Introduction

Greek mythology is the body of stories the ancient Greeks told about their gods, heroes and the making of the world, and it has shaped the art, literature and thought of the West for nearly three thousand years. This section covers the primordial powers and the Titans, Zeus and the Olympian gods, the heroes from Heracles and Perseus to Theseus and Jason, the Trojan War and the wanderings of Odysseus, the Underworld and what the Greeks believed about death, the monsters and creatures of myth, and the religion behind the stories: sacrifice and festivals, oracles such as Delphi, and the mysteries of Eleusis and Orpheus. It reads the myths through their sources, from Homer and Hesiod to the tragedians and later mythographers, and follows them into Roman, Renaissance and modern culture.