Ancient Greece may seem very remote from our high tech life. Yet our present language is a living testimony of our Greek heritage. There are so numerous words and abstract concepts created by Ancient Greeks such as “atom” which we were shocked to learn was created, the word and the concept by Democritus ( 460-370 …
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32. Echo and Narcissus
The Story of Echo and Narcissus is one of the most enduring tales from the Greek Mythology. It is a sad tale of self-love and unrequited love, one which has been told over hundreds of years. Certainly to warn about the toxicity about both : self-love as well as unrequited love. The doom of Echo Echo …
31. The Danaïdes Barrel
The Twin Brothers : Danaus and Aegyptus King Belus of Egypt and the Naiad Anchinoe had twin boys Danaus and Aegyptus. As his kingdom was vast, Belus divided his territory equally between his 2 boys. Surprisingly the 2 now kings fathered both 50 children. Even more surprising, Aegyptus had 50 boys and Danaus 50 girls. …
30. The Naming of Athens: Athena versus Poseidon
The capital of Greece is named after Athena, the goddess of wisdom. But why ? it has been quite a competitive challenge between the gods to be chosen by the mere mortals who populated this extraordinary city. At the beginning, the city of Athens was named Cecropia, after Cecrops, the supposed first Athenian king. The …
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29. Daedalus and Icarus
“Flying too close to the sun” Daedalus was a descendant of Hephaestus and was famous for his creative mind and his inventions. But one day in Athens, Daedalus was so upset and envious of his nephew Talos who had imagined the compass that he killed him. He had to fled and sailed to Crete. The …
28. The Odyssey
« Tell me, Muse, of that man of many resources, who wandered far and wide, after sacking the holy citadel of Troy. Many the men whose cities he saw, whose ways he learned. Many the sorrows he suffered at sea, while trying to bring himself and his friends back alive. Yet despite his wishes he failed …
27. Where Was Troy? Did It Ever Existed?
There has been in the past terrible debate as to whether the mythical Troy actually had ever existed. Troy is the setting for Homer’s Iliad and is the starting point of his second epic The Odyssey. But for most of the scholars until the mid 19th century , Troy was merely a mythical city that most probably had …
26. The Trojan Horse
The epic war between the kingdom of Troy and the Greek alliance, the Achaeans, contains many fascinating stories, however the most famous is most likely the story of the Trojan Horse. The war which happened around the 13th century BCE, was in fact a ten-year siege of the city by a coalition of Greek forces …
25. The Iliad by Homer
Homer’s “Iliad” followed by “The Odyssey” are believed to be the first works of European literature, and many would say, the greatest. Both are supposed to have been written sometime around the 7th century BCE and still to this day, generations after generations, we still feel passionate about these great heroes and warriors. The Iliad tells part of the saga …
24. The Origins of the Trojan War
It all started at the wedding of the sea-nymph Thetis to the Hero Peleus . The goddess of discord Eris was outraged for not having been invited and malignantly threw an apple on the table where Hera, Aphrodite and Athena were sitting. The Apple thrown had a label: “ to the most beautiful goddess”… As it …