Just ask the all-knowing Scroll if you’ve forgotten who’s who, what’s what and what’s not…
Agora
Agora is the Greek word for market place. We still use the word to describe a phobia, or fear, of wide, open spaces: agoraphobia.
Apollonius of Rhodes
Or Old Baloney of Rhodes as Aries prefers to calls him, since he was the ancient Greek poet who wrote about Jason and the Argonauts’ adventure and, as we now know, got it all wrong.
Argo
This was Jason’s ship and was named after Argus, the man who built it.
Atalanta
Atalanta was the only female member of Jason’s Argonauts. She was the fastest runner in ancient Greece and used this to challenge men who wanted to marry her and whom she didn’t fancy. She knew that she could beat them easily and then execute them, which was great fun and saved loads of money on wedding parties.
Alexander the Great was the son of King Philip of Macedon, a country to the north of Greece. After his father died, Alexander led the army and conquered a third of the world including the Persian Empire and Egypt. During the twelve years of his campaigns, he founded seventy cities and never lost a battle. He always rode his favourite horse, Bucephalus. Regarded as one of the cleverest military leaders ever to live, his strategies are still taught to army leaders today. He died at the age of thirty-two. Personally, I think Alexander the Absolutely Amazing would have been a better name.
The Argonauts
These were the sailors who travelled with Jason. ‘Naut’ comes from the Greek word for sailor so Argo-nauts, are sailors on the Argo. Lucky their ship wasn’t called the Coco really, otherwise they’d be Coconauts.
Athena
The goddess of wisdom, war and crafts. With all that battling, brain-strain and button-making to deal with, no wonder she liked to throw a good party.
Barque
A barque is a small boat, rather like a gondola; a funeral barque is a small boat used to carry coffins over water and should not be confused with the sound a dog makes when it sees a hearse.
The first time the Persians invaded Greece was in 490 BC at the Battle of Marathon. There were tens of thousands more Persians than Athenians. However, by clever use of phalanxes, the Athenians drove the Persians back to their boats. Unfamiliar with the terrain, many Persians drowned in the surrounding marshlands. The Athenians then marched quickly back to Athens and defeated the Persians when they made their second attempt, this time to seize the city. Score – Athens 2: Persia 0.
Centaurs
Creatures with the head, chest and arms of a man and the body and legs of a horse, these chatty trotters can be found in the Underworld’s Centaur Parcs.
The Ceryneian Hind
The Ceryneian Hind was a female deer with golden antlers and hooves made of brass. Faster than a flying arrow, she could have beaten any horse in the Grand National but would have been disqualified for eating the hedges.
Charon
Charon was the skeleton boatman who escorted the dead over the River Styx. For the price of one obol, this bony ferryman, dressed in a hooded cloak, would take shades over the water from the Land of the Living on to the path to the Underworld. A gloomy sort, he seldom made small talk on the journey, which was hardly surprising after centuries spent in a murky cave with rising damp seeping up his shinbones.
Charybdis
A ferocious whirlpool that sucked sailors round and down into a horrible watery death, rather like being flushed down the world’s biggest toilet. She stayed close to Scylla, offering sailors a thoughtful choice of how they’d like to get to the Underworld.
Chiton
This was a common sort of clothing in ancient Greece worn by men and women. Made from rectangles of cloth, the chiton draped from the shoulders like a tunic and was often worn with a belt. Why not impress your friends by making your own? Simply wrap your duvet cover around you and pin the top edge at each shoulder. Instant Greek chic! (Although, do remember that traditional Greek chitons, unlike your duvet cover, were rarely stripy and absolutely never had pictures of superheroes or pop stars on them.)
Circe
Circe was Medea’s aunt. Unlike normal aunts, who come round for tea and cakes every so often, Circe taught Medea how to be a sorceress. Turning sailors into pigs and harnessing dragons to chariots were amongst the many skills Circe shared with her niece, which set her on the road to bad behaviour but cheered up many a wet Wednesday.
The Elgin Marbles
In the early 1800s a Scottish nobleman called Lord Elgin brought lots of bits of the Parthenon back to Britain. These are now in the British Museum and include the carved panels that used to hang beneath the roof of the Parthenon, decorated with centaurs fighting men on one side and an ancient procession on the other. A lot of people think that the marbles should be returned to Greece. A lot of people think they should stay in the British Museum. What do you think?
The Fates
The ancient Greeks believed that three old women decided what would happen to you in your life. These were the three Fates. One old lady began spinning a skein of thread on the day you were born. A second measured it out day by day whilst a third snipped it with silver scissors on the day of your death. This job made her very busy and bad-tempered on battle days, when she could be found saying all manner of rude words and complaining about missing her favourite television programme.
Fire-Breathing Bulls
One of Jason’s three tasks on Kolkis was to yoke, or harness, the fire-breathing bulls in order to plough a field and sow the dragons’ teeth as King Aeetes demanded. I suppose he was lucky it wasn’t a competition for matador skills. One flick of the cape and it’d be smoking trousers all round.
Glauce
The princess who would have been the second Mrs Jason but for you-know