followed by Gaia (Earth), Tartarus, and Eros (Love). From Chaos came Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night).

2. Gaea

In Greek mythology, Gaia, also spelled Gaea, is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother of all life: the primal Mother Earth goddess. She is the immediate parent of Uranus, from whose sexual union she bore the Titans and the Giants, and of Pontus, from whose union she bore the primordial sea gods. Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra.

3. Ouranos

Uranus was the primal Greek god personifying the sky and one of the Greek primordial deities. Uranus is associated with the Roman god Caelus. In Ancient Greek literature, Uranus or Father Sky was the son and husband of Gaia, Mother Earth. According to Hesiod’s Theogony, Uranus was conceived by Gaia alone, but other sources cite Aether as his father. Uranus and Gaia were the parents of the first generation of Titans, and the ancestors of most of the Greek gods, but no cult addressed directly to Uranus survived into Classical times, and Uranus does not appear among the usual themes of Greek painted pottery. Elemental Earth, Sky, and Styx might be joined, however, in a solemn invocation in Homeric epic.

4. Nyx

Nyx is the Greek goddess of the night. A shadowy figure, Nyx stood at or near the beginning of creation and mothered other personified deities such as Hypnos (Sleep) and Thanatos (Death), with Erebus (Darkness). Her appearances are sparse in surviving mythology, but reveal her as a figure of such exceptional power and beauty that she is feared by Zeus himself.

5. Hemera

In Greek mythology Hemera was the personification of day and one of the Greek primordial deities. She is the goddess of the daytime and, according to Hesiod, the daughter of Erebus and Nyx.

6. Tartarus

In Greek mythology, Tartarus is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans. Tartarus is the place where, according to Plato’s Gorgias, souls are judged after death and where the wicked received divine punishment. Like other primal entities, Tartarus is also considered to be a primordial force or deity.

7. Pontus

In Greek mythology, Pontus was an ancient, pre-Olympian sea-god, one of the Greek primordial deities. Pontus was Gaia’s son and has no father; according to the Greek poet Hesiod, he was born without coupling, though according to Hyginus, Pontus is the son of Aether and Gaia.

8. Aither

In Greek mythology, Aether is one of the primordial deities. Aether is the personification of the upper air. He embodies the pure upper air that the gods breathe, as opposed to the normal air breathed by mortals. Like Tartarus and Erebus, Aether may have had shrines in ancient Greece, but he had no temples and is unlikely to have had a cult.

Titans

In Greek mythology, the Titans and Titanesses were members of the second generation of divine beings, descending from the primordial deities and preceding the Olympians. Based on Mount Othrys, the Titans most famously included the first twelve children of Gaia and Uranus. They ruled during the legendary Golden Age, and also comprised the first pantheon of Greek deities.

1. Prometheus

In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, culture hero, and trickster figure who is credited with the creation of man from clay, and who defies the gods by stealing fire and giving it to humanity, an act that enabled progress and civilization. Prometheus is known for his intelligence and as a champion of mankind.

2. Kronos

In Greek mythology, Cronus, Cronos, or Kronos, was the leader and youngest of the first generation of Titans, the divine descendants of Uranus, the sky, and Gaia, the earth. He overthrew his father and ruled during the mythological Golden Age, until he was overthrown by his own son Zeus and imprisoned in Tartarus. According to Plato, however, the deities Phorcys, Cronus, and Rhea were the eldest children of Oceanus and Tethys.

3. Themis

Themis is an ancient Greek Titaness. She is described as “[the Lady] of good counsel”, and is the personification of divine order, fairness, law, natural law, and custom. Her symbols are the Scales of Justice, tools used to remain balanced and pragmatic. Themis means “divine law” rather than human ordinance, literally “that which is put in place”, from the Greek verb títhēmi (τίθημι), meaning “to put”.

4. Koios

In Greek mythology, Coeus was one of the Titans, the giant sons and daughters of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth). His equivalent in Latin poetry—though he scarcely makes an appearance in Roman mythology—was Polus, the embodiment of the celestial axis around which the heavens revolve.

5. Oceanus

Oceanus, also known as Ogenus or Ogen, was a divine figure in classical antiquity, believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to be the divine personification of the sea, an enormous river encircling the world.

6. Hyperion

In Greek mythology, Hyperion was one of the twelve Titan children of Gaia (Earth) and Uranus (Sky) who, led by Cronus, overthrew their father Uranus and were themselves later overthrown by the Olympians. With his sister, the Titaness Theia, Hyperion fathered Helios (Sun), Selene (Moon) and Eos (Dawn). Keats’s abandoned epic poem Hyperion is among the literary works that feature the figure.

7. Iapetus

In Greek mythology, Iapetus, also Japetus, was a Titan, the son of Uranus and Gaia, and father of Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus and Menoetius. He was also called the father of Buphagus and Anchiale in other sources.

8. Krios

In Greek mythology, Crius was one of the Titans in the list given in Hesiod’s Theogony, a son of Uranus and Gaia.

9. Rhea

Rhea is a character in Greek mythology, the Titaness daughter of the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus as well as sister and wife to Cronus. In early traditions, she is known as “the mother of gods” and therefore is strongly associated with Gaia and Cybele, who have similar functions. The classical Greeks saw her as the mother of the Olympian gods and goddesses, but not as an Olympian goddess in her own right. The Romans identified her with Magna Mater, and the Goddess Ops.

