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Greek Mythology > People, Places, & Things > Erginos to Eulimene
Earth to Elysian Fields Emathia to Eretria Erginos to Eulimene Eumaios to Exomis
A son of Poseidon (lord of the Sea); one of the Argonauts; the father of the legendary architects, Trophonius and Agamedes.
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Loud-Thundering, i.e. Zeus.
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Goddess of Hate; the sister and companion of the brutal war god, Ares.
Her wrath is unyielding; in the tenth year of the siege of the city of Troy, Zeus sent Erida to the encampment of the Akhaians (Achaeans); when she stood on the centermost of the beached vessels at sunrise and screamed, the soldiers rose from their beds with the hateful voice of Erida ringing in their ears; their hearts were hardened and they longed for the sweetness of battle.
For more detailed information on Erida I suggest that you consult the Immortals section.
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A river god; one of the many sons of Tethys and Okeanos (Ocean).
The river which Eridanos inhabited is thought to be the modern Po or perhaps the Rhine.
When the son of Helios (the Sun), Phaethon, drove his father’s chariot too close to the earth, Zeus struck Phaethon with a thunderbolt and he fell into the river Eridanos.
Zeus gave the Rivers, Apollon and the Okeanids the special obligation of having the young in their keeping.
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A small river that flowed through Athens.
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The daughter of Ikarius (Icarius).
When Dionysus was traveling in Attika (Attica), he was entertained by a kindly man named Ikarius; as a reward, Dionysus gave Ikarius the gift of wine which was unknown to mortal men; when Ikarius’ neighbors drank the wine they became drunk and murdered Ikarius; Erigone, with the help of her dog, Maera, found her father’s body and in utter sadness, committed suicide by hanging herself from a tree.
In ancient Attika her suicide was celebrated at a festival called The Aiora; during the festival, dolls were swung from trees to commemorate Erigone’s suicide; (aiora = swing).
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King Erikhthonios; the son of Dardanos (Dardanus) and the second ruler of Troy; he was the father of Tros, from whom the Trojans got their name.
Erikhthonios was the richest of men and had a herd of three thousand horses, twelve of which were fathered by Boreas (North Wind).
His name may also be rendered as Erikhthonius or Erichthonios.
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One of the legendary kings of Attika (Attica); the son of the god, Hephaistos (Hephaestus), and Gaia (Earth); he was the father of Pandion.
Gaia gave the infant Erikhthonios to Athene (Athena) for protection; Athene put Erikhthonios in a chest and gave it to the three daughters of Kekrops (Cecrops) to guard, with the admonition that they never open the chest; as you can imagine, the women could not resist opening the chest; when they beheld the snake-like appearance of Erikhthonios, they went mad and they made a suicidal leap from the rocky plateau of the Akropolis (Acropolis) at Athens.
It’s one of the mysteries of Greek mythology as to why three women, whose father, Kekrops, was also snake-like, would be driven mad by the snake-like appearance of Erikhthonios; perhaps they were driven mad not by his appearance but because they disobeyed Athene and were punished for their effrontery.
His name may also be rendered as Erikhthonius or Erichthonios.
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A Greek poetess from the small island of Telos in the Mediterranean Sea.
Only a few fragments of her works remain; she died at the age of nineteen and is most noted for the heartfelt poem she wrote to her lost love, Baukis (Baucis); he either married someone else or died before he and Erinna could consummate their love.
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Three of the daughters of Nyx (Night); Alekto (Alecto), Megaera and Tisiphone.
They are called by many names but are usually referred to as the Furies; they are also known as the Eumenides (the Kindly Ones) and Semnai (the Holy); they are depicted as winged women of fierce countenance but, according to Pausanias (fl. 160 CE), their images on the Akropolis (Acropolis) at Athens were not fierce or supernatural.
In The Iliad (book 9, line 571), Homer referred to a singular Fury as Erinys (the Mist-Walking); Hesiod said that the fifth day of the month was always harsh because the Erinys assisted Eris (Discord) in giving birth to Orkos (Oath) on that day.
