Picture Credits
SECTION ONE
1. Olympus. Iliad Room, Palazzo Pitti (fresco), Luigi Sabatelli. De Agostini Picture Library / Bridgeman.
2. Prometheus Bound, Peter Paul Rubens, c.1611–18. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, PA, USA / Purchased with the W. P. Wilstach Fund, 1950 / Alamy.
3. Danaë, 1907–8, Gustav Klimt. Galerie Wurthle, Vienna, Austria / Bridgeman.
4. Danaë and Baby Perseus being Rescued by Corsali in Serifo Island, Jacques Berger, 1806. De Agostini Picture Library / Bridgeman.
5. Perseus, Jacques-Clément Wagrez, 1879. Peter Horree / Alamy.
6. Medusa, painted on a leather jousting shield, Caravaggio, c.1596–98. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Tuscany, Italy / Bridgeman.
7. Perseus and Andromeda, Carle van Loo, seventeenth century. State Hermitage, St Petersburg / Alamy.
8. Young boy portrayed as Heracles choking the snakes (marble), Roman, (second century AD). Musei Capitolini, Rome, Italy / Heritage Image Partnership / Alamy.
9. The Origin of the Milky Way, 1575, Jacopo Tintoretto. National Gallery / Alamy.
10. Heracles and the Nemean Lion, Pieter Paul Rubens. Historic Collection / Alamy.
11. Athenian Attic black-figure amphora with Heracles carrying the Erymanthean Boar, c.510 BC. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA / Alamy.
12. Amazonomachy, first century BC, clay with polychrome remains. Campana collection, Italy / Alamy.
13. Heracles, Attic Kylix in the style of Douris, c.480 BC. Vulci, Papal Government – Vincenzo Campanari excavations, 1835–1837 / Vatican Museums.
14. The Garden of the Hesperides, c.1892. Frederic Leighton. Lady Lever Art Gallery / Alamy.
15. Zeus Striking the Rebelling Giants (the Fall of Giants) in The Hall of Jupiter, 1530-33 (fresco). Perino del Vaga. Villa del Principe, Italy / Ghigo Roli / Bridgeman.
16. Winged horse Pegasus, ridden by Greek mythological hero Bellerophon. Official symbol of the Parachute Regiment / Alamy.
17. Orpheus before Pluto (Hades) and Persephone, Francois Perrier, seventeenth century. Louvre, Paris, France / Bridgeman.
18. Orpheus and Eurydice, Enrico Scuri, nineteenth century. De Agostini Picture Library / A. Dagli Orti / Bridgeman.
SECTION TWO
19. Priestess of Delphi, John Collier, 1891. Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide / Alamy.
20. Hylas and the Nymphs, 1896, John William Waterhouse. Manchester Art Gallery, UK / Alamy.
21. Jason and the Argonauts Sail Through the Symplegades (Clashing Rocks). Engraving depicting Jason and the Argonauts from ‘Tableaux du temple des muses’ (1655). Almay.
22. Jason Taming the Bulls of Aeëtes, 1742, Jean Francois de Troy. The Henry Barber Trust, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, UK / Bridgeman.
23. Medea, Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys, nineteenth century. Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, UK / Bridgeman.
24. Medea Putting the Dragon guarding the Golden Fleece to Sleep, Spanish School, nineteenth century. Private Collection / © Look and Learn / Bridgeman.
25. And plunged them deep within the locks of gold (pen and ink on paper), Maxwell Ashby Armfield, Illustration for ‘Life & Death of Jason’ by William Morris. Private Collection / Bridgeman.
26. The Calydonian Boar Hunt, 1617, Peter Paul Rubens. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna / Alamy.
27. Atalanta and Hippomenes, c.1612, Guido Reni. Prado, Madrid, Spain / Bridgeman.
28. Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1864, Gustave Moreau. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA / Alamy.
29. Red-figured Kylix, depicting the deeds of the hero Theseus, made in Athens. Dated fifth century BC. British Museum / Alamy.
30. Theseus Taming the Bull of Marathon, 1745, Charles-André van Loo. Los Angeles County Museum of Art / Alamy.
31. The Toreador Fresco, Knossos Palace, Crete, c.1500 BC (fresco) / National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece / Bridgeman.
32. The Tribute to the Minotaur, woodcut engraving from the original painting by Auguste Gendron, 1882. Glasshouse Images / Alamy.
33. The Legend of Theseus with a Detail of the Cretan Labyrinth (engraving), sixteenth century. Private Collection / Bridgeman.
34. Attic bilingual eye-cup with black-figure interior depicting running minotaur and inscription reading ‘the boy is beautiful’. Werner Forman Archive / Bridgeman.
35. Landscape with Fall of Icarus, Carlo Saraceni, 1606–7. Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, Campania, Italy / Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Sergio Anelli / Bridgeman.
36. Ariadne in Naxos, 1925–26 (tempera on handwoven linen), Joseph Southall. Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, UK / Bridgeman.
37. Statue of Theseus, Athens. © Sotiris Tsagariolos / Alamy.
Foreword
Heroes can be regarded as a continuation to my book Mythos, which told the story of the beginning of everything, the birth of the Titans and gods and the creation of mankind. You don’t need to have read Mythos to follow – and I hope enjoy – this book, but plenty of footnotes will point you, by paperback page number, to stories, characters and mythical events that were covered in Mythos and which can be encountered there in fuller detail. Some people find footnotes a distraction, but I have been told that plenty of readers enjoyed them last time round, so I hope you will navigate them with pleasure as and when the mood takes you.
I know how off-putting for some Greek names can be – all those Ys, Ks and PHs. Where possible I have suggested the easiest way for our English-speaking mouths to form them. Modern Greeks will be astonished by what we do to their wonderful names, and German, French, American and other readers – who have their own ways with Ancient Greek – will wonder at some of my suggestions. But that is all they are, suggestions … whether you like to say Eddipus or Eedipus, Epidaurus or Ebeethavros, Philoctetes or Philocteetees, the characters and stories remain the same.
Stephen Fry
Introduction
ZEUS sits on his throne. He rules the sky and the world. His sister-wife HERA rules him. Duties and domains in the mortal sphere are parcelled out to his family, the other ten Olympian gods. In the early days of gods and men, the divine trod the earth with mortals, befriended them, ravished them, coupled with them, punished them, tormented them, transformed them into flowers, trees, birds and bugs and in all ways interacted, intersected, intertwined, interbred, interpenetrated and interfered with us. But over time, as age has succeeded age and humankind has grown and prospered, the intensity of these interrelations has slowly diminished.
In the age we have entered now, the gods are still very much around, favouring, disfavouring, directing and disturbing, but PROMETHEUS’s gift of fire has given humankind the ability to run its own affairs, build up its distinct city states, kingdoms and dynasties. The fire is real and hot in the world and has given mankind the power to smelt, forge, fabricate and make, but it is an inner fire too; thanks to Prometheus we are now endowed with the divine spark, the creative fire, the consciousness that once belonged only to gods.
The Golden Age has become an Age of Heroes – men and women who grasp their destinies, use their human qualities of courage, cunning, ambition, speed and strength to perform astonishing deeds, vanquish terrible monsters and establish great cultures and lineages that change the world. The divine fire stolen from heaven by their champion Prometheus burns within them. They fear, respect and worship their parental gods, but somewhere inside they know they are a match for them. Humanity has entered its teenage years.