10. Metis

Metis, in ancient Greek religion, was a mythical Titaness belonging to the second generation of Titans.

11. Theia

In Greek mythology, Theia, also called Euryphaessa “wide-shining”, is a Titaness. Her brother/consort is Hyperion, a Titan and god of the sun, and together they are the parents of Helios, Selene, and Eos.

12. Tethys

In Greek mythology, Tethys, was a Titan daughter of Uranus and Gaia, sister and wife of Titan-god Oceanus, mother of the Potamoi and the Oceanids. Tethys had no active role in Greek mythology and no established cults.

13. Phoebe

In ancient Greek religion, Phoebe was one of the first generation of Titans, who were one set of sons and daughters of Uranus and Gaia.

14. Leto

In Greek mythology, Leto is a daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, the sister of Asteria..

15. Maia

Maia, in ancient Greek religion, is one of the Pleiades and the mother of Hermes.

16. Mnemosyne

Mnemosyne is the goddess of memory in Greek mythology. “Mnemosyne” is derived from the same source as the word mnemonic, that being the Greek word mnēmē, which means “remembrance, memory”.

17. Helios

Helios is the god and personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. He is the son of the Titan Hyperion and the Titaness Theia, also known as Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn.

18. Selene

In Greek mythology, Selene is the goddess of the moon. She is the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, and sister of the sun-god Helios, and Eos, goddess of the dawn. She drives her moon chariot across the heavens. Several lovers are attributed to her in various myths, including Zeus, Pan, and the mortal Endymion. In classical times, Selene was often identified with Artemis, much as her brother, Helios, was identified with Apollo. Selene and Artemis were also associated with Hecate, and all three were regarded as lunar goddesses, but only Selene was regarded as the personification of the moon itself. Her Roman equivalent is Luna.

19. Atlas

In Greek mythology, Atlas was a Titan condemned to hold up the sky for eternity after the Titanomachy. Although associated with various places, he became commonly identified with the Atlas Mountains in northwest Africa. Atlas was the son of the Titan Iapetus and the Oceanid Asia or Clymene. He had many children, mostly daughters, the Hesperides, the Hyades, the Pleiades, and the nymph Calypso who lived on the island Ogygia. According to the ancient Greek poet Hesiod, Atlas stood at the ends of the earth towards the west.

20. Epimetheus

In Greek mythology, Epimetheus was the brother of Prometheus, a pair of Titans who “acted as representatives of mankind”. They were the sons of Iapetus, who in other contexts was the father of Atlas. While Prometheus is characterized as ingenious and clever, Epimetheus is depicted as foolish.

Monsters (Mythological creatures)

1. Cyclopes

A cyclops, in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, is a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the center of his forehead. The word “cyclops” literally means “round-eyed” or “circle-eyed”.

2. Hekatonkheires

The Hecatoncheires, also called the Centimanes or Hundred-Handers, were figures in the archaic, pre-Olympian era within Greek mythology, three giants of incredible strength and ferocity that surpassed all of the Titans, whom they helped overthrow. Their name derives from the Greek ἑκατόν and χείρ, “each of them having a hundred hands and fifty heads”. Hesiod’s Theogony reports that the three Hecatoncheires became the guards of the gates of Tartarus. The Hundred-Handed-Ones are “giants” of great storms and hurricanes.

3. Kampê

In Greek mythology, Campe or Kampe is the name of a fearsome chthonic drakaina (she-dragon).

4. Furies

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Erinyes, also known as the Furies, were female chthonic deities of vengeance, sometimes referred to as “infernal goddesses”. A formulaic oath in the Iliad invokes them as “the Erinyes, that under earth take vengeance on men, whosoever hath sworn a false oath.” Walter Burkert suggests they are “an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath.” They correspond to the Dirae in Roman mythology. The Roman writer Maurus Servius Honoratus wrote that they are called “Eumenides” in hell, “Furiae” on earth, and “Dirae” in heaven.

5. Typhon

Typhon, also Typhoeus, Typhaon or Typhos, was a monstrous serpentine giant and the most deadly creature in Greek mythology. According to Hesiod, Typhon was the son of Gaia and Tartarus. However one source has Typhon as the son of Hera alone, while another makes Typhon the offspring of Cronus. Typhon and his mate Echidna were the progenitors of many famous monsters.

6. Echidna

Echidnas, sometimes known as spiny anteaters, belong to the family Tachyglossidae in the monotreme order of egg-laying mammals. The four extant species, together with the platypus, are the only surviving members of the order Monotremata and are the only living mammals that lay eggs. The diet of some species consists of ants and termites, but they are not closely related to the true anteaters of the Americas. Echidnas live in Australia and New Guinea.

7. Cerberus

In Greek mythology, Cerberus, often called the “hound of Hades”, is a multi-headed dog that guards the gates of the Underworld to prevent the dead from leaving. Cerberus was the offspring of the monsters Echidna and Typhon, and usually is described as having three heads, a serpent for a tail, and snakes protruding from parts of his body. Cerberus is primarily known for his capture by Heracles, one of Heracles’ twelve labours.