For a more information on Erinys I suggest that you consult the Immortals section of this site.
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The wife of Oileus, king of Lorkis (Lorcis), and mother of Lesser Aias and step-mother of Medon.
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An epithet for Hermes, i.e. Luck-Bringer.
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The wife of the doomed seer, Amphiaraus, and the mother of Alkmaeon (Alcmaeon).
Eriphyle accepted an irresistible bribe from Polynikes (Polynices) and induced her husband to go on the ill fated quest to capture the city of Thebes; Polynikes gave Eriphyle the Necklace of Harmonia which he had inherited as a direct descendant of Kadmus (Cadmus) and Harmonia; the necklace was thought to be cursed and the death of Amphiaraus gave credence to that belief.
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The goddess of Discord or Strife; she is the daughter of Nyx (Night); the sister and companion of the god of War, Ares.
The children of Eris are:
For more detailed information on Eris I suggest that you consult the Immortals section of this site.
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The god of Love; one of the original four Immortals.
Khaos (Chaos) was the first Immortal, followed by Gaia (Earth), Tartaros (Tartarus) and then Eros, who was the “fairest of the deathless gods.”
Eros is also referred to as Aphrodite’s son even though he existed for ages before Aphrodite (goddess of Love) was created; when he shot an arrow it was called a “messenger of pain.”
When the Argonauts reached the land of Kolkhis (Colchis), Hera and Athene (Athena) asked Aphrodite to have Eros shoot the king’s daughter, Medea, with one of his enchanted arrows; after she had been shot, Medea fell in love with Iason (Jason) and, in defiance of her father, assisted Iason in taking the Golden Fleece.
For more detailed information on Eros I suggest that you consult the Immortals section of this site.
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He and his brother, Boutes, were the sons of Teleon and both brothers became Argonauts.
After the Argonauts had successfully captured the Golden Fleece, and were making their perilous voyage home, Erybotes and Boutes could not resist the call of the Sirens as the Argo sailed past the island of Anthemoessa; the two heroes jumped overboard and would have died on the rocky shore if Aphrodite (goddess of Love) had not plucked them from the sea and transported them safely to Libya.
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A savage boar which menaced the countryside around Mount Erymanthus; Herakles (Heracles) was required to capture the boar alive as his Fourth Labor and return it to his cousin, Eurystheus.
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Mount Erymanthus; a mountain in southern Greece, on the north-central Peloponnesian Peninsula, due south of the port city of Patrae on the thirty-eighth parallel; 7,295 feet (2,224 meters) in height; also called Olonos.
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The home of the three-bodied warrior, Geryon, slain by Herakles (Heracles) in the course of his Tenth Labor (Taking the Cattle of Geryon).
The location of Erytheia is simply given as a land in the far West; on the long journey to Erytheia, Herakles became so weary of the burning heat of Helios (the Sun), he raised his bow and shot an arrow at the burning god; Helios was so amused at Herakles’ impudence that he gave the hero a golden bowl to traverse the western sea.
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The name implies the color of blood and was used to designate the Red Sea, the Arabian Gulf, the Indian Ocean and, later, the Persian Gulf.
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Erytos and Ekhion (Echion) were the sons of Hermes and Antianeira; they went with Iason (Jason) on the quest for the Golden Fleece with their half-brother, Aithalides.
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A mountain in the northwestern part of the island of Sicily which was the site of an important sect devoted to the worship of Aphrodite (goddess of Love); the precincts around the mountain were given to the descendants of Herakles (Heracles).
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The legendary king who gave his name to the Sicilian mountain.
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The name literally means “of evening” but was the name of the evening star we call Venus; the name also applies to the Esperides (Hesperides), i.e. the nymphs who lived in the far west.
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The eldest son of king Oedipus and Iokaste (Jocasta) of the city of Thebes.
