Herakles, the Hero of Thebes, and Other Heroes of the Myth Adapted from the Second Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece

Deukalion was the son of Prometheus, and a just and god-fearing man. In the time of Deukalion, Zeus destroyed the human race by means of a great flood. People had become wicked...

More than a hundred miles northwest of Athens is Thessaly, the most northern country of Greece. The greater part of it consists of mountains, the highest and steepest of all Gre...

The horses darted forward to their long race, and their first few leaps brought them above the highest mountains. Before the eyes of the youth the whole extent of land and sea l...

On the tenth day of her wanderings she met Hekate, who said: "Lovable Demeter, who hath robbed thee of thy daughter and plunged thee into sorrow? I heard her cries when she was...

Iberia, now called Spain, lies at the farthest end of Europe, and beyond it, in the Atlantic, is an island which was once the home of Geryon, a famous giant. His body was as lar...

Persephone did not return, and the angry goddess grew more angry. She determined to punish the gods, even though it brought suffering to mankind. Indeed there was no other way t...

Helios, the god of the Day, had a famous son whose name was Phaethon. Helios drove the chariot of the Sun through the heavens, and Phaethon played by the sea-shore where his mot...

Some of the heroes famed in Greek song and story, and whose descendants lived in Greece, had come from foreign countries, many of them from Asia Minor. Greece and Asia Minor had...

Less than sixty miles in a straight line to the southwest of Athens there is a barren, swampy plain. It is in the Peloponnesos and is bounded on all sides by mountains except to...

Jason cared little about the motives of the king in sending him after the Golden Fleece. His courage ran high and the anticipation of seeing other countries and doing valiant de...

When the wedding between Zeus and Hera was celebrated all the gods brought presents. Mother Earth brought some apple-trees as her gift. These trees bore precious golden apples,...

When the Argonauts had drawn their ship up on the beach, Jason presented himself before the king and said: "Oh, king, we have come to ask thee for the Golden Fleece, which belon...

On his way back to the island of Seriphos, Perseus met with many adventures. He visited Atlas, expecting the hospitality which the Greeks consider due to all strangers. But Atla...

Theseus was too active to love an idle life and began to look around him to find ways of helping his father's people. He wanted to be worthy of the throne. "It is not enough," h...

The land of Attica is very different from Arcadia. It was cleared at a much earlier time than the southern part of Greece, which could be done the more easily as the soil being...

In the same land of Thrace in which Jason's family ruled, Orpheus, the greatest musician of Greece, was born. It was said that his mother was the Goddess of Song, and such was t...

To the northwest of Trœzene is a tongue of land projecting into the Ægean Sea. In ancient times the town of Epidauros was situated upon it, and the temple, where Asklepios, the...

Elis is a beautiful plain lying to the north and west of Arcadia. Here once in five years there was a great festival in honor of Zeus, when all the men and boys ran races, wrest...

The ship reached Crete and Minos ordered the weeping youths and maidens to be thrown into the den of the Minotaur and Theseus with them. By a lucky chance Ariadne, the daughter...

Heaven and earth were created. The sea rolled its waves against the shore and played around the islands. The fishes sported in the waters in lively gambols. On the land the bird...

Prometheus was securely bound with iron fetters and fastened to the solid rock. The servants of Hephæstos increased his tortures with their bitter speeches. But Prometheus bore...

Dædalos was a native of Athens and descended from one of the most ancient kings of Attica. It was he who constructed the labyrinth in which King Minos of Crete locked up the mon...

Twelve miles to the west of Athens is a beautiful hill which ends abruptly close to the sea. It is the acropolis or highest point of Eleusis and is covered with splendid blocks...

Eurystheus, as we have seen, sent Herakles a little farther every time in hopes of never seeing him again. It would take you a whole day going on the best steamer to get to Cret...

Medusa was the youngest of three sisters known as the Gorgons, who lived somewhere in the far west by the ocean. She was the fairest of the three and in her youth had been a fam...

Not far from Mykenæ is a small lake called Lerna. It is formed from a large spring at the foot of a hill. In this lake there lived a water-snake called the Hydra. It was a snake...

Bœotia is a district northwest of Athens and quite different from the Attic plain. The name means The Land of Cattle, because it abounds in fat pasture-lands, is moist and ferti...

It happened that a fearful lion lived in Nemea, a wild district in upper Argolis, and it devastated all the land and was the terror of the inhabitants. Eurystheus ordered Herakl...

We have already read about Elis, a plain in the southwestern part of Greece, where all the people used to worship Zeus and where they built a wonderful temple in his honor. They...

Far away in the land of Argos there once lived a beautiful maiden, the daughter of a brave king. She was tall and fair and her name was Alkmene. Her father was rich in the posse...

When Perseus reached home he did not find the glad welcome to which he had looked forward with all the ardor of a youth who has been for the first time on an important errand. H...

The lower part of Greece is a most peculiar-looking bit of country. You would think it had been torn off from the bulk of the land but kept hanging on to it by a small narrow st...

According to the terms of the doom that was laid upon Herakles, the performance of the last task was to free him from Eurystheus. Eleven were now fulfilled and the tyrant's hear...

The wrath of Hera followed Herakles. When Zeus saw that Hera's heart was filled with anger toward Herakles, he mused within his own mind how he might best appease her resentment...

On the northern limit of Arcadia is a huge cliff, over which pours a black ribbon of water. At the bottom of the cliff it is lost among piles of rocks. The water itself is not b...

Demeter returned to her home among the gods on Mount Olympos. But before she went she called Triptolemos, an older son of King Keleos to her and gave him her car which was drawn...

Greece was bounded on the north by a wild and mountainous land, called Thrace. The natives were not of Greek stock and remained fierce, lawless, and cruel for a long time after...

There is an island south of Greece which is so large that it would take you from early morning until late at night to sail past it. There are high mountains all along the shore...