National Latin Exam Myth Review (Except "Trojan War and Aeneas", which has its own Quizlet) ALL LEVELS

Persephone (Proserpina), Demeter (Ceres), and Hades (Pluto)

This myth explains why we have the seasons of the year.

Narcissus and Echo

He was a handsome youth who fell in love with himself. She was the tragic nymph who could only repeat the last words that were said to her.

Orpheus and Eurydice

He was the master musician and she was his wife. When she died on her wedding day, he tried and failed to rescue her from the underworld with the power of his music.

Daphne and Apollo

She detested even the idea of marriage. Unfortunately a god was struck with Cupid's arrow and fell in love with her. She was rescued by being turned into a tree.

Phaethon and Apollo

He was the son who wanted to prove who his father was. He did so, tragically, by driving and crashing his father's chariot of flaming horses.

Hercules

The strongest hero of all. He had to complete 12 labors in order to cleanse himself of the guilt he felt for killing his own family.

Arachne and Minerva.

Their story involves a weaving contest that resulted in one of them being turned into a spider.

Midas and Bacchus and Apollo

This kings was given the golden touch by one god, and donkey's ears by another god.

Atlas

This titan holds up the heavens and, in some accounts, the world too.

Cerberus

The three-headed guard dog of the underworld.

Chimera

This monster has three heads (a lion's, a goat's, and a snake's) and breathes fire. It was killed by the hero Bellerophon who flew on the winged horse Pegasus.

Cyclops

This monster has one big eye and EATS PEOPLE!!! Polyphemus in the Odyssey is the most famous.

Medusa

One look at this snaky-haired woman will turn you to stone! She was killed by the hero Perseus who used her severed head to free Andromeda from a sea monster.

Minotaur

This half-man and half-bull lives in a giant maze on the island of Crete called the Labyrinth. It was killed by the hero Theseus who had help from Ariadne who gave him string.

Pandora

She was the world's first woman. She had a box that she was not allowed to open. She did.

Pegasus

This winged horse was born from the blood of the severed head of Medusa.

Prometheus

This titan gave fire to mankind. Zeus (Jupiter) punished him for doing so by chaining him to a rock. Every day a vulture comes to eat his liver.

Sphinx

This monster is half-woman and half-lion and EATS PEOPLE!!! She also enjoys telling riddles.

Actaeon

He was transformed into a stag by Diana after he accidentally saw her and her nymphs bathing. He was torn apart by his own hunting dogs.

Atalanta

She was the fastest girl in the world. No one could beat her in a foot race. She agreed that she would marry the man that could beat her in a foot race, with the stipulation that all the men who lost must die. Hippomenes beat her with three golden apples.

Daedalus

He was the greatest inventor and craftsman in the world. He used feathers, wax, and string to make wings for himself and his young son Icarus. The heat from the sun melted the wax holding Icarus's feathers together and he plunged to his death in the sea that now bears his name, the Icarian Sea.

Io

She was a nymph whom Jupiter/Zeus was attempting to seduce. When his wife Juno/Hera suddenly appeared in order to catch him in the act, he turned her into a cow in order to fool her. Juno ordered the multi-eyed monster Argus to watch over the cow. After Argus was killed, Juno gathered up all his eyeballs and put them onto the tail feathers of the peacock.

Jason

This hero was tasked with retrieving the Golden Fleece. Along with the Argonauts (sailors of the Argo) he found it on the Black Sea coast. The witch Medea helped him steal the fleece and escape. Once back in Greece, he abandoned Medea and their two children for a Greek princess. In revenge, Medea killed the princess and her family and, finally, she killed her and his two children.

Odysseus

He is the hero associated with the following monsters: Cyclops Polyphemus, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and the witch Circe.

Oedipus

An oracle predicted that he would kill his father and marry his mother. It came true! He also famously answered the riddle of the Sphinx.

Philemon and Baucis

Old, poor, and hospitable husband and wife who welcomed Jupiter and Mercury, disguised as beggars, into their home. Because none of their neighbors had let them into their homes, Jupiter flooded the entire land in punishment. For their hospitality, he granted the couple's wish that neither outlive the other. Instead of dying, the two turned into two intertwined trees

Pyramus and Thisbe

Ancient Romeo and Juliet; talked through crack in wall; met at mulberry bush; he kills himself when he thinks she was eaten by a lion, then she kills herself; mulberries turn red.

Janus

Two-faced god of beginnings, ends, and doorways. The month of January, the doorway into a new year, is named after him. His temple was established by Numa, Rome's second king. When its doors are open, Rome is in a state of war. When its doors are closed, Rome is at peace. Its doors were rarely closed!

