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Tomb raiders and treasure hunters
The Mediterranean in Antiquity – a short review
Life in Classical times
Burial customs simplified
Coffins and sarcophagi in many shapes and sizes
Life after death
Burying the dead
The Roman way of death
Houses for the dead
Remembering the dead
Cultural crossroads – the Roman provinces of Syria and Judaea 
A Roman Province
Decapolis and Palmyra – cosmopolitain cities of the East
The Jews
The first Christians
Martyrs and relics
Forgeries

Selected sources
People, places and events
Mythology
Glossary

MYTHOLOGY

Acheron  A branch of the river Styx which was said to mark the border to the Underworld.

Amor (Greek. Eros), the personification of Love, also regarded as a deity.

Amor is the son of Venus (Gr. Aphrodite) and Mars (Gr. Ares), and is often depicted as an adolescent or infant with wings.

Ariadne  Greek mythological heroine, the daughter of King Minos of Crete. She fell in love with Theseus, the Athenian hero, who abandoned her on the island of Naxos. She was found by Dionysus who made her his wife.

Charon  In Greco-Roman mythology, the ferryman who takes the dead over the river Acheron or Styx to the Underworld.

Di manes: (Lat.) The spirits of the dead.

Dionysus: Son of the god Zeus and Semele, the mortal daughter of the hero Cadmus and his wife Harmonia. The god of wine, orgies and the theatre.

Dionysian mysteries: One of several ancient initiation mysteries. Its members claimed to have secret knowledge about the Afterlife. The exact practices of the mysteries are not known, but probably developed from earlier rituals practiced in Minoan Crete between 3000 and 1000 BC. The mysteries may have taught ways of mastering a type of ‘primal being’ within the Self, which is probably one of the reasons why the cult had a strong popular appeal among people outside the social mainstream.

Elysium (Gr. Elysion): A paradise-like Afterworld for heroes and those favoured by the gods.

Eros (see Amor above).

Medusa: A monstrous female character, with snakes for hair and a petrifying gaze. In some myths she appears as one of three sisters, the Gorgons.

Hades (Lat. Pluto): Greek god of the underworld, and brother of Zeus. Also the name of the Greek Underworld.

Hermes  (Lat. Mercury) Greek messenger god, also responsible for travellers and merchants. Hermes leads the dead to Hades.

Hippocampus  A sea-monster, half fish, half horse.

Hypnos  Personification of Sleep, depicted as winged man.

Cerberus  Three-headed dog guarding the entrance to Hades.

Larvae: Roman ghosts or spirits of the dead which can return to the world of the living.

Lemures  Roman ghosts or spirits of the dead believed to haunt and harm the living.

Maenad  Nymphs in the entourage of Dionysus.

Minerva (Gr. Athena): Greek and Roman goddess of wisdom, daughter of Zeus.

Mundus  A passage between the world of the living and Underworld.

Also a pit used for offerings.

Nymph  Female nature deities, associated with springs, rivers, lakes and other natural water sources.

Orpheus  A figure from Greek mythology, the “father of music” and the inventor of the lyre, known for his ability to charm nature and wild animals with his music. The most famous story about him deals with the sudden and tragic death of his wife, the nymph Eurydice. He followed her to Hades, hoping to save her from eternal death. Persephone convinced Hades to let them both return to the world of the living, but Hades set one condition: Orpheus was not to look back at Eurydice until they had returned to the world of the living. They walked the long path through Hades and crossed the river Styx, but Orpheus reached the sunlight before his wife, and turned around to look at her. He was too quick and his last glimpse of Eurydice was as she faded back into the darkness of the Underworld.

Persephone (Lat. Proserpina): Daughter of Zeus (Lat. Jupiter) and Demeter (Lat. Ceres), the goddess of agriculture. Persephone was abducted by Hades (Lat. Pluto) and rules the underworld with him as his wife.

Psyche  Personification of the soul, and also the name of Eros’s beautiful lover, usually depicted as girl with butterfly wings.

Sabazius  Phrygian god, generally associated with Dionysus, especially the Roman version, Bacchus. Bacchus-Sabazius was popular in the eastern parts of the Roman Empire, particularly among soldiers.

Sarcophagus  Receptacle for the body of the dead, made of stone or other heavy materials, like terracotta.

Satyr  A natural deity, part goat, part man, and an important member of Dionysus’ following. Satyrs are associated with agricultural fertility, an aspect of Dionysus as the god of wine. They are also associated with the Greek deity, Pan.  

Semele  Mother of Dionysus, lover of Zeus, and the mortal daughter of the hero Cadmus and his wife Harmonia. 

Silen  An old, comical and drunk satyr.

Scylla  Female sea monster with fish-like body and several monstrous heads.

Soul  The intangible part of a human being. “Soul” has been defined and explained differently depending on religious beliefs and philosophical ideas. The Greek word psyche and the Latin word animus are generally translated as ‘soul.’ Both are related to the verb ‘to breathe,’ and were originally used to differentiate between the living and the dead.

Both terms also contain aspects of ‘spirituality,’ in particular animus which is perhaps better explained as ‘the spiritual principals of life.’ These can include things we experience through thought and memory, or our own character or personality.

One single word does not cover the various meaning animus held in Antiquity. For example, a part of the animus was thought to be present in portraits or images of individuals.  This is one of the reasons why the use of images caused such controversy in the Early Christian period.

Styx  River forming the border of the underworld. The ferryman Charon crosses the river in his boat, carrying the dead to Hades.

Tantalos  A semi-god, son of Zeus and the nymph Plouto, and the mortal king of Lydia (somemyths, however, place him in Phrygia). Tantalos was invited to Olympus to dine with Zeus, but he stole the god’s ambrosia and brought it back to the mortal world, where he
shared it with other humans as he revealed the secrets of the gods. Zeus
punished him for this by “tantalizing” him with food and drink he could neither eat nor drink, before sending him to Tartarus, in the depths of Hades.

Tartarus  The deepest, gloomiest and lowest part of the Underworld, where wrongdoers were punished after death.

Thanatos  Personification of Death, usually depicted as a male with wings.

Troy The famous legendary city that played a major role in Homer’s epos The Iliad . When Paris, son of King Priamos of Troy abducted beautiful Helen, wife of King Menelaos of Sparta, he set off a series of events that led to the Trojan Wars.  The attack on Troy  was led by Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae and lasted for many years. All the major Greek gods and heroes appear in the epos, among them Achilles. One of the most famous episodes is when a huge, wooden horse was given to the Trojans, who presumed it was a gift from the gods. At night, after the horse had been brought inside the walls, Agamemnon’s soldiers climbed out, and set fire to the city. 

The site of Troy has been identified as present-day Hisarlık in western Turkey, excavated by Heinrich Schliemann in the 1870’s.

Victory (Gr. Nike): Personification of Victory, usually depicted as female in a long robe with wings, holding the wreath of victory in her hands.

NEXT: GLOSSARY