Infuriated at this turn of events, Hera takes the guise of an Amazon warrior and leads an attack. Heracles strangles Hippolyta in battle, thinking that she has betrayed him.

10. The Cattle of Geryon Heracles is sent to get a flock of magical cattle belonging to Geryon, a three-headed monster who lives at the western edge of the known world (modern Spain). The great hero trudges across northern Africa until he reaches the spot where the cattle are kept-the point where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean. He erects two great columns of stone-the Rock of Ceuta in Tangiers and the Rock of Gibraltar, afterwards known as the Pillars of Heracles. Killing the herders who keep the cattle, he drives them all the way across Europe, to Mycenae, where he sacrifices them to Hera. (This is the first of the labors set outside Greece, and it is thought that these "foreign" adventures were told as a way of describing the wider world as the Greeks sailed to the farthest reaches of the Mediterranean.) 11. The Apples of the Hesperides While looking for the golden apples that grew on a magical tree of life, Heracles finds Prometheus nailed to the rock. He kills the eagle that torments the Titan and sets Prometheus free. In gratitude, Prometheus tells Heracles how to get the apples from the Hesperides, the daughters of Atlas, who possess them. Heracles offers to hold up the sky while Atlas gets the apples. Freed from his backbreaking and onerous task, Atlas decides to leave Heracles where he is, stuck with his job. Heracles outsmarts the rather dimwitted Titan by asking him to hold the sky for just a moment. Atlas obliges and Heracles takes back the apples.

12. Cerberus, the Hound of Hades In his most daunting feat, Heracles must descend into Hades to steal the three-headed dog Cerberus, who guards the gates of the underworld. There are different versions of how Heracles does this. In one account, he fights with the lord of the underworld himself and wounds him. While Hades is off getting his wound healed, Heracles captures the dog, and brings it back to the upper world. In "defeating" death, Heracles supposedly gains immortality. But in another version, Hades is more compliant, and allows Heracles to take the dog as long as he uses no weapons. Protected by his lion skin, Heracles wrestles the dog, chains it, and drags it to the land of the living. Having accomplished this, he returns Cerberus to Hades.

After completing the twelve labors, Heracles marries the princess Deianira-a name that means "man-killer." As they travel together, they come to a river where they meet the centaur Nessus-one of the group that Heracles had fought with during the labors. For a small fee, Nessus ferries travelers across the river. While carrying Heracles' bride, Nessus tries to rape Deianira, and Heracles shoots him with a poisoned arrow. As he lies dying, the centaur convinces Deianira to take some of his now-poisoned blood and semen and smear it on Heracles' robe if she ever wants a love potion to keep her husband faithful.

After Heracles falls in love with another princess, Deianira follows the centaur's advice. But when Heracles puts on the robe, now poisoned with the centaur's tainted blood, it burns him so terribly that he begs to be placed on a funeral pyre. Heracles then leaps into the flames. His grief-stricken wife also kills herself by jumping into the funeral pyre when she realizes what she has done.

Ascending to the home of the gods, Heracles resolves his differences with Hera, marries Hera's daughter Hebe ("Youth"), and enjoys immortality among the gods on Olympus.

Which great hero gets "fleeced"?

Heracles plays a bit part in a tale of family feuding and power-grabbing that takes to the high seas in the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece, one of the first nautical adventures in Western literature. This much-loved tale has parts recounted by Homer, the playwrights Aeschylus and Euripides (whose Medea covers Jason's later years), as well as the philosopher Socrates. But the most familiar version was compiled in Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes, a third-century BCE account of the legend of the young prince Jason, who is forced to flee his home in the city of Iolcus after the throne there is unlawfully seized by his uncle. Fearing for Jason's life, his mother tucks him away in the cave of the wise centaur Chiron, who has tutored some of the greatest heroes in Greek myth.

When Jason returns to his home sometime later, his wicked uncle Pelias is in power and poised to kill his young rival. But there is one small problem-it's a feast day, and the ancient laws of hospitality are in force. Ever resourceful, Pelias tries another tactic. He tells Jason he will step down if the young man can bring back the Golden Fleece, which hangs from a tree in Colchis and is guarded by a dragon that never sleeps.

The fearless Jason recruits a crew of fifty heroes-including Heracles-who become known as the Argonauts, after their ship, the Argo ("Swift"). The largest vessel ever made, it is outfitted with a magical talking beam cut from Zeus's sacred oak at Dodona and given to Jason by Athena. Sailing from Iolcus in Thessaly, the Argonauts reach Colchis, but only after surviving a series of dangerous adventures, including a battle with the Harpies, winged monsters with hooked beaks and claws that swoop down and take the food from the table of a king. The grateful king tells the Argonauts how to defeat the next danger, the "clashing rocks" that smash together to crush any ship entering the Black Sea. Sending a dove ahead of them as a decoy, the wily Argonauts pass safely through the deadly rocks by rowing hard as the dove flies through.