8. Python

In Greek mythology, Python was the serpent, sometimes represented as a medieval-style dragon, living at the centre of the earth, believed by the ancient Greeks to be at Delphi.

9. The three Gorgons

In Greek mythology, a Gorgon is a mythical creature portrayed in ancient Greek literature. While descriptions of Gorgons vary across Greek literature and occur in the earliest examples of Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters who had hair made of living, venomous snakes, as well as a horrifying visage that turned those who beheld her to stone. Traditionally, while two of the Gorgons were immortal, Stheno and Euryale, their sister Medusa was not and she was slain by the demigod and hero Perseus.

10. Centaurs

A centaur, or occasionally hippocentaur, is a mythological creature with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse.

10 a. Chiron

In Greek mythology, Chiron was held to be the superlative centaur amongst his brethren, as he was called as the “wisest and justest of all the centaurs”.

11. Aloadae

In Greek mythology, the Aloadae or Aloads were Otus (Ὦτος) and Ephialtes (Ἐφιάλτης), sons of 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 they received their patronymic, the Aloadae. They were strong and aggressive giants, growing by nine fingers every month nine fathoms tall at age nine, and only outshone in beauty by Orion.

12. Orion

In Greek mythology, Orion was a giant huntsman whom Zeus placed among the stars as the constellation of Orion.

13. Daimons

Daemon is the Latin word for the Ancient Greek daimon, which originally referred to a lesser deity or guiding spirit; the daemons of ancient Greek religion and mythology and of later Hellenistic religion and philosophy.

13 a. Charon

In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on the mouth of a dead person. Some authors say that those who could not pay the fee, or those whose bodies were left unburied, had to wander the shores for one hundred years. In the catabasis mytheme, heroes – such as Aeneas, Dionysus, Heracles, Hermes, Odysseus, Orpheus, Pirithous, Psyche, Theseus and Sisyphus – journey to the underworld and return, still alive, conveyed by the boat of Charon.

Gods

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the twelve Olympians are the major deities of the Greek pantheon, commonly considered to be Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes, and either Hestia or Dionysus. They were called ‘Olympians’ because, according to tradition, they resided on Mount Olympus.

1. Hades

Hades was the ancient Greek chthonic god of the underworld, which eventually took his name.

2. Hecate

Hecate or Hekate is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, most often shown holding a pair of torches or a key and in later periods depicted in triple form. She was variously associated with crossroads, entrance-ways, light, magic, witchcraft, knowledge of herbs and poisonous plants, ghosts, necromancy, and sorcery. She appears in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and in Hesiod’s Theogony, where she is promoted strongly as a great goddess. The place of origin of her following is uncertain, but it is thought that she had popular followings in Thrace.

3. Hestia

In Ancient Greek religion, Hestia is a virgin goddess of the hearth, architecture, and the right ordering of domesticity, the family, the home, and the state. In Greek mythology, she is a daughter of Kronos and Rhea.

4. Persephone

In Greek mythology, Persephone, also called Kore, is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Homer describes her as the formidable, venerable majestic princess of the underworld, who carries into effect the curses of men upon the souls of the dead. She becomes the queen of the underworld through her abduction by and subsequent marriage to Hades, the god of the underworld. The myth of her abduction represents her function as the personification of vegetation, which shoots forth in spring and withdraws into the earth after harvest; hence, she is also associated with spring as well as the fertility of vegetation. Similar myths appear in the Orient, in the cults of male gods like Attis, Adonis, and Osiris, and in Minoan Crete.

5. Melinoe

Melinoë is a chthonic nymph or goddess invoked in one of the Orphic Hymns and propitiated as a bringer of nightmares and madness. The name also appears on a metal tablet in association with Persephone. The hymns are of uncertain date but were probably composed in the 2nd or 3rd century AD. In the hymn, Melinoë has characteristics that seem similar to Hecate and the Erinyes, and the name is sometimes thought to be an epithet of Hecate. The terms in which Melinoë is described are typical of moon goddesses in Greek poetry.

6. Makaria

Macaria or Makaria is the name of two figures from ancient Greek religion and mythology. Although they are not said to be the same and are given different fathers, they are discussed together in a single entry both in the 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia the Suda and by Zenobius.

7. Zeus

Zeus is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who rules as king of the gods of Mount Olympus. His name is cognate with the first element of his Roman equivalent Jupiter. His mythologies and powers are similar, though not identical, to those of Indo-European deities such as Indra, Jupiter, Perkūnas, Perun, Thor, and Odin.

8. Hera

Hera is the goddess of women, marriage, family, and childbirth in ancient Greek religion and myth, one of the Twelve Olympians and the sister-wife of Zeus. She is the daughter of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. Hera rules over Mount Olympus as queen of the gods. A matronly figure, Hera served as both the patroness and protectress of married women, presiding over weddings and blessing marital unions. One of Hera’s defining characteristics is her jealous and vengeful nature against Zeus’ numerous lovers and illegitimate offspring, as well as the mortals who cross her.

9. Poseidon

Poseidon was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth. He was god of the Sea and other waters; of earthquakes; and of horses. In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a chief deity at Pylos and Thebes. His Roman equivalent is Neptune.

