Heroes

The book opens in the Age of Heroes, a time when mortals endowed with Prometheus's gift of fire begin to rival the gods through courage, cunning, and strength. On Mount Olympus, Hera recounts a troubling dream to Zeus: The giants attacked Olympus, Zeus's thunderbolts proved useless, and only a mortal descended from the hero Perseus saved the gods. This prophetic vision drives Zeus to seek a worthy descendant and connects the stories that follow.

The first hero is Perseus, son of Zeus and the princess Danaë. King Acrisius of Argos imprisoned Danaë in a bronze chamber after an oracle warned his grandson would kill him, but Zeus entered as golden rain. Acrisius casts mother and child into the sea, and they are rescued by the fisherman Dictys on the island of Seriphos. The island's cruel king, Polydectes, desires Danaë and manipulates Perseus into swearing to bring him the head of Medusa, a Gorgon whose gaze turns people to stone. Using a polished shield from Athena as a mirror to avoid Medusa's gaze, Perseus decapitates her. From Medusa's neck springs Pegasus, a winged horse. On his way home, Perseus rescues the princess Andromeda from a sea dragon and uses Medusa's head to petrify his enemies. He accidentally kills Acrisius with a discus throw, fulfilling the oracle, and founds Mycenae.

Zeus identifies Alcmene, a granddaughter of Perseus, as a potential mother for the prophesied hero and, disguised as her husband Amphitryon, sleeps with her, as does the real Amphitryon the next morning. Hera tricks Zeus into swearing that the next child born of Perseus's line will rule, then delays Alcmene's labor while inducing the premature birth of Eurystheus, another of Perseus's descendants. When the twins Heracles and Iphicles are finally born, baby Heracles reveals his divine paternity by strangling two snakes Hera sends to the nursery.

Heracles grows into the strongest man alive but has a catastrophic temper. Hera strikes him with a delusion that causes him to murder his wife Megara and their children. The Delphic oracle commands him to serve his cousin Eurystheus for 10 years. His 12 Labors include strangling the Nemean Lion, defeating the Lernaean Hydra, and retrieving the war belt of the Amazon queen Hippolyta. For the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, nymphs who guard a divine tree, he frees Prometheus and tricks Atlas, the Titan condemned to bear the sky on his shoulders, into fetching the fruit. His final Labor sends him to the underworld to subdue Cerberus, the three-headed hellhound. Freed, Heracles saves Olympus during the Gigantomachy, the war of the giants, fulfilling Hera's dream. He marries Deianira, daughter of King Oeneus of Calydon, but when he later takes the captive Iole, the jealous Deianira sends him a shirt soaked in the centaur Nessus's blood, believing it a love charm. The Hydra venom burns through his flesh, and Zeus raises Heracles to Olympus as an immortal.

Bellerophon, a prince of Corinth and possible son of Poseidon, tames Pegasus with a golden bridle given by Athena. After accidentally killing his brother, he seeks purification from King Proetus of Mycenae, whose wife Stheneboea falsely accuses Bellerophon of assault after he rejects her advances. Proetus sends him to his father-in-law Iobates in Lycia with a sealed letter requesting his death. Iobates sends him on deadly missions, including slaying the Chimera, a fire-breathing monster part lion, goat, and serpent, by thrusting a lead-tipped lance into its mouth. After surviving every challenge, he marries Iobates's daughter, but arrogance consumes him. When he flies Pegasus toward Olympus, Zeus sends a gadfly to sting the horse, and Bellerophon is thrown, living out his days as a crippled outcast.

Orpheus, the greatest musician of the ancient world, descends to the underworld when his beloved Eurydice dies from a snake bite. He so enchants Hades and Persephone that they agree to release her, provided he not look back until both reach the upper world. At the threshold he turns too soon, and Eurydice is pulled back forever. Orpheus turns his affections toward young men, and the scorned Thracian women tear him apart. His spirit reunites with Eurydice in death.

Jason, heir to Iolcos, is raised by the centaur Chiron after his uncle Pelias usurps the kingdom and sends him to retrieve the Golden Fleece from Colchis. Jason assembles the Argonauts aboard the ship Argo, and after many perils they reach Colchis, where King Aeëtes sets three impossible trials. Aeëtes's daughter Medea, a sorceress made to fall in love with Jason by Eros, the god of desire, provides magical aid that ensures his success. They flee with the Fleece, and Medea murders her brother to delay pursuit. She tricks Pelias's daughters into killing their father. When Jason abandons Medea for a politically advantageous marriage to the Corinthian princess Creusa, Medea murders the bride, her father King Creon, and her own sons before escaping in a divine chariot. Jason dies when a beam from the rotting Argo falls on him.

Atalanta, exposed as an unwanted girl and raised by a she-bear and hunters, becomes the swiftest archer alive. She strikes the first blow in the Calydonian Boar Hunt against a beast sent by Artemis to punish King Oeneus. When Prince Meleager awards her the trophy, his uncles protest, and Meleager kills them. His mother Althaea burns a magical log whose destruction the Fates prophesied at his birth would kill him, and Meleager dies. Atalanta agrees to marry only a man who can outrun her. A suitor named Hippomenes, armed with three golden apples from Aphrodite, rolls them along the track to distract Atalanta and wins the race.

Oedipus, abandoned by his father King Laius of Thebes after an oracle warned his son would kill him, is raised by the King and Queen of Corinth. Fleeing a prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother, he unwittingly heads toward Thebes. At a crossroads he unknowingly kills Laius. He defeats the Sphinx—a winged monster with a woman's face and a lion's body that blocks the road to Thebes, killing all travelers who cannot answer her deadly riddle—marries the widowed queen Jocasta, his own mother, and rules until a plague and his own investigation reveal the truth. Jocasta hangs herself; Oedipus gouges out his eyes and goes into exile.

Theseus grows up in Troezen, son of Aethra and possibly both King Aegeus of Athens and Poseidon. At 18 he retrieves his father's sword and sandals from beneath a rock and travels to Athens, defeating six bandits on the way. He tames the Marathonian Bull, survives a poisoning attempt by Medea, and is recognized by Aegeus. He volunteers among 14 tributes sent to Crete, where the half-bull, half-man Minotaur waits in a labyrinth. Before departing, Aegeus asks Theseus to replace the black sails with white ones upon a successful return, so he can see from the shore whether his son survived. With a ball of thread from Princess Ariadne, King Minos's daughter, he navigates the maze and kills the Minotaur. He abandons Ariadne on Naxos at the command of Dionysus, the god of wine, who claims her as his own. Approaching Athens, he forgets to change the sails from black to white; Aegeus, believing his son dead, throws himself into the sea, named the Aegean after him. As king, Theseus unifies Attica, but his son Hippolytus scorns Aphrodite, who retaliates by driving his stepmother Phaedra to desire him. Phaedra's false accusation leads to Hippolytus's death. Theseus dies in exile, pushed from a cliff.

The book closes by reflecting that the heroes have cleansed the world of its ancient monsters, making way for civilization. Yet Heracles's political actions, installing rulers across Greece and sparing the young Trojan prince Priam, have laid the kindling for the greatest conflagration the ancient world will see: the Trojan War.