Before winning the Golden Fleece, Jason discovers that he has two more obstacles-he must yoke together a pair of fire-breathing oxen and plow a large field where armed warriors spring up out of the dragon's teeth that have been sown there. The attractive Jason and his plight draw the attention of the king's daughter, Medea, a sorceress who gives the Argonauts' leader magic ointments to spread on his sword, shield, and body, which will protect him from the monstrous dragon guarding the fleece. When Jason's mission has been accomplished, Medea sails home with him on the Argo. The fiendish Medea then does what few ordinary sisters will do-she cuts up her brother Aspyrtus into little pieces and scatters these in the water so that her father, who is in hot pursuit, must stop to recover his son's body for proper burial.

But it was not to be happily ever after for these lovers.

When Jason unexpectedly returns with the fleece, King Pelias refuses to honor the bargain. Once again, it is Medea to the rescue. Pretending she has a magic charm to make the king young again, she tricks his daughters into killing him. Outraged at this "regicide," the people of Iolcus force Jason and Medea to flee to Corinth, where they live happily for ten years and have two children. As fate would have it, though, the couple's life unravels when Jason falls in love with the king of Corinth's daughter. Not one to take such a betrayal lying down, Medea kills her two sons and flees to Athens, where she has a son named Medus with the king of Athens. Broken, sick, and old, Jason is sitting beneath the prow of the Argo, when a piece of it breaks off and kills him. Medea is later banished back to Colchis. But she lives on as a central character in the tragedies of the playwright Euripides.

MYTHIC VOICES.

...Let no one think of me As humble or weak or passive; let them understand I am of a different kind: dangerous to my enemies, Loyal to my friends. To such a life glory belongs.

-EURIPIDES, Medea (431 BCE) Which Argonaut was a god of healing?

If you've ever been to a doctor's office, a pharmacy, or a hospital, you've probably seen it and wondered-why is there a symbol of a double snake entwined around a staff? This emblem of the medical profession is actually a mistake of sorts, and originates with Asclepius, depicted by Homer as a tribal wound-healer, and also one of Jason's Argonauts, who was no doubt brought along on the trip for his healing skills.*

Like Jason, Asclepius is raised by Chiron, the wise centaur. As a baby, Asclepius is sent to live with the mythical creature, after Asclepius's divine father, Apollo, discovers that his lover, Coronis, had been unfaithful to him while pregnant with their child. Miffed at the betrayal, Apollo does what any jilted Greek god might do-he strikes this woman with a bolt of lightning. Before she dies, however, Apollo suffers remorse. As Ovid tells it: But Phoebus flatly refused to allow the child of his loins to crumble to ashes, cremated in the funeral pyre of its mother, seizing the child from the womb, he bore it off to a cavern where dwelt the double-formed Chiron, the Centaur...

Apollo rescues his unborn child, who goes on to become an important Greek god, revered as the inventor of medicine throughout both ancient Greece and Rome, where he was known as Aesculapius.

From ancient records, we know that the Greeks held Asclepius in very high esteem. During plagues and in times of illness, the Greeks prayed to him for help and relief, setting up special temples where they went to communicate with him. Epidaurus, the site of several ancient Greek ruins including a famous outdoor theater built in the 300s BCE, was a special gathering place of the first physicians, who were known as the Asclepians. The ruins of an ancient temple honoring their patron was also found near the Epidaurus theater, apparently a place where many sick people went in hope that Asclepius would cure them through their dreams while they slept in a nearby guesthouse. By 200 BCE, according to Roy Porter's history of medicine, Blood and Guts, every Greek city-state had its temple to the god, where sick pilgrims slept overnight in special incubation chambers before an image of the healer god.

The admiration for Asclepius in Rome was equal to that of Greece. Not only did the Romans build a major shrine to the healing god after their city was delivered from a plague, they equipped the Asclepian temples with baths to capitalize on the healing power of water. The priests of Asclepius supposedly had extensive knowledge of herbal cures and other natural remedies-what we might call "alternative" treatments today-and crowds flocked to the "spas" of the ancient experts for these remedies as people today seek out spa treatments around the world.

Interestingly, the revered Asclepius gets into trouble in Greek myth when he oversteps his bounds. This happens when he uses his healing gifts to try and revive a dead man. Offended by this, Hades complains to Zeus, who delivers to Asclepius the same fate as Apollo had dealt his mother-Asclepius is killed with a thunderbolt and sent to the underworld. When Apollo discovers what has happened, he grants Asclepius divine status as the god of medicine.

MYTHIC VOICES.

I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panacea and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant: I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and further from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not in connection with it, I see or hear in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!

-from the Hippocratic Oath (original version) Was Hippocrates a man or myth?

In contrast to the mythical Asclepius, there is a historical basis to the life of the other most famous doctor of ancient Greece, Hippocrates. (430?-380? BCE). Often called the father of medicine, Hippocrates was a well-known ancient physician who practiced medicine on the Greek island of Cos. Hippocrates challenged the notion of using magic, myth, and witchcraft to treat disease. Taking the fairly radical step of dismissing "root-gatherers, diviners and others whom they dismissed as ignoramuses and quacks," as medical historian Roy Porter writes, Hippocrates and his followers believed that diseases had natural causes and could therefore be studied and possibly cured according to the workings of nature. As Porter puts it, "No longer pretending to be an intercessor with the gods, the true doctor would be the wise and trusty bedside friend of the sick."