10. Dionysus

Dionysus is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking and wine, of fertility, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre in ancient Greek religion and myth. Wine played an important role in Greek culture, and the cult of Dionysus was the main religious focus for its unrestrained consumption. His worship became firmly established in the seventh century BC. He may have been worshipped as early as c. 1500–1100 BC by Mycenaean Greeks; traces of Dionysian-type cult have also been found in ancient Minoan Crete. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek. In some cults, he arrives from the east, as an Asiatic foreigner; in others, from Ethiopia in the South. He is a god of epiphany, “the god that comes”, and his “foreignness” as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults. He is a major, popular figure of Greek mythology and religion, becoming increasingly important over time, and included in some lists of the twelve Olympians, as the last of their number, and the only god born from a mortal mother. His festivals were the driving force behind the development of Greek theatre.

11. Athena

Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, handicraft, and warfare, who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece, particularly the city of Athens, from which she most likely received her name. She is usually shown in art wearing a helmet and holding a spear. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion.

12. Demeter

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the grain, agriculture, harvest, growth, and nourishment, who presided over grains and the fertility of the earth. Her cult titles include Sito (Σιτώ), “she of the Grain”, as the giver of food or grain, and Thesmophoros, “Law-Bringer”, as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society.

13. Arion

In Greek mythology, Arion or Areion is a divinely-bred, extremely swift immortal horse which, according to the Latin poet Sextus Propertius, was endowed with speech.

14. Artemis

Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name, and indeed the goddess herself, was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: “Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals”. The Arcadians believed she was the daughter of Demeter.

15. Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The ideal of the kouros, Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry, and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu.

16. The Muses

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They are considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric songs, and myths that were related orally for centuries in these ancient cultures.

17. Aphrodite

Aphrodite is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation. She is identified with the planet Venus, which is named after the Roman goddess Venus, with whom Aphrodite was extensively syncretized. Aphrodite’s major symbols include myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans.

18. Eros

In Greek mythology, Eros is the Greek god of sensual love and desire. His Roman counterpart was Cupid (“desire”). Some myths make him a primordial god, while in other myths, he is the son of Aphrodite. He is one of the winged love gods, Erotes.

19. Thanatos

In Greek mythology, Thanatos was the personification of death. He was a minor figure in Greek mythology, often referred to but rarely appearing in person.

20. Hebe

Hebe in ancient Greek religion, is the goddess of youth or the prime of life. She is the daughter of Zeus and Hera. Hebe was the cupbearer for the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus, serving their nectar and ambrosia until she was married to Heracles ; her successor was the divine hero Ganymede. Another title of hers, for this reason, is Ganymeda. She also drew baths for her brother Ares and helped Hera enter her chariot. She was often connected to Aphrodite, whom she was described dancing with and acting as her herald or attendant, linking the Classical association between beauty and youth. In Euripedes’ play Orestes, Helen is said to sit on a throne beside Hera and Hebe upon obtaining godhood. In some traditions, her father Zeus gifted her two doves with human voices, one flew to where the Oracle of Dodona would be established.

21. Eileithyia

Eileithyia or Ilithyia was the Greek goddess of childbirth and midwifery. In the cave of Amnisos (Crete) she was related with the annual birth of the divine child, and her cult is connected with Enesidaon, who was the chthonic aspect of the god Poseidon. It is possible that her cult is related with the cult of Eleusis.

22. Hephaestus

Hephaestus is the Greek god of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire, and volcanoes. Hephaestus’ Roman equivalent is Vulcan. In Greek mythology, Hephaestus was either the son of Zeus and Hera or he was Hera’s parthenogenous child, rejected by his mother because of his deformity and thrown off Mount Olympus and down to earth.

23. Harmonia

In Greek mythology, Harmonia is the immortal goddess of harmony and concord. Her Roman counterpart is Concordia. Her Greek opposite is Eris, whose Roman counterpart is Discordia.

24. Ares

Ares is the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent and untamed aspect of war, in contrast to his sister the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and generalship.

25. Hermes

Hermes is the god of trade, heraldry, merchants, commerce, roads, sports, travelers, and athletes in Ancient Greek religion and mythology; the son of Zeus and the Pleiad Maia, he was the second youngest of the Olympian gods.

26. Aegipan

Aegipan, that is, Goat-Pan, was according to some statements a being distinct from Pan, while others regard him as identical with Pan. His story appears to be altogether of late origin. According to Hyginus he was the son of Zeus and Aega, and was transferred to the stars. Others again make Aegipan the father of Pan, and state that he as well as his son were represented as half goat and half fish. When Zeus in his contest with the Titans was deprived of the sinews of his hands and feet, Hermes and Aegipan secretly restored them to him and fitted them in their proper places. According to a Roman tradition mentioned by Plutarch, Aegipan had sprung from the incestuous intercourse of Valeria of Tusculum and her father Valerius, and was considered only a different name for Silvanus.

27. Hestia

In Ancient Greek religion, Hestia is a virgin goddess of the hearth, architecture, and the right ordering of domesticity, the family, the home, and the state. In Greek mythology, she is a daughter of Kronos and Rhea.

