Greek Mythology

© BBC.CO.UK

Perseus was the son of Danae, the daughter of King Acrisius, and Zeus. King Acrisius had been told by a prophet that his grandson would kill him, so he locked his daughter in a brass tower so she could not have children. Despite this, she secretly married Zeus and became pregnant. When King Acrisius found out about the baby, he was frightened. Not wanting to kill them, he put Danae and Perseus into a chest and cast them into the sea. The chest washed up onto an island in the Aegean Sea called Seriphos, where a fisherman called Dictys let them out and looked after them while Perseus grew up.

The Challenge: The King of Seriphos, Polydectes, was a cruel man, and when he met Danae he was enchanted with her beauty. He did everything he could to persuade her to marry him. Scared, Danae refused, but Polydectes would not leave her alone. He was trying to force her to marry him, by pretending to marry another woman. When Perseus turned up at the wedding without a wedding present, Polydectes scorned him for being a lazy good-for-nothing. Perseus reacted furiously, boasting that he could get anything in the world that the king wanted; the king demanded the head of a Gorgon. Perseus recoiled in horror, but accepted the challenge, impossible though it seemed. The king had succeeded in getting rid of Perseus. He thought Perseus would never return.

The Gorgons: There were three Gorgons: Medusa, Stheno and Euryate. All were once very beautiful women. So beautiful that Poseidon seduced Medusa in one of Athena's temples. As Athena was already jealous of Medusa's looks, she turned Medusa and her sisters into hideous monsters. They had bronze wings, claw-like hands, tusks for teeth, and live snakes for hair. Anyone who looked into their eyes would be turned to stone forever. Perseus knew that he would probably die trying to get the Gorgon's head, but he had to try for his mother's sake. As he left the king, he was surprised by two figures suddenly appearing before him. It was Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, and Hermes, Messenger of the Gods...

Alexander the Great, whose tomb has been missing for nearly 2,000 years, could be buried in Broome in Western Australia, a Perth man says. Macedonian-born Tim Tutungis told ABC Kimberley that he first heard the 'Broomer' from his old mate, Lou Batalis."We just got onto the subject of Alexander The Great's tomb, and he said, 'They'll never ever find it, no matter where they look, because Alexander the Great is buried in Broome, in Western Australia'," Mr Tutungis said. "Approximately 50 years ago, some guy went into a cave in Broome and he saw some inscriptions inthere and they looked like ancient Greek."He reported it to the government, then the government went and saw it and they confirmed there were some inscriptions there. "They went to the Greek community and they asked the community, 'Is there anyone here who can read ancient Greek?' "Naturally Louis Batalis put his hand up and said, 'Yes, I went to school in Egypt, I got educated, I can read it'.

So they took him up there and he defined the inscriptions as saying, in ancient Greek, 'Alexander the Great'. "The government did say to him at that time, 'You didn't see this, OK, this never happened'."

History's mystery Alexander the Great died on June 11, 323 BC, probably from malaria, alcoholism orpoisoning. One traditionally accepted story says his body was placed in two gold caskets in a gold carriage. Another says his body was preserved in a clay jar filled with honey and that this was placed in a glass coffin. Some historians say Alexander's general and friend, Ptolemy, stole the body and took it to Alexandria, while others say Roman Emperor Caligula looted the tomb and stole Alexander's breastplate. According to some sources, Emperor Septimius Severus closed Alexander's tomb about 200 AD, and little is known of the body's whereabouts after that. Mr Tutungis says he is 99 per cent convinced Mr Batalis told him the truth, because people "have looked everywhere" for Alexander's grave, to no avail. He says his friend is a very old man now and has virtually lost hismemory,......

It's not hard to see why Zeus was such a popular god with the ancient Greeks. He not only wielded a thunderbolt, but he also got into all sorts of trouble, including liaisons with humans and goddesses - much to the annoyance of his wife, Hera.Greek gods were figures people could relate to, said archaeologist David Romano of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. And worshiping Zeus apparently involved some serious partying. Working at the remote Mount Lykaion in Greece, Romano has found"evidence of a drinking party and possibly feasting" around a famous altar built on the 4,500-foot peak.

These relics go back 3,200 years, about the time the earliest stone tablets started to refer to Zeus as the godfather of the gods."What's new is this mountaintop altar had cult activity that's continuous from the Mycenaean to the Hellenistic periods," Romano said, meaning between the 14th and second centuries B.C. At various depths, he and colleagues have unearthed silver coins and other Zeus icons, including a tiny bronze hand with a silver lightning bolt. Romano will speak on his latest finds tomorrow at 6 p.m. at the Penn Museum. Mount Lykaion is mentioned in myth as the birthplace of Zeus,Romano said, and it appears no one lived on the desolate peak, though the view is spectacular. For hundreds of years, people apparently hiked there for religious ceremonies and feasts. Last year, Romano announced that the site contained primitive pottery shards that go back to the end of the Neolithic or New Stone Age period, more than 5,000 years ago, before the first Greek-speaking people arrived. He suspects this material stems from some sort of religious or cult activity. But no one knows if the deity before Zeus was a party animal, too.

Copyright: Philadelphia Inquirer

As near as anyone can calculate, Hercules became a god in 1226 B.C. He wasn't supposed to. His original destiny was to simply become king of Mycenae. But a series of behind-the-scenes treacheries put his evil twin, Eurystheus, on the throne. Worse yet, this bad brother-king required Hercules to perform a series of seemingly impossible tasks.Greek mythology has a way of righting injustices, though, and the very labors meant to destroy Hercules served to make him a hero instead: The name of Hercules became synonymous with strength and daring. Nobody ever heard of Eury-something-us.As for Mycenae, it remains, equal parts myth and stone, on ahilltop in Greece's Peloponnesian Peninsula.

It's one of three essential stops on a circuit of classical Greece archaeological sites beyond Athens. Olympia gets more coverage, especially during an Olympic Games year. And Delphi inspires more curiosity because of its oracle. Both of those places attract bigger crowds. But at Mycenae, the course of Western civilization shifted to embrace the heroic. Between the mysterious doings of the Minoan culture of Crete, which ruled the Aegean before, and the hyper-logical mind-set of the Athenians afterward, Mycenae held sway. To pass through its much-photographed Lion Gate is to enter an age of giants.

Mycenae The ruins of Mycenae (pronounced my-see-nee) sit on a hill that today faces a wide, flat valley ofcitrus and olive groves: the plain of Argolis. Its back is protected by a low mountain range in the eastern reaches of the Peloponnesian Peninsula. Getting here from Athens means crossing the Corinth Canal, the digging of which technically turned the peninsula into an island. There's an eerie quality about Mycenae. Guides who elsewhere bellow for the attention of their followers speak more softly here. Tourists tread lighter on the walkways and whisper among themselves rather than prattle out loud. The midafternoon sun doesn't burn as hot as on other hillsides, for a stiff wind carries its heat away. For a long time, the experts were sure Mycenae was just so much storytelling on the part of Homer. To accept it as historic fact also would have required at least entertaining the possibility that it was populated with larger-than-lifecharacters.......