While there is no evidence that he actually wrote the texts attributed to him, which probably derive from a variety of hands over time, Hippocrates is still credited with teaching his followers, the first physicians, to view the patient as a whole; accept that much healing takes place naturally; follow a simple diet to achieve good health; and regard the first duty of the doctor as to his patients rather than to himself. The profound maxim that permeates medicine today, "First do no harm," is attributed to his Epidemics, but is not actually part of the Hippocratic Oath, a modern version of which is still recited by many new doctors.

MYTHIC VOICES.

At a later time, there occurred portentous earthquakes and floods, and one grievous day and night befell them, when the whole body of your warriors was swallowed up by the Earth and the island of Atlantis in like manner was swallowed up by the sea and vanished; wherefore also the ocean at that spot has now become impassable and unsearchable, being blocked up by the shoal mud which the island created as it settled down.

-PLATO Was Atlantis ever discussed in Greek myth?

As fantastical places go, the so-called Lost Continent of Atlantis has had a long and intriguing history, peppered by inspiring stories, theories, bad science-fiction movies, a recent Disney animated feature, and even a sixties rock song by the pop singer Donovan ("Way down below the ocean/Where I want to be"). In the seventeenth century, a Jesuit writer published Underwater World, placing Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean. Jules Verne included a description of Atlantis in his nineteenth-century adventure classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. But contrary to popular belief, the story of this ancient but highly advanced civilization that disappeared beneath the ocean is nowhere to be found in ancient myth-either in Hesiod or Homer. What we know of Atlantis-"the island of Atlas"-actually comes from a rather unlikely source-Timaeus and Critias. These two "dialogues" were composed by the philosopher Plato (428348 BCE), the pupil of Socrates, who founded the Academy-later called the School of Athens-which flourished for more than nine hundred years.*

Plato readily acknowledged that what he knew of Atlantis had been handed down through a long series of storytellers and was possibly first spoken of by Egyptian priests-giving the impression of a long round of the game of "telephone," played out in ancient times. According to Plato's version, a brilliant and highly superior, wealthy and powerful civilization once existed on the isle of Atlantis, supposedly located beyond the Pillars of Heracles. This would have been the Strait of Gibraltar, which would place Atlantis in the ocean named after the legendary island, the Atlantic. But recently, others have argued that these pillars are actually the Bosporus Strait, which separates the Black Sea from the Mediterranean Sea, and that Atlantis truly existed in the Mediterranean.

In this legendary civilization, which supposedly flourished more than ten thousand years ago, "the most civilized men," as Plato described them, were descended from the sea god Poseidon and had created an earthly paradise. Food was plentiful, and the buildings and temples were magnificent. One of these temples, according to Plato's description, was "coated with silver save only the pinnacles and these were coated with gold. As to the exterior, they made the roof all of ivory in appearance, variegated with gold and silver...."

As Plato described it, Atlantis was a great military power that could muster an army of more than a million men. But its people turned corrupt and greedy, so the gods punished them. During one day and night, great explosions shook Atlantis, and the continent sank into the sea. Plato's apocalyptic tale of Atlantis has fascinated people ever since, providing both serious archaeologists and plenty of more imaginative "occult" theorists with an appealing target for their investigations and theories. Over the years, numerous expeditions have attempted to locate the remains of Atlantis, but so far none has discovered a "lost island" beneath the Atlantic Ocean. Among the most popular of these theories was that of Edgar Cayce, a famed American clairvoyant and psychic healer who died in 1945. In best-selling books that have attracted millions of readers over the years, Cayce claimed that Atlantis was a highly advanced society that possessed the equal of modern technology, and he prophesied that Atlantis would rise again in the latter part of the twentieth century. Needless to say, that prophecy has not been fulfilled.

Aristotle, Plato's student, had what may be a sounder theory. He suggested that Plato had made up the story in order to illustrate his own philosophy of ideal government, thoroughly summarized in The Republic. In this utopia, an intellectual elite ruled. Drawn from the ablest people of all backgrounds and sexes, these educated, qualified people were to rule as "philosopher kings." In this ideal society, they would live communally, share food, lodging, spouses, and own no property. Ruled by knowledge, they would govern for the benefit of all the other classes in a virtuous society embodying the ideals of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice.

While Plato was speaking allegorically, there may still be some historical basis to the Atlantean legend. The consensus among many archaeologists and historians is that the myth of Atlantis is probably based on the first major civilization in the region of Greece, which arose on Crete, an island that separates the Aegean Sea from the Mediterranean. Occupying a central position in the eastern Mediterranean, with proximity to Egypt, the Near East, and mainland Greece, Crete developed the first great seagoing power of the ancient world, beginning about 3000 BCE. It was this island culture, which produced lavishly decorated palaces, indoor plumbing, elegant pottery, and jewelry, that may have been the source of the legend of Atlantis.