28. Fates

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Moirai or Moerae, often known in English as the Fates, were the white-robed incarnations of destiny; their Roman equivalent was the Parcae, there are other equivalents in cultures that descend from the proto-Indo-European culture. Their number became fixed at three: Clotho (spinner), Lachesis (allotter) and Atropos.

29. The three Horai

In Greek mythology the Horae or Horai or Hours were the goddesses of the seasons and the natural portions of time.

30. Triton

Triton is a mythological Greek god, the messenger of the sea. He is the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, god and goddess of the sea respectively, and is herald for his father. He is usually represented as a merman which has the upper body of a human and the tail, soft dorsal fin, spiny dorsal fin, anal fin, pelvic fins and caudal fin of a fish, “sea-hued”, according to Ovid “his shoulders barnacled with sea-shells”.

31. Rhodes

Rhodes is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece in terms of land area and also the island group’s historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the South Aegean administrative region. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Rhodes. The city of Rhodes had 50,636 inhabitants in 2011. It is located northeast of Crete, southeast of Athens and just off the Anatolian coast of Turkey. Rhodes’ nickname is The island of the Knights, named after the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, who once conquered the land.

32. Triptolemus

In Greek mythology, Triptolemus is a figure connected with the goddess Demeter of the Eleusinian Mysteries. He was either a mortal prince, the eldest son of King Celeus of Eleusis, or, according to Pseudo-Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca (I.V.2), the son of Gaia and Oceanus.

33. Priapus

In Greek mythology, Priapus was 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.

Nature Spirits (nymphs, satyrs, etc.)

A nymph in Greek mythology is a minor female nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform.

1. Nereids

In Greek mythology, the Nereids are sea nymphs, the 50 daughters of Nereus and Doris, sisters to Nerites. They often accompany Poseidon, the god of the sea, and can be friendly and helpful to sailors, like the Argonauts in their search for the Golden Fleece.

1.a Amphitrite

In ancient Greek mythology, Amphitrite was a sea goddess and wife of Poseidon and the queen of the sea. Under the influence of the Olympian pantheon, she became merely the consort of Poseidon and was further diminished by poets to a symbolic representation of the sea. In Roman mythology, the consort of Neptune, a comparatively minor figure, was Salacia, the goddess of saltwater.

1.b Leuke

Snake Island, also known as Serpent Island, is an island located in the Black Sea, near the Danube Delta.

2. Dryads

A dryad is a tree nymph or tree spirit in Greek mythology. Drys signifies “oak” in Greek, and dryads are specifically the nymphs of oak trees, but the term has come to be used for all tree nymphs in general. They were normally considered to be very shy creatures except around the goddess Artemis, who was known to be a friend to most nymphs.

3. Naiads

In Greek mythology, the Naiads are a type of female spirit, or nymph, presiding over fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of fresh water.

3.a Chelone

Zeus and the Tortoise appears among Aesop’s Fables and explains how the tortoise got her shell. It is numbered 106 in the Perry Index. From it derives the proverbial sentiment that ‘There’s no place like home’.

3.b Minthe

In Greek mythology, Minthe was a naiad associated with the river Cocytus.

4. Pallas

In Greek mythology, Pallas was the daughter of Triton, son of Poseidon and messenger of the seas.

5. Kallisto

In Greek mythology, Callisto or Kallisto was a nymph, or the daughter of King Lycaon; the myth varies in such details. She was one of the followers of Artemis, or Diana for the Romans, who attracted Zeus (Jupiter). He transformed himself into the figure of Artemis and seduced her in this disguise. She became pregnant and when this was eventually discovered, she was expelled from Artemis’s group, after which a furious Hera transformed her into a bear. Later, just as she was about to be killed by her son when he was hunting, she was set among the stars as Ursa Major. She was the bear-mother of the Arcadians, through her son Arcas by Zeus.

6. Satyrs

In Greek mythology, a satyr also known as a silenos, is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exaggerated erection. Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but, by the sixth century BC, they were more often represented with human legs. Comically hideous, they have mane-like hair, bestial faces, and snub noses and are always shown naked. Satyrs were characterized by their ribaldry and were known as lovers of wine, music, dancing, and women. They were companions of the god Dionysus and were believed to inhabit remote locales, such as woodlands, mountains, and pastures. They often attempted to seduce or rape nymphs and mortal women alike, usually with little success. They are sometimes shown masturbating or engaging in bestiality.

6.a Ampelos

Ampelos is the Ancient Greek for “vine”.

6.b Marsyas

In Greek mythology, the satyr Marsyas is a central figure in two stories involving music: in one, he picked up the lyre and played it; in the other, he challenged Apollo and lost his life. In antiquity, literary sources often emphasise the hubris of Marsyas and the justice of his punishment.

7. Delos

The island of Delos, near Mykonos, near the centre of the Cyclades archipelago, is one of the most important mythological, historical, and archaeological sites in Greece. The excavations in the island are among the most extensive in the Mediterranean; ongoing work takes place under the direction of the French School at Athens, and many of the artifacts found are on display at the Archaeological Museum of Delos and the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.

Demigods

A demigod or demi-god is a minor deity, or a mortal or immortal who is the offspring of a god and a human, or a figure who has attained divine status after death.

