Greek myths
Eight units on the main Greek myths, read from the oldest sources: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days, most likely composed in the 8th and early 7th centuries BCE. The course covers the Olympian gods, the creation story and the Titans, Prometheus, Pandora, the labours of Heracles, the Trojan War, the return of Odysseus and the English words these stories left behind. Each unit names its sources and marks where versions disagree or a famous detail comes from a later writer.
About this course
The Greek myths are read here from the oldest sources: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days, most likely composed in the 8th and early 7th centuries BCE. Each unit names its sources and marks where versions disagree or a famous detail comes from a later writer. The Romans matched their own gods to the Greek ones, so many English books use Roman names: Zeus became Jupiter, Hera became Juno, Poseidon Neptune, Athena Minerva, and Apollo kept his name.
The eight units are the twelve Olympian gods, creation and the Titans, Prometheus and the gift of fire, Pandora and the jar, the labours of Heracles, the Trojan War, the return of Odysseus, and English words from Greek myths. The family tree runs through three generations, from Gaia and Ouranos to the Titans Kronos and Rhea, and then to Zeus and his siblings. A question on Pandora compares Hesiod's poem of about 700 BCE with Erasmus writing in 1508 CE, when the jar became a box. On vase painting, the Met holds an Athenian amphora signed by the potter Andokides, made about 530 BCE, that shows Heracles struggling with Apollo over the Delphic tripod. The twelve metopes on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia were finished in the 460s BCE.
The last book of the Iliad is quiet. Old King Priam, guided by Hermes, crosses the Greek camp alone and enters the hut of the man who killed his son. The 24 books of the Odyssey fall into four groups: Telemachus looks for news, Odysseus leaves Calypso and reaches the Phaeacians, he tells his own adventures, and he returns to Ithaca. In book 11 he sees Tantalus in the underworld, standing in a pool up to his chin.
Before you start
You can start without any background. Each story is told from Homer and Hesiod with the source named. If you want the real cities and wars behind the legends, Greece and Rome is a good companion, though the myths make sense on their own.
When you finish
You will be able to name the twelve Olympians and where poets placed their palace, retell how Hesiod described creation and the Titans, and explain the trick at Mecone and Prometheus's gift of fire. You can say why Pandora opened a jar rather than a box, list the labours of Heracles, follow the Trojan War and Odysseus's return, and trace words like panic back to the myths.
- 1The twelve Olympian godsThe Greeks always spoke of twelve great gods, yet no ancient writer left a list that everyone agreed on.
- 2Creation and the TitansHesiod measured the universe with a falling anvil: nine days from the sky to the earth, nine more down to Tartarus.
- 3Prometheus and the gift of firePrometheus smuggled fire to humans inside the hollow stalk of a giant fennel plant.
- 4Pandora and the jarIn Hesiod, Pandora opens a large storage jar, not a box; the box arrived in 1508 with a Latin retelling by Erasmus.
- 5The labours of HeraclesThe oracle at Delphi first set Heracles ten labours; he ended up doing twelve because two were not counted.
- 6The Trojan WarThe war at Troy lasted ten years, but the Iliad covers only about fifty days of the last one, and it never shows the wooden horse.
- 7The return of OdysseusOdysseus was away from Ithaca for twenty years: ten at war, and ten more trying to get home.
- 8English words from Greek mythsEach time someone panics, English is naming the god Pan, whose sudden shouts were said to send whole crowds running.
Sources for this course (15)
- Theoi Project, "Olympian Gods" (theoi.com/greek-mythology/olympian-gods.html)
- Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days (Evelyn-White translation, Perseus/Theoi; Diotima translation of Works and Days 53-105 by B. MacLennan, diotima-doctafemina.org; Purdue excerpt of Theogony 535-616)
- Homer, Iliad and Odyssey
- Apollodorus, Library 2.5
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 3 (A. S. Kline, ovid.lib.virginia.edu)
- Britannica, "Homer" (dating the works, stabilizing the text; Hesiod not long after 700 BCE; earliest alphabetic inscriptions c. 730 BCE) and "Odysseus"
- The Met, Heilbrunn Timeline essay "The Labors of Herakles" (C. Hemingway, 2008, metmuseum.org/essays/the-labors-of-herakles)
- University of Oxford, Classical Art Research Centre, "Metopes of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia" (carc.ox.ac.uk)
- Ashmolean Museum, "Odyssey: the story of Odysseus in the ancient world"
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre and ICOMOS 1998 evaluation, "Archaeological Site of Troy" (whc.unesco.org/en/list/849)
- E. H. Cline, "Digging Up Troy", Lapham's Quarterly 2017
- Merriam-Webster, "The Mythological Origin of Panic"
- Online Etymology Dictionary entries panic, Atlas, atlas, mentor (etymonline.com)
- UCSB English dept. notes on "mentor" (OED and American Heritage)
- University of Iowa, "It's Greek to Me: Panic". Map coastlines: Natural Earth 1:110m (public domain).
Checked: 2026-10-17