Today, many scholars believe the cause of the cataclysmic destruction in the Atlantis legend was actually a volcano on the island of Thera in the Aegean Sea, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Crete. Volcanic eruptions destroyed most of Thera about 1550 BCE, largely wiping out the Minoan civilization, which had flourished on both Thera and Crete. "Minoan" got its name from King Minos, the legendary ruler of Crete and central character in one of the most significant Greek myths-the story of Theseus and the Minotaur.

Is Theseus and the Minotaur just another "bull" story?

If you've ever been lost in a maze, played the game Labyrinth, or been accused of telling a "bull" story, you've been connecting with a famous Greek myth. What's the whole story of Theseus and the Minotaur?

According to the myth, Crete's king Minos asks the sea god Poseidon for a sign of favor. A beautiful white bull emerges from the sea, and Minos is then expected to sacrifice this wondrous animal to Poseidon. Instead, Minos keeps the white bull and substitutes a lesser animal. As anyone remotely familiar with the Greek gods knows, holding out on an Olympian is never a good idea. Poseidon angrily curses Minos by causing his wife, Pasiphae, to fall in love with the white bull.

This is where the story takes a kinky turn. To satisfy her lust for the bull, Pasiphae has Daedalus, the Athenian statue-maker, make her a wooden cow. While hiding inside of it, Pasiphae is impregnated by the white bull and gives birth to a monster-a bull with a human head called the Minotaur. (Ovid relates this story in a poem in Art of Love, which concludes: "Well the lord of the harem, deceived by a wooden plush covered dummy/Got Pasiphae pregnant. The child looked just like his dad.") In order to keep this grotesque reminder of his wife's bestial infidelity hidden from view, Minos orders Daedalus to build beneath his palace an escape-proof secret maze called the Labyrinth, to house the Minotaur.

Enter Theseus, one of the legendary men of the Heroic Age and the greatest hero of Athens. The son of King Aegeus of Athens, Theseus had been raised away from his home, unaware of his royal blood. But his father, the king, had once buried a sword and a pair of sandals beneath a rock. He told the mother of Theseus that when her son was strong enough to move the rock, he could claim his inheritance-an ancient inspiration for King Arthur's later "sword in the stone." At sixteen, Theseus found rock, sandals, and sword, and went to Athens to reclaim his place as heir.

When Theseus reaches Athens, his father does not recognize him. But the sorceress Medea, now married to the king, knows exactly who he is. She tries to have Theseus done in, but he survives all of her tricks.

Theseus's most dangerous adventure now lies ahead of him. Ever since some Athenians had killed the son of Minos, the city of Athens has been compelled to send seven youths and seven maidens to Crete each year to be eaten by the Minotaur. To end this tragic deal, the heroic Theseus announces that he will go as one of the youths to be sacrificed, and kill the Minotaur. The Athenian victims always sail for Crete aboard a black-sailed ship. Before departing Athens, Theseus promises his father that if all goes well, he will return in a ship flying white sails.

In Crete, Theseus encounters Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, who immediately falls in love with the young hero and decides to help him kill the Minotaur. Ariadne gives Theseus a ball of thread she has received from Daedalus and tells the young man to trail it behind him as he descends into the Minotaur's lair. In one of the most memorable moments in myth, Theseus kills the Minotaur and retraces his steps through the maze's twisting passages by following the string. With the Minotaur dead, Theseus sails back for Athens. (There are different versions of Ariadne's fate. In the happy account, she marries the god Dionysus. But another says she died of a broken heart.) What should be a triumphal moment for Theseus turns painfully tragic. First, in Crete, when Minos learns that the inventor Daedalus helped Ariadne in the plot to kill the Minotaur, he throws the inventor and his son Icarus into prison. While imprisoned, Daedalus constructs two sets of wings made from feathers held together by wax. According to Ovid, Daedalus tells his son where to fly-halfway between sun and water. But Icarus is daring and wants to fly higher. When he flies too close to the sun, the wax melts, and he plunges into the sea. According to Barry Powell, the story of Icarus is a mythical illustration of the Greek maxim "Nothing too much," one of the proverbs inscribed over the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Powell comments in Classical Mythology: "Doubtless because overdoing things was a common weakness of the Greeks, their sages were fond of preaching the virtue of the 'Golden Mean.'"

The second tragedy involves the heroic Theseus, who has forgotten his assurance to raise white sails if he should come back alive. In his hurry to return home, Theseus forgets to take down the black sails, and when Aegeus sees the returning ship, he jumps into the sea, thinking Theseus is dead. (The Aegean Sea is named for the dead king of Athens.) With his father dead, Theseus became the king of Athens, and his rule is marked as the legendary beginnings of Athenian democracy. Theseus supposedly abolished the monarchy, minted the first coins, and created a unified state. Aristotle later viewed the story of Theseus and the Minotaur as an allegory for the victory of democracy over tyranny, and the story of Theseus became a national myth, Athenian propaganda. Historically speaking, the myths of Theseus are just that-myths. But as classicist Barry Powell puts it, "History and myth are a perennial tangle; humans are mythmaking animals, retelling ancient stories to fulfill present needs."