1. Erichthonios

In Greek mythology, King Erichthonius was a legendary early ruler of ancient Athens. According to some myths, he was autochthonous and raised by the goddess Athena. Early Greek texts do not distinguish between him and Erectheus, his grandson, but by the fourth century BC, during Classical times, they are distinct figures.

2. Tantalus

Tantalus was a Greek mythological figure, most famous for his eternal punishment in Tartarus. He was also called Atys.

3. Alcippe

Alcippe was a name attributed to a number of figures in Greek mythology.

Alcippe, the daughter of Ares and Aglaulus. When Halirrhotius, son of Poseidon, raped her, Ares killed him, a crime for which he was tried in a court, the first trial in history, which took place on the hill near the Acropolis of Athens named Areopagus, named, according to this etiological myth, after Ares. He was acquitted in court by all of the other Olympian gods.

Alcippe, an Amazon who vowed to remain a virgin. She was killed by Heracles during his ninth labor.

Alcippe, the mother of Daedalus by Eupalamus, son of Metion.

Alcippe, one of the Alcyonides, daughters of Alcyoneus. Along with her sisters she threw herself into the sea and was turned into a kingfisher.

Alcippe, one of the attendants of Helen.

Alcippe, daughter of Oenomaus. She married Evenus, son of Ares and Sterope and bore a daughter Marpessa.

4. Halirrhothius

Halirrhothius was the son of Poseidon and Euryte in Greek mythology. He was also called the son of Perieres and husband of Alcyone who borne him two sons, Serus and Alazygus. Another son of Halirrhotius, Samos of Mantinea was the victor of the four-horse chariot during the first Olympic games established by Heracles.

5. Tityus

Tityos or Tityus was a giant from Greek mythology.

6. Aeneas

In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite (Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas a second cousin to Priam’s children. He is a character in Greek mythology and is mentioned in Homer’s Iliad. Aeneas receives full treatment in Roman mythology, most extensively in Virgil’s Aeneid, where he is cast as an ancestor of Romulus and Remus. He became the first true hero of Rome. Snorri Sturluson identifies him with the Norse Æsir Vidarr.

7. Pluotos
8. Achilles

In Greek mythology, Achilles or Achilleus was a Greek hero of the Trojan War and the central character and greatest warrior of Homer’s Iliad. His mother was the immortal Nereid Thetis, and his father, the mortal Peleus, was the king of the Myrmidons.

9. Asclepius

Asclepius was a hero and god of medicine in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Asclepius represents the healing aspect of the medical arts; his daughters are Hygieia, Iaso, Aceso, Aglæa/Ægle, and Panacea. He was associated with the Roman/Etruscan god Vediovis and the Egyptian Imhotep. He was one of Apollo’s sons, sharing with Apollo the epithet Paean. The rod of Asclepius, a snake-entwined staff, remains a symbol of medicine today. Those physicians and attendants who served this god were known as the Therapeutae of Asclepius.

10. Aeacus

Aeacus was a mythological king of the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf.

11. Arcas

In Greek mythology, Arcas was a hunter who became king of Arcadia. He was remembered for having taught people the art of weaving and baking bread.

12. Khrysomallos
13. Minos

In Greek mythology, Minos was the first King of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. Every nine years, he made King Aegeus pick seven young boys and seven young girls to be sent to Daedalus’s creation, the labyrinth, to be eaten by the Minotaur. After his death, Minos became a judge of the dead in the underworld.

14. Rhadamanthys

In Greek mythology, Rhadamanthus or Rhadamanthys was a wise king of Crete. In later accounts he is said to be one of the judges of the dead.

Mortals

Mortal means susceptible to death; the opposite of immortality.

1. Ariadne

Ariadne, in Greek mythology, was a Cretan princess. She is mostly associated with mazes and labyrinths because of her involvement in the myths of the Minotaur and Theseus.

2. Teiresias

In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo. Tiresias participated fully in seven generations in Thebes, beginning as advisor to Cadmus himself.

3. Smyrna

Smyrna was a Greek city dating back to antiquity located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Since 1930, the modern city located there has been known as İzmir, in Turkey, the Turkish rendering of the same name. Due to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defense and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. Two sites of the ancient city are today within the boundaries of İzmir. The first site, probably founded by indigenous peoples, rose to prominence during the Archaic Period as one of the principal ancient Greek settlements in western Anatolia. The second, whose foundation is associated with Alexander the Great, reached metropolitan proportions during the period of the Roman Empire. Most of the present-day remains of the ancient city date from the Roman era, the majority from after a 2nd-century AD earthquake.

4. Adonis

Adonis was the mortal lover of the goddess Aphrodite in Greek mythology. In Ovid’s first-century AD telling of the myth, he was conceived after Aphrodite cursed his mother Myrrha to lust after her own father, King Cinyras of Cyprus. Myrrha had sex with her father in complete darkness for nine nights, but he discovered her identity and chased her with a sword. The gods transformed her into a myrrh tree and, in the form of a tree, she gave birth to Adonis. Aphrodite found the infant and gave him to be raised by Persephone, the queen of the Underworld. Adonis grew into an astonishingly handsome young man, causing Aphrodite and Persephone to feud over him, with Zeus eventually decreeing that Adonis would spend one third of the year in the Underworld with Persephone, one third of the year with Aphrodite, and the final third of the year with whomever he chose. Adonis chose to spend his final third of the year with Aphrodite.