Castor and Pollux (The Gemini)

Twins born from the same egg-birth as sisters Helen and Clytemnestra. Their mother Leda was seduced by Jupiter/Zeus in the form of a swan. One was mortal. The other was immortal. When one died, the other went down to the underworld to make a deal with Pluto/Hades. Both twins would alternate days spent alive or dead. One brother would always be in the underworld. They were worshiped by the Romans as patron gods of horsemanship and sailing. They are sometimes called the Dioscuri.

Hecate

Roman goddess of witchcraft and magic. She is also associated with crossroads (trivia in Latin). For some reason, the place where roads intersect has always been associated with witchcraft and the occult. Occasionally she is confused and combined by the Romans with the goddesses Diana and Proserpina (the Roman version of Persephone)

Lares and Penates

Roman household gods, usually worshiped in the form of little clay statues. These were kept in the atrium of a Roman house in a shrine called the Lararium. Legend has it that Aeneas brought the original ones from Troy to Italy after the Trojan War.

Quirinus

After Romulus's death he became a god named this.

Manes

These are the spirits of the dead who remain securely stuck in the underworld. They were worshiped at the Roman festival of Parentalia.

Lemures

These are the ghosts that come back to haunt the living. They were exorcised from houses during a Roman festival in May.

Saturn

Father of Jupiter and the other Olympians. After Jupiter overthrew him, he fled to Italy and hid out there in the central region called Latium (where Rome now is). Romans believed that Latium derived from the verb lateo, latere which means to lie hidden. There, he taught mortals the ways of agriculture which led to a Golden Age for humanity in Italy. In thanks and in hope for a bountiful harvest each year, Romans celebrated the god every December with the harvest festival of Saturnalia.

Meleager

He put together a small army to hunt and kill a monstrous boar that was terrorizing the countryside. His lifeforce was somehow connected to a log of wood, which his mother kept for safe keeping. When he killed his uncle during a quarrel, his mother threw the log into a fire in a fit of rage.

Adonis

He was Venus' beloved. After he was killed by a boar, a flower sprouted from his blood.

Callisto

She was a nymph follower of Diana. As such, she was bound to remain a virgin. After becoming pregnant by Jupiter, Diana banished her. Juno, jealous of Jupiter's extramarital activities, turned her into a bear. Ultimately, Jupiter turned both her and their son into the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the Big and Little Dipper.

Niobe

She boasted that she was more blessed than Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana, because she had fourteen children. In revenge for this boast, Apollo and Diana killed all fourteen of her children. She wept in grief until she turned into a weeping stone. In many versions, she turns into a cliff face that emits water from a natural spring.

Pygmalion

He was a sculptor from Cyprus who hated women. However, he was very lonely. He sculpted what seemed to him to be a perfect woman, though, of course, she was only a statue. On Venus's festival day he prayed to the goddess to give him a wife as perfect as his statue. Venus did one better. She made his statue come alive. The newly transformed woman was named Galatea and she and he lived happily ever after.

Aeolus

King of the winds. In the Odyssey, he gives Odysseus a bag of winds to speed him on his way. In the Aeneid, he helps Juno create a storm at sea to blow Aeneas off course from Italy.

Deucalion and Pyrrha

They were the only mortals who survived a devastating flood caused by Jupiter/Zeus in order to wipe out humanity. They received an oracle to repopulate the earth by throwing the bones of their mother over their shoulders. Initially horrified and perplexed by this oracle, they soon realized that the earth is the mother of us all, and that stones are the bones of the earth. Each stone they threw over their shoulder became a living human being! In this way humanity was born again.

Nemesis

Goddess of revenge. When Narcissus spurned all his suitors, it was to her that one of them prayed for Narcissus to love himself as much as all his suitors did.

Pan

He is a satyr or faun (i.e. a combination of a man and a goat.) He is often seen playing his pipe.

Orcus or Dis

Other names used for Pluto/Hades, the god of the underworld.

Proserpina

The Latin name for Persephone, the goddess of the underworld.

Charon

He is the boatman who ferries the souls of the dead across the River Styx (although in some accounts it is the River Acheron). He only accepts into his boat souls of the dead who have been buried properly and whose corpses have been provided payment for him in the form of a coin or two, either placed over the eyes, or in the mouth.

Styx

In most descriptions of the underworld, this is the first barrier to the living. Its waters were powerful and magical. Any oath that the gods swore on this river they were bound to keep. Thetis, the sea nymph mother of Achilles, dipped her son into this river in order to make him invulnerable to mortal wounds. Unfortunately, she did not fully submerge him, leaving his heel exposed.

Lethe

Another river in the underworld whose waters cause forgetfulness. Souls who are about to be reincarnated drink from this river to forget their past lives.

Sisyphus

Punished for being a cruel ruler and for cheating death. His punishment was to ceaselessly roll a large boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down. A sisyphean task is a pointless, futile task.