In actual history, Athenian democracy had its beginnings under the lawmaker Solon (639?-559? BCE), who led Athenian government until his retirement. One of his accomplishments was to reform the harsh Athenian laws drawn up earlier by Draco-a code so harsh it inspired the word "draconian." After Solon's retirement, Athenian democracy backpedaled under Solon's cousin, Pisistratus, and did not fully arrive until the thirty-year period under Pericles. Beginning about 460 BCE, Athenian democracy-while far from perfect-began to flourish. As historian Charles Freeman points out in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, "It remains unique as the world's only example of a successfully functioning and sustained direct democracy. It lasted for nearly 140 years-a remarkable achievement in a period of history where instability was the norm. It involved its citizens as officials, legislators and law enforcers in a way few modern democracies would dare to do and it is remarkable for breaking the traditional connection between political power and wealth. And all this when the city was also acting as a major and innovative cultural center."

MYTHIC VOICES.

What did they believe, these Greeks? Were the gods real to them or just metaphors? Certainly they did not have creeds or dogmas, confessional or doctrinal positions such as we have come to expect from religions. And just as certainly, there was a graduated spectrum of interpretation, as there must always be in things religious, that spanned classes and communities and that shifted in emphasis from one period to another. What is so striking about the Homeric gods-as opposed to the One that most of us are familiar with (though familiar is surely the wrong word)-is their lack of godliness. Oh sure, they have power beyond the dreams of the world's most powerful king, but they exercise this power just the way we would-heavy handedly, often mercilessly, even spitefully. And they are taken up with their own predictable domestic crises-who's sleeping with whom, who's getting back at whom, who's belittling whom. Could anyone actually believe in such gods?

-THOMAS CAHILL, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea What was the Delphic Oracle?

Of the many sacred places in ancient Greece, none was more significant than Delphi, home of the oldest and most influential religious sanctuary in ancient Greece. It was not just an important center-it was the center, literally. Delphi had come to be regarded as the omphalos, or navel, of the world, and the site was marked with a large conical stone. The sacred stone at Delphi was supposedly the very stone Rhea tricked Cronus into swallowing at the time of the Creation. After eating his first five children, the father god had swallowed this stone, wrapped in swaddling clothes, instead of the sixth child, Zeus. When Zeus later forced him to vomit forth the other children, this stone came out, too.

Delphi is near the Gulf of Corinth, on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, and a religious shrine was founded there sometime before 1200 BCE. Originally a shrine to Gaia, the earth goddess, the temple at Delphi by the eighth century BCE was dedicated to Apollo, the god of prophecy. For at least twelve centuries, the oracle at Delphi spoke on behalf of the gods, advising rulers, citizens, and philosophers on everything from their sex lives to affairs of state. The oracle spoke out, often deliriously, exerting wide influence.

As part of the ritual at Delphi, a petitioner brought an offering of sacred cake, a goat, or a sheep, before consulting the Pythia, the priestess of the shrine. After careful purification, Pythia sat on a tripod and fell into a trancelike state in which she received messages and prophecies from Apollo. In this trance, and sometimes in a frenzy, she would answer questions, give orders, and make predictions. Some scholars say her divine communications were then interpreted and written down by male priests, often in ambiguous verse. But others say the oracle communicated directly with petitioners.

For years, modern scholars have dismissed the theory that vapors rising from beneath the temple floor were responsible for the "inspiration," which is how the Greeks explained it. Despite many efforts, no underlying fissure or source of intoxicating fumes was ever found, and the vapors were assumed to be mythical, like much else about the site. But recent scientific work at the site is shaking that view. As reported in the Scientific American in August 2003, a geologist, an archaeologist, a chemist, and a toxicologist have uncovered a wealth of evidence that suggests the ancients had it exactly right. They have solid evidence that petrochemical fumes from the region's underlying rocks could rise to the surface to help induce visions. Specifically, the team found that the oracle probably came under the influence of ethylene-a sweet-smelling gas once used as an anesthetic, and which, in light doses, produces feelings of euphoria.

With the rise of Christianity, the temple eventually decayed and fell from favor. Around 361 CE, the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate tried to restore the temple, but the oracle wailed that her powers had vanished. In 390 CE, the Christian Roman emperor Theodosius permanently closed the temple as part of his drive to stamp out any vestiges of pagan worship.

Modern science may be reopening its lost secrets.

MYTHIC VOICES.

But do not worry about marriage with your mother; No end of males have dreamed of sleeping with theirs.

-SOPHOCLES, Oedipus the King Do all little boys want to kill their father and sleep with their mother?

The oracle plays a central role in a myth that was made a household name by Sigmund Freud. An "Oedipal complex" is-in Freud's view-a boy's desire to compete with his father and sleep with his mother. But what is the myth behind the psychology?

Oedipus was born the son of Laius, king of Thebes, and his wife, Jocasta. An oracle said Laius would die at the hands of his own son-a story with echoes back to the beginnings of Greek mythic Creation-who would then marry his mother. To protect himself, Laius places the three-year-old Oedipus on a mountainside to die. The boy is discovered while still alive by a shepherd who gives him to Polybus, the childless king of Corinth, and his wife, Merope. The couple rear Oedipus as their own, and he grows up unaware of his mysterious past. But when he goes to Delphi and hears the same grim prophecy that had troubled Laius, Oedipus leaves home, believing that he is sparing his true father and mother from harm.