5. Cassiopeia

Cassiopeia (Κασσιόπεια), also Cassiepeia (Κασσιέπεια), is the name of two different figures in Greek mythology:

Cassiopeia, queen of Aethiopia and mother of Andromeda by Cepheus.

Cassiopeia, wife of Phoenix, king of Phoenicia.

6. Andromeda

In Greek mythology, Andromeda is the daughter of the Aethiopian king Cepheus and his wife Cassiopeia. When Cassiopeia’s hubris leads her to boast that Andromeda is more beautiful than the Nereids, Poseidon sends the sea monster Cetus to ravage Andromeda as divine punishment. Andromeda is stripped and chained naked to a rock as a sacrifice to sate the monster, but is saved from death by Perseus.

7. Semele

Semele, in Greek mythology, was the youngest daughter of the Boeotian hero Cadmus and Harmonia, and the mother of Dionysus by Zeus in one of his many origin myths.

8. Deucalion

In Greek mythology, Deucalion was the son of Prometheus; ancient sources name his mother as Clymene, Hesione, or Pronoia. He is closely connected with the flood myth in Greek mythology.

9. Pyrrha

In Greek mythology, Pyrrha was the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora and wife of Deucalion of whom she had three sons, Hellen, Amphictyon, Orestheus; and three daughters Protogeneia, Pandora II and Thyia. According to some accounts, Hellen was credited to be born from Pyrrha’s union with Zeus.

10. Pandora

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first human woman, created by Hephaestus on the instructions of Zeus. As Hesiod related it, each god co-operated by giving her unique gifts. Her other name — inscribed against her figure on a white-ground kylix in the British Museum —is Anesidora, “she who sends up gifts”.

11. Pygmalion

Pygmalion is a legendary figure of Cyprus. Though Pygmalion is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name Pumayyaton, he is most familiar from Ovid’s narrative poem Metamorphoses, in which Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved.

12. Galatea

Galatea is a name popularly applied to the statue carved of ivory by Pygmalion of Cyprus, which then came to life in Greek mythology. In modern English the name usually alludes to that story.

13. Ixion

In Greek mythology, Ixion was king of the Lapiths, the most ancient tribe of Thessaly, and a son of Ares, or Leonteus, or Antion and Perimele, or the notorious evildoer Phlegyas, whose name connotes “fiery”. Peirithoös was his son.

14. Centaurus

Centaurus is a bright constellation in the southern sky. One of the largest constellations, Centaurus was included among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. In Greek mythology, Centaurus represents a centaur; a creature that is half human, half horse. Notable stars include Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to the Solar System, its neighbour in the sky Beta Centauri, and V766 Centauri, one of the largest stars yet discovered. The constellation also contains Omega Centauri, the brightest globular cluster as visible from Earth and one of the largest known.

15. Koroneis
16. Europa

In Greek mythology, Europa was the mother of King Minos of Crete, a woman with Phoenician origin of high lineage, and after whom the continent Europe was named. The story of her abduction by Zeus in the form of a white bull was a Cretan story; as classicist Károly Kerényi points out, “most of the love-stories concerning Zeus originated from more ancient tales describing his marriages with goddesses. This can especially be said of the story of Europa.”

17. Sisyphus

In Greek mythology Sisyphus or Sisyphos was the king of Ephyra. He was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll down when it nears the top, repeating this action for eternity. Through the classical influence on modern culture, tasks that are both laborious and futile are therefore described as Sisyphean.

18. Iasion

In Greek mythology, Iasion or Iasus, also called Eetion, was usually the son of the nymph Electra and Zeus and brother of Dardanus, although other possible parentage included Zeus and Hemera or Corythus and Electra.

19. Jason

Jason was an ancient Greek mythological hero who was the leader of the Argonauts whose quest for the Golden Fleece featured in Greek literature. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Medea. He was also the great-grandson of the messenger god Hermes, through his mother’s side.

20. Eriskhthon
21. Aeetes

Aeëtes or Æëtes(; also spelled, Greek: Αἰήτης Aiētēs [a͜ɪ.ɛ͜ɛ́tɛ͜ɛs]), also Aeeta, was a King of Colchis in Greek mythology. The name means “eagle” (aietos).

22. Cadmus

In Greek mythology, Cadmus, was the founder and first king of Thebes. Cadmus was the first Greek hero and, alongside Perseus and Bellerophon, the greatest hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles. Initially a Phoenician prince, son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa, he was originally sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores of Phoenicia by Zeus. Cadmus founded the Greek city of Thebes, the acropolis of which was originally named Cadmeia in his honour.

23. Pelops

In Greek mythology, Pelops, was king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus. His father, Tantalus, was the founder of the House of Atreus through Pelops’s son of that name.

24. The Amazons

In Greek mythology, the Amazons were a tribe of women warriors related to Scythians and Sarmatians. Apollonius Rhodius, at Argonautica, mentions that Amazons were the daughters of Ares and Harmonia. They were brutal and aggressive, and their main concern in life was war.

25. The Athenians
26. King Oineus

In Greek mythology, Oeneus was a Calydonian king. He introduced winemaking to Aetolia, which he learned from Dionysus.

27. Meleager

In Greek mythology, Meleager was a hero venerated in his temenos at Calydon in Aetolia. He was already famed as the host of the Calydonian boar hunt in the epic tradition that was reworked by Homer. Meleager is also mentioned as one of the Argonauts.

28. Acteon

Actaeon, in Greek mythology, son of the priestly herdsman Aristaeus and Autonoe in Boeotia, was a famous Theban hero. Like Achilles in a later generation, he was trained by the centaur Chiron.

29. Queen Meitaneira
30. Demophoon
31. Semele

Semele, in Greek mythology, was the youngest daughter of the Boeotian hero Cadmus and Harmonia, and the mother of Dionysus by Zeus in one of his many origin myths.

32. Peleus

In Greek mythology, Peleus was a hero whose myth was already known to the hearers of Homer in the late 8th century BC.

33. Sipriotes
34. Hippolytus

In Greek mythology, Hippolytus was a son of Theseus and either Antiope or Hippolyte. He was identified with the Roman forest god Virbius.

35. Athamas

In Greek mythology, Athamas was a Boeotian king.

36. Ino

In Greek mythology Ino was a mortal queen of Boeotia, who after her death and transfiguration was worshiped as a goddess under her epithet Leucothea, the “white goddess.” Alcman called her “Queen of the Sea” (θαλασσομέδουσα), which, if not hyperbole, would make her a doublet of Amphitrite.

37. Battus

Battus was a figure in Greek mythology who witnessed Hermes stealing Apollo’s cattle in Maenalus in Arcadia. He was punished by being turned into stone.

38. Aigina

Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, 27 kilometres from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina the mother of the hero Aeacus, who was born on the island and became its king. During ancient times Aegina was a rival of Athens, the great sea power of the era.

39. The Myrmidons

The Myrmidons were legendary people of Greek mythology, native to the region of Thessaly. During the Trojan War, they were commanded by Achilles, as described in Homer’s Iliad. According to Greek legend, they were created by Zeus from a colony of ants and therefore took their name from the Greek word for ant, myrmex.

40. Eurynome

Eurynomê is a name that refers to the following characters in Greek mythology:

Eurynome, pre-Olympian queen and wife of Ophion

Eurynome (Oceanid), mother of the Charites

Eurynome or Eurymede, daughter of King Nisus of Megara and mother of Bellerophon by Poseidon or Glaucus.

Eurynome, mother by the Persian Orchamus of Leucothoe whom Helios loved.

Eurynome or Cleophyle, wife of Lycurgus of Arcadia and mother of Amphidamas, Epochus, Ancaeus, and Iasus. Elsewhere is also called Antinoe.

Eurynome, daughter of Iphitus and mother of Adrastus of Argos by Talaus.

Eurynome, waiting woman of Penelope in the Odyssey.

Eurynome, a handmaiden of Harmonia.

Eurynome, a Lemnian woman. The goddess Pheme paid a visit to her in the guise of her friend Neaera to inform her that Eurynome’s husband Codrus was being unfaithful to her with a Thracian woman.

Eurynome, an alternate name for Eidothea, the daughter of Proteus.

Eurynome, a daughter of Asopus and mother of Ogygias by Zeus, according to a late source.

41. Salmoneus

In Greek mythology, Salmoneus was a king of Elis and founded the city of Salmone in Pisatis.

42. Arachne

In Greek mythology, Arachne was a talented mortal weaver who challenged Athena, goddess of wisdom and crafts, to a weaving contest; this hubris resulted in her being transformed into a spider. There are many versions of the story’s weaving contest, with each saying that one or the other won.

Hinted/Referenced

1. Hercules

Hercules is a Roman hero and god. He was the equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, who was the son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures.

2. Orpheus

Orpheus is a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. Some ancient Greek sources note Orpheus’ Thracian origins. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music, his attempt to retrieve his wife, Eurydice, from the underworld, and his death at the hands of those who could not hear his divine music. As an archetype of the inspired singer, Orpheus is one of the most significant figures in the reception of classical mythology in Western culture, portrayed or alluded to in countless forms of art and popular culture including poetry, film, opera, music, and painting.

3. Psyche

Cupid and Psyche is a story originally from Metamorphoses, written in the 2nd century AD by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis. The tale concerns the overcoming of obstacles to the love between Psyche and Cupid or Amor, and their ultimate union in a sacred marriage. Although the only extended narrative from antiquity is that of Apuleius, Eros and Psyche appear in Greek art as early as the 4th century BC. The story’s Neoplatonic elements and allusions to mystery religions accommodate multiple interpretations, and it has been analyzed as an allegory and in light of folktale, Märchen or fairy tale, and myth.

4. Leda

In Greek mythology, Leda was an Aetolian princess who became a Spartan queen. Her myth gave rise to the popular motif in Renaissance and later art of Leda and the Swan.

5. Beroe

Beroe in Greek mythology is a nymph of Beirut, the daughter of Aphrodite and Adonis, and sister of Golgos. She was wooed by both Dionysus and Poseidon, eventually marrying Poseidon.