Before Oedipus was born, the oracle at Delphi predicted that he would kill his father and marry his mother; the prophecy came true and the children of this profane union between mother and son were also cursed; Eteokles was the son and brother of Oedipus.
After his father blinded himself and went into exile, Eteokles took control of the government of Thebes; he exiled his brother, Polynikes (Polynices), but when Polynikes returned with seven armies to depose Eteokles they both died on each other’s spear and the rule of Thebes fell to Eteokles’ uncle, Kreon (Creon).
Kreon decreed that Eteokles would receive a hero’s funeral because he was defending Thebes but that Polynikes’ body was to be left to the dogs and vultures because he had come to plunder and destroy Thebes.
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One of the Seven Against Thebes.
Eteoklus was an Argive who tried to assist Polynikes (Polynices) reclaim the throne of Thebes from his older brother, Eteokles (Eteocles).
His name may also be rendered as Eteoklos or Eteoclos.
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A nymph; the wife of king Merops and the mother of Eumelus; she was slain by the goddess, Artemis, for irreverence.
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Ethiopia is mentioned several times in The Iliad, The Odyssey and the Histories; The primary city of Ethiopia was Meroe which was, according to the historian, Herodotus, forty days on foot and twelve days by boat south of the city of Elephantine on the Nile River; in another part of his narrative, Herodotus says that the Ethiopians lived in Libya towards the southern sea.
The exact location of Ethiopia was, at best, nebulous to the Greeks of Herodotus’ time; there seems to have been two conceptions of Ethiopia: one was the historical land coveted by the Persian Empire and the other was a mythical Ethiopia that Poseidon (lord of the Sea) favored with personal visits.
Homer says that the Ethiopians were the most distant of men and lived in two separate lands that were identified as where the Titan, Hyperion, rose and sat; when the Greek hero, Menelaos (Menelaus), was making his meandering way back to Sparta after the sack of the city of Troy, he said that he traveled to Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya which only implies that Ethiopia was somewhere in Africa.
Dionysus, the god of wine, was born on Mount Nysa which, according to Herodotus, was in Ethiopia.
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The “long lived” race who lived to the south of Egypt; they are mentioned several times by the historian, Herodotus, and the poet, Homer, but the exact location of their homeland is not made clear.
Herodotus comments that the Ethiopians became more like the Egyptians after the two hundred and forty thousand Egyptian soldiers garrisoned at Elephantine deserted their posts and were given asylum by an Ethiopian king and were assimilated into the native population; Herodotus also reports that of the three hundred and thirty kings of Egypt, one was a woman and eighteen were Ethiopians, the rest were Egyptian men.
During the reign of the blind Egyptian king, Anysis, an Ethiopian named Sabakos (Sabacos) invaded Egypt and ruled for fifty years; Sabakos left Egypt of his own free will because of an oracle and a dream; the oracle said he would rule Egypt for only fifty years and his dream implied that if he did not leave Egypt on the fiftieth year, he would be punished by gods and men; the legacy of Sabakos was that, while king of Egypt, he sentenced criminals to work on civic improvement projects, primarily the building of embankments around cities to protect them from the flooding Nile River.
In the Histories, Herodotus tells how the Persian ruler, Kambyses (Cambyses) sent spies to Ethiopia to see if the Table of the Sun actually existed; the Table of the Sun was a meadow where the Ethiopians in authority would nightly bring food and leave it for anyone who wanted it; the spies that Kambyses sent were Egyptians called Fish-Eaters from Elephantine, a city on the Upper Nile, i.e. the southern portion of the river.
The Ethiopians were reputed to be some of the tallest and most beautiful people in the world and Kambyses was aware that the Ethiopian kings were chosen only from the tallest and proportionally strongest men of their race; he sent beautiful gifts because he wanted to impress them with his generosity and lull them into thinking he was potentially their friend; when the Fish-Eaters gave the Ethiopian king Kambyses’ gifts, the king rejected the cloth, the myrrh and the gold but pronounced the wine to be good; he explained that the Ethiopians only ate boiled meat and drank only milk and that they lived at least one hundred and twenty years; they also bathed in a spring whose water smelled of violets and was so light that nothing would float on the water.