Tantalus

Punished for attempting to feed his son Pelops to the gods. His punishment was to be just out of reach of food and water for all eternity. He remains stuck in a pool of water that disappears when he tries to drink. Branches with fruits are suspended above his head, but are yanked away when he tries to grab them. Something tantalizing is something you want that is just out of reach.

Ixion

Punished for attempting to rape Juno/Hera. His punishment is to burn forever on a spinning wheel of fire.

Danaids

These 50 sisters all married men on the same day, though they did not want to get married. 49 of them decided to kill their husbands on their wedding night. Their punishment was to fruitlessly draw water from a well with buckets that have holes in the bottom for all eternity.

Centaurs

These are half man, half horse. The most famous is Chiron, a tutor to heroes.

Dryads, Nereids, and Oreads

These are all various kinds of nymphs, minor goddesses of nature.

The Fates

Parcae in Latin, these are three sisters - Clotho, who spins the thread of life; Lachesis, who measures out the length of a person's life; and Atropos, who cuts the thread at death.

The Furies

Also called Eumenides or Erinyes, these are nightmarish sisters who punish evildoers. They look like Gorgons with snakes in their hair. They carry torches with black flames.

The Gorgons

They are three sisters, two immortal, and one, Medusa, mortal. They have snakes for hair and can turn you to stone with one glance. Perseus slew Medusa. Pegasus, the winged horse, was born from her blood.

The Graces

These three sisters are the personification of loveliness. They are usually hanging out with Apollo singing and dancing.

The Graeae

These three, old, grey sisters with only one eye between the three of them feature in the story of Perseus. They instruct him in how to slay Medusa.

The Muses

These nine sisters are the daughters of Jupiter/Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory. They inspire artists, musicians, and other creative people to create.

Satyrs

Also called fauns, these are half man, half goat. Pan is the most famous. They are characterized as being hideously ugly and always chasing after nymphs.

The Sirens

These are usually described as being beautiful women from the waist up, and monstrous and bird-like from the waist down. They lure sailors to their doom with their irresistible song. Odysseus managed to hear their song and survive. He had his men tie him to the mast of his ship while they plugged their ears with beeswax.

Auster, Boreas, Eurus, Favonius , Notus, and Zephyr

Various names for winds.

Arethusa

She was bathing in a river called Alpheus that suddenly began to speak to her and get a little too friendly with her. She fled and the river god chased after her. Even when she fled underground to the island of Ortygia, where she was transformed into a spring of water, Alpheus did not stop chasing her. Now his waters mingle with hers such that objects placed in his river in Greece eventually emerge from her waters on Ortygia.

Hyacinth

He was a young man whom Apollo loved. Apollo accidentally killed him with a discus. In some versions, a wind god was jealous of Apollo and he blew Apollo's discus so that it swerved off course and killed his beloved. Upon his death he became the flower that still bears his name.

Procne

She and Philomela were sisters. Tereus was her husband. He forced himself on Philomela. In revenge, she killed her son by Tereus and fed him to Tereus who did not know what (who) he was eating. In the end, all three were turned into birds. She became the nightingale whose call is mournful sounding.

Psyche

She was the most beautiful girl in the land. People began to worship her for her beauty causing Venus, the goddess of beauty, to become jealous. She ordered her son Cupid to have her killed. However, Cupid fell in love with her. Cupid made her promise never to look at him in the light in order to keep his identity a secret from her. The temptation, however, was too great.

Cybele/Magna Mater

This goddess was originally worshiped in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). She is often associated with Rhea, the mother of the twelve Olympians. Her priests were men who were forced to castrate themselves. The Roman poet Catullus famously wrote a poem (Poem 63) about this.

Endymion

He was beloved by the original moon goddess, the titan Selene. In order to keep him all to herself, she granted him eternal youth and put him to sleep forever.

Iris

The goddess of the rainbow. She often serves as a messenger goddess for other goddesses such as Juno.

Isis

Egyptian goddess, wife of Osiris, and mother of Horus. Her worship spread from Egypt to throughout the Roman Empire

Mithras

In ancient Indo-Iranian mythology he is the god of light, whose cult spread from India in the east to throughout the Roman Empire. He was frequently worshiped by Roman soldiers. He is often depicted slaughtering a bull.

Danae

Mother of Perseus. Jupiter/Zeus seduced her in form of a shower of gold.

Europa

Jupiter/Zeus seduced her in the form of a tame bull.

Leda

Mother of Castor, Pollux, Helen, and Clytemnestra. Jupiter/Zeus seduced her in the form of a swan.

Semele

Mother of Bacchus/Dionysus. She was incinerated by witnessing Jupiter's godlike appearance. Jupiter rescued Bacchus by storing him in his thigh.