That is when fate strikes. As he heads toward Thebes, Oedipus is run off the road by a chariot and fights with the driver and passenger, killing them both in a case of ancient Greek "road rage." What Oedipus could not have known was that one of the men he has killed is his real father, King Laius. Part one of the prophecy is thus fulfilled.

But the Delphic Oracle had also predicted that the man who solved "the riddle of the Sphinx" will be king of Thebes and marry the queen. On his way to Thebes, Oedipus next encounters the Sphinx, a creature with the head of a woman, the body of a lion, a serpent tail, and wings. Sent to plague the city after Laius had apparently disrespected the gods, the Sphinx lived on a high rock outside the city of Thebes, and would ask anyone who passed by to solve a riddle: "What has one voice and becomes four-footed, two-footed, and three-footed?"

A wrong answer results in death, and the Sphinx has been devouring Thebans one by one. Confronted by the Sphinx, Oedipus replies, "Man, who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two legs, and finally needs a cane in old age."

Furious because Oedipus has solved the riddle, the Sphinx jumps off the rocky perch to her death. Having solved the riddle, Oedipus arrives in Thebes, where he is made king and marries the queen. Jocasta, of course, is unaware that her new husband is really her son. Part two of the prophecy has been fulfilled. They have two sons, Polynices and Eteocles, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene.

Oedipus the King by Sophocles (c. 496406 BCE), the second of the three great Greek tragedians, is the most famous play to treat this extraordinary story of confused identities. As the play opens, Oedipus is already the king, and is trying to discover why the city is suffering from a plague, not realizing that his own actions are the cause. Through a turn of events, Jocasta realizes what has happened and rushes to her bedroom. Then the truth is revealed to Oedipus as well. He goes to the bedroom and finds that Jocasta has hung herself. Cursing himself, Oedipus then puts out his own eyes. Blinded and bloodied, he returns to the stage and asks to be sent into exile. Oedipus ends his days near Athens, where he is secretly buried.

On its own, as myth and tragic drama, the story of Oedipus is powerful stuff. But it gained a completely different currency when the term "Oedipus complex" was first used by the Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud in 1900. Freud used the Greek tragedy as support for his claim that every boy fantasized about killing his father and having incestuous sex with his mother, a desire that must be repressed. Freud described the "Oedipus conflict," or "Oedipus complex," as a state of psychosexual development and awareness that first occurs around three and a half years of age. Freud similarly claimed that all girls wanted to have sex with their fathers, what he called the "Electra complex."

Today, many psychoanalytic researchers and anthropologists have largely dismissed this idea. They believe that if such a complex develops, it is a result of personal factors and social environment, and is certainly not part of a universal mind-set.

Another in-vogue psychiatric term also gets its origins from Greek myth. Narcissism, often described as excessive or malignant self-love, comes from the brief tale of Narcissus. Son of a river god and a nymph, Narcissus was a boy of transcendent beauty. When his parents asked a seer if Narcissus would have a long life, they were told he would, as long as he did not see his own face. When he was grown, Narcissus loved no one until he saw his reflection in a pond. He stared at himself and reached to touch his face, falling into the pond and drowning. Ovid told a slightly different version of the myth, in which Narcissus was actually punished for his self-absorption. When he rejected the love of Echo, a nymph, she was so overcome by grief that she wasted away until only her voice remained. For his cruelty to the nymph, Narcissus was punished by drowning. After his death, Narcissus was changed into the flower that bears his name.

MYTHIC VOICES.

Whoever obeys the gods, to him they particularly listen....

The Olympian is a difficult foe to oppose....

The glorious gifts of the gods are not to be cast aside....

Not at all similar are the race of the immortal gods and the race of men who walk upon the earth....

Thus have the gods spun the thread for wretched mortals; that they live in grief while they themselves are without cares; for two jars stand on the floor of Zeus of the gifts which he gives, one of evils and another of blessings.

-From the Iliad Is Homer just a guy from The Simpsons?

Two long poems. One is a bloody, blow-by-blow account of men hacking at each other. The other is a tale of a lost wanderer trying to get home. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are still considered touchstones of Western culture. Yet we certainly don't know much about the guy who supposedly wrote them almost three thousand years ago.

The man we call Homer remains a mystery, for the most part, and scholars know almost nothing about the poet who has influenced our language and literature so thoroughly and significantly. Traditionally considered a blind Greek poet, Homer is thought by some scholars to have lived in a Greek-speaking city on the eastern shore of the Aegean Sea or on the island of Khios. But that is it. Beyond these meager clues, there is only the speculation of generations of readers and scholars.

For thousands of years people have argued over whether an actual Homer existed, and whether he wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey. New research into writing in Greece at that time, along with extensive studies of how oral poetry was composed and preserved, have changed the debate. There are several schools of thought concerning Homer. While one school contends that Homer actually composed and wrote down the poems himself just as writing emerged in Greek history, others say he was an illiterate bard who only sang the poems until writing emerged near the end of his life. At that point, literate scribes came to Homer's assistance and took dictation. Still a third school of thought contends that Homer's poems were memorized by a guild of public reciters called "rhapsodes"-the ancient Greek version of "wedding singers"-who carried on Homer's oral tradition until writing appeared in Athens much later.

During the twentieth century, researchers in the Balkan regions, where bards once sang, found living bards who still recite epics the length of Homer's and even longer. Accustomed as we are to instant news-with short attention spans and memories completely reliant on our Palm Pilots or Blackberries to keep track of a few phone numbers-to most of us that sort of expansive storytelling ability seems astonishing. But the Homeric epics originated in centuries long before Homer's time, when the bards were improvising and improving and even adding to older story lines. Most likely, the bards created a series of poems that told the entire story of the Trojan War, and it was Homer who may have given these stories their characteristic individual genius.

In Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, Thomas Cahill persuasively makes the case that Homer not only existed but had firsthand experience with what he wrote. "Homer was thought to have been a wandering blind bard, but this is almost certainly due to Homer's description of a blind bard who performs in the Odyssey, later taken to be a self-description of the poet. Whatever the case, he must have been sighted, at least earlier in life, for there is too much in the Iliad of gritty reportage for us to think that the poet never saw battle. It would, in fact, be most unlikely if Homer did not serve as a soldier.... There is scarcely a Greek figure of any consequence who did not serve in the military as a young man or did not afterwards take a keen interest in warfare."

Blind or not, real or not, the man we call Homer transformed the way people experienced myth. And finally it all comes down to the poems anyway. When you compare the words, emotions, and action of his two epics to the earlier literature of mythology-in Egypt and Mesopotamia, for instance-you see how Homer humanized the myths. Certainly, his gods could be remote and powerful. But they were also powerfully human-with all the flaws that implies. They raged, they lusted, they envied, and, like Hera, they sought vengeance. And it was that sense of making the divine human that may lie at the heart of what Homer and the rest of the "Greek Miracle" was all about.

How did Homer fit a ten-year war into a poem?

First of all, the Iliad-which means a poem about Ilium (Troy)-is not the history of the Trojan War. Rather it describes events in the final year of the Trojan War, fought between armies of the kingdoms of Mycenaean Greece and the city of Troy, located on the coast of what is now Turkey. According to legend, the Trojan War lasted ten years, until Greece defeated Troy-all because Helen, the young wife of Sparta's King Menelaus, had run off with the handsome Paris, prince of Troy. But the story of the Iliad-divided into twenty-four books and consisting of more than 15,600 lines-covers only fifty-four days. And much of it describes only four days of fighting, separated by two days of truce. When it ends, Achilles is still alive and Troy not yet taken.

So, what's the story?

Believe it or not, stubborn men fighting over a beautiful woman. The war itself, of course, is ostensibly fought over Helen. But as the epic opens, an angry quarrel has broken out between Agamemnon, brother of Menelaus, king of the Mycenaeans and leader of the Greek forces, and Achilles, the greatest warrior among the Greeks. Agamemnon demands that a captured Trojan girl be given to him as war booty. But she is the daughter of a priest of Apollo, and the Greeks are advised to return the girl to her father. When Agamemnon refuses, Apollo strikes the Greek forces with plague, wiping out hundreds of warriors, until Agamemnon relents. In exchange for the girl he gives up, however, the stubborn Greek king demands another girl, who has already been given to Achilles as war booty.

This seemingly minor incident, and the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon, is at the heart of the poem. More like a sulking child than the greatest warrior of all time, Achilles withdraws into his tent and refuses to fight. Without Achilles, the Greeks are driven back to their ships by the Trojan forces and their leader Hector, son of Troy's king Priam, and Troy's greatest champion.

Wearing the armor of Achilles, Patroclus-who is Achilles' closest friend, tent mate, and, many scholars contend, his lover-tries to lead the Greeks into battle. But he is no match for Hector, who kills Patroclus. With the death of his friend and comrade, Achilles is aroused to seek revenge. Given a new suit of armor made for him by the smith god Hephaestus, Achilles returns to the battle and, after slaughtering many Trojans, kills Hector outside Troy. Lashing the body of the fallen Trojan hero to his chariot, Achilles drags Hector around the walls of Troy and finally back to his own tent. He keeps Hector's body, executes some Trojan captives, and threatens to cut Hector to pieces until King Priam comes to plead with him. Achilles is commanded by the gods to grant Priam's request, but it is Achilles' own sense of human pity that makes him yield to the broken old man. He gives Priam the body for proper burial, and the story ends with the funeral of Hector.

For nearly 3,000 years, readers have found the Iliad a moving expression of the heroism, idealism, and tragedy of war. In addition to the battle scenes, the Iliad tells about life within Troy. It describes the emotional farewell between Hector and his wife, Andromache, who foresees his death. A great soldier, Hector is also a family man, who is called on to defend his country and, in so doing, loses his life. A reluctant warrior, he berates his brother Paris for causing the war but is also loyal to him. In many ways the truest "hero" of Iliad, Hector embodies Homer's themes of honor, loyalty, and social obligation.

Is the Iliad all there is to go on when it comes to the Trojan War?

In a word, no.

Many of the events that lead up to the Iliad are not actually described in the poem, which is sharply focused on the war itself, with vivid, pulsing descriptions of battle and the conduct of both men and gods. One of the most gruesome moments is told in the play Agamemnon by Aeschylus, and describes the sacrifice of Iphigenia, Agamemnon's daughter. Ready to sail, the Greeks cannot get a favorable wind, because Agamemnon had once slighted the goddess Artemis. To save the expedition, Agamemnon is advised to sacrifice his own daughter, Iphigenia. Deceived into believing that she is going to marry Achilles, the young girl is dressed in a wedding dress and brought to the altar only to learn that she is going to be sacrificed. Once Iphigenia is dead, the winds blow fair. (In another version, Artemis intervenes at the last second and sends a substitute animal, just as God gave Abraham a substitute ram in Genesis when he was about to sacrifice his son Isaac.) Another scene not in the Iliad-this one about Achilles-comes from myth. As Ovid tells it, Achilles had been dipped in the River Styx as a baby. Therefore, he could never be wounded, except at the spot where his mother held him by the heel. Achilles dies when he is shot in the heel by Paris. This was, of course, the origin of our phrase "Achilles' heel," which means a person's weakness or vulnerable point.

Continuing the list of what is not in the Iliad is the actual fall of Troy. This scene is described in the Aeneid, an epic poem by the Roman poet Virgil. The Aeneid tells how the Greeks build a huge wooden horse, "the Trojan horse," and place it outside the walls of Troy. Odysseus and other warriors hide inside the horse while the rest of the Greek army sails away. Although the prophetess Cassandra* and the priest Laocoon warn the Trojans against taking the horse into their city, they are ignored. But a Greek named Sinon, left behind to provide "disinformation," persuades the Trojans that the horse is a sacred offering, which will bring them the protection of the gods. The Trojans then pull the horse into Troy, and in the night, as the Trojans "sleep off" their victory celebrations, Odysseus and his companions creep out of the horse. The gates of the impregnable Troy are opened, and the Greek army storms the city, having returned from a nearby island where their ships had been hidden. The Greeks wipe out almost all the Trojans, burn Troy, and take back Helen.

And finally, the cause of the war itself comes from ancient myth, not Homer. The real troubles begin with an incident at a divine wedding feast. All the gods and goddesses have been invited except Eris, the goddess of discord. Eris is offended and tries to stir up trouble. She sends a golden apple to the feast, inscribed with the words "For the most beautiful." Three goddesses-Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite-each claim the apple for herself. Finally the handsome Paris, the son of Troy's King Priam, is brought in to judge the dispute. While all three goddesses try to bribe him, he awards the apple to Aphrodite, because she promises him Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, the semidivine daughter of Leda and Zeus.

Helen is already married to King Menelaus of Sparta. But when Paris visits her, Aphrodite causes her to fall in love with the Trojan prince, and she flees back to Troy with him. Paris has not only stolen his host's wife, he has broken a sacred code of being a proper guest. Menelaus and his brother, Agamemnon, organize a large Greek expedition against Troy to win back Helen-and for this she is, in the words of playwright Christopher Marlowe, "the face that launched a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Ilium."

Was there really a Trojan War?

Did it happen? Was Troy real? Did Agamemnon, Helen, and Hector live and breathe? Or did Homer, like Shakespeare in his plays about real kings, embroider a tale that made the mortal immortal?

Since Heinrich Schliemann's nineteenth-century discovery of Troy, much digging has been done to try and get to the bottom of the Troy question. What Schliemann thought was Troy turned out to be actually a much earlier city, and after more than one hundred years of archaeology, scholars still don't agree on Troy and the legends of the war. While some think Homer's epic is an outright fiction, others believe it exaggerates small conflicts involving the Greeks from about 1500 to 1200 BCE. Still others say the legend of Troy is based on one great war between the Mycenaean Greeks and the city of Troy in the mid-1200s BCE. Archaeology and recent scholarship have combined to paint a portrait of this ancient face-off between two regional "superpowers." Archaeologists have found strong historical evidence in the ruins of Troy and other places that confirms certain events described in the epics.

In an article for the Archaeology Institute of America (May 2004), Manfred Korfmann, a director of excavations at Troy and a professor of archaeology at the University of Tubingen, had this answer to the question of the "real" Trojan war: "According to the archaeological and historical findings of the past decade especially, it is now more likely than not that there were several armed conflicts in and around Troy at the end of the Late Bronze Age. At present we do not know whether all or some of these conflicts were distilled in later memory into the 'Trojan War' or whether among them there was an especially memorable, single 'Trojan War.' However, everything currently suggests that Homer should be taken seriously, that his story of a military conflict between Greeks and the inhabitants of Troy is based on a memory of historical events-whatever these may have been. If someone came up to me at the excavation one day and expressed his or her belief that the Trojan War did indeed happen here, my response as an archaeologist working at Troy would be: Why not?"

MYTHICVOICES.