Seeing through Kambyses’ feigned friendship, the Ethiopian king gave the Fish-Eaters an enormous bow and told them that the Persians should not consider attacking them until they could string the bow and to be thankful that the Ethiopians were not greedy and aggressive because, if that was so, the Persians would lose their lives and land to the superior men of Ethiopia.
Herodotus also mentions another aspect of the Ethiopians which would make it seem that he regarded most of the non-Egyptian Africans to be “Ethiopians;” in describing the geography of Libya, Herodotus tells of the cave-dwelling Ethiopians; they ate snakes, lizards and other reptiles; they were fleet of foot and had voices like the squeaking of bats; another tribe of Libyans, the Garamantes, hunted the Ethiopians with four-horse teams but whether the Garamantes hunted the cave-dwellers for sport or food is not clear.
Herodotus also mentions Ethiopians from Asia and their tribute to the Persian Empire; the Asian Ethiopians who fought in the army of Xerxes had straight hair and were teamed with the Indians whereas the Ethiopians who were teamed with the Arabians were from Africa and had wooly hair; other than their hair and speech, the Asian and African Ethiopians seemed to be of the same race; the nation of Cyprus had Ethiopians in its population.
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Mount Etna; an active volcano on the eastern side of the island of Sicily; the height of the volcano is variously given as being anywhere between 10,791 and 10,935 feet (3,289 and 3,333 meters); Mount Etna is the highest active volcano in Europe and perhaps the oldest recorded active volcano in the world.
Approximate west longitude 15.00 and north latitude 37.46.
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One of the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris collectively known as the Nereids, i.e. the daughters of the Nereus; her name could be interpreted as Good-Sport.
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One of the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris collectively known as the Nereids, i.e. the daughters of the Nereus.
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The long, narrow island located close to the eastern coast of mainland Greece in the western Aegean Sea; the island borders the coast of Greece from Athens, in the south, to Thermopylae in the north.
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(405?-330? BCE) An Athenian statesman and activist; he rose from a minor financial official to a position where he assumed control of all of the city’s finances.
Athens was in a state of economic crisis after a decade of failed military excursions into the upper Aegean, in particular: the city of Amphipolis and the Khersonese (Chersonese); circa 355 BCE, Eubulus came to prominence; his skilled economic policies propelled Athens to levels of prosperity which the city had not enjoyed for over 150 years.
The public disgust with recent military expenditures allowed Eubulus to institute an innovative policy where the city’s revenue would only be directed towards military missions if the security of Athens was threatened; Eubulus encouraged a policy which would create a Common Peace with like minded Greek cities and reduce the need for military expeditions in order to protect Athens’ colonial properties.
The most aggressive Greek nation of the time was led by Philip of Makedon (Macedon) and Eubulus unwillingly accepted the treaties negotiated with Philip by another Athenian, Demosthenes, in 346 BCE; Philip ignored the treaties and as he began to expand his dominion, the cry for war was soon heard again in Athens; by 342 BCE, Eubulus lost all political clout and the war-party was in full control of the city and the city’s money; resistance to Philip proved futile; Eubulus disappeared from public life and by circa 330 BCE he was dead.
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The twenty-sixth Eurypontidai king of the city of Sparta who ruled 241-228 BCE.
Sparta traditionally had two kings who ruled jointly; one king was required to be a descendant of king Eurypon and the other was required to be a descendant of king Agis I (respectively known as the Eurypontidai and the Agiadai).
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The twenty-forth Eurypontidai king of the city of Sparta who ruled 275-244 BCE.
Sparta traditionally had two kings who ruled jointly; one king was required to be a descendant of king Eurypon and the other was required to be a descendant of king Agis I (respectively known as the Eurypontidai and the Agiadai).
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The twenty-second Eurypontidai king of the city of Sparta who ruled 331-305 BCE.
Sparta traditionally had two kings who ruled jointly; one king was required to be a descendant of king Eurypon and the other was required to be a descendant of king Agis I (respectively known as the Eurypontidai and the Agiadai).
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A student of Aristotle; thought to be the editor of the work, Eudemian Ethics, by Aristotle.
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One of the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris collectively known as the Nereids, i.e. the daughters of the Nereus; her name might be translated to mean, Still-Sea.
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One of the five daughters of Atlas who was placed in the heavens as a star and, with her sisters, formed the asterism, Hyades, in the constellation Taurus (the Bull); her sisters are: Phaesyle, Kleeia (Cleeia), Phaeo and Koronis (Coronis).
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An Okeanid, i.e. one of the three thousand daughters of Okeanos (Ocean) and Tethys; her name might be translated to mean, Still-Sea.
Zeus gave the Okeanids, Apollon and the Rivers the special obligation of having the young in their keeping.
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The son of Hermes and the maiden, Polymele; Eudoros fought with the Greeks at the siege of Troy; he inherited fleetness of foot from his father.
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One of the rulers of the city of Salamis on the island of Cyprus; the father of Siromos.
Euelthon is noted for the remarkable censer (an incense burner) he dedicated to the temple at Delphi and also as the ruler who rebuked the requests of the refugee from Libya, Pheretime, when she asked Euelthon to supply her with an army so that her son might reclaim his throne in Kyrene (Cyrene).
Euelthon gave Pheretime many gifts but would not give her an army; to make his point perfectly clear, he finally gave her some wool, a golden spindle and distaff thus informing her that these were the proper gifts for a woman.
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The river god; one of the many sons of Okeanos (Ocean) and Tethys; father of Marpessa.
Zeus gave the Rivers, Apollon and the Okeanids the special obligation of having the young in their keeping.
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(circa 300 BCE) A Sicilian Greek mythographer.
Euhemerus is most noted for his “discovery” of the imaginary island of Pankhaea (Panchaea) in the Indian Ocean; he claimed that this island was the home of the Immortals and the heroes of ancient myth.
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A name of Bakkhus (Bacchus) taken from the cry “evoi” used by worshippers.
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The twenty-eighth Eurypontidai king of the city of Sparta who ruled 227-222 BCE.
Sparta traditionally had two kings who ruled jointly; one king was required to be a descendant of king Eurypon and the other was required to be a descendant of king Agis I (respectively known as the Eurypontidai and the Agiadai).
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1(Eucleides) Eukleides of Megara; the founder of the Megarian School of Philosophy; he was a student of Sokrates (Socrates) and essentially believed that the most important aspect of the “real world” was the moral character of the individual.
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One of the Thirty Tyrants elected to rule the city of Athens after the end of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE).
Having lost the war to the Spartans, the citizens of Athens elected thirty men to lead the new post-war government; these men became known as the Thirty Tyrants; the short lived government they comprised was an oligarchy.
The tyrants immediately began to prosecute Athenians who had been Spartan informers and collaborators during the long, hard war; the punishment of the guilty seemed appropriate to the common citizens and aristocrats alike but it soon became clear that the executions and banishments were going beyond the bounds of necessity or prudence; open hostilities soon developed between members of the Thirty and their authority and rule came to an end after one year.
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(circa 300 BCE) A Greek geometrician and educator at Alexandria, Egypt.
Few facts are known about Euklid’s life because few of his works survive; he is noted for his work in number theory and musical tones; more properly known as Eukleides or Eucleides.
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One of the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris collectively known as the Nereids, i.e. the daughters of the Nereus.
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One of the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris collectively known as the Nereids, i.e. the daughters of the Nereus; her name might be translated as, Good-Harbor.
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Earth to Elysian Fields Emathia to Eretria Erginos to Eulimene Eumaios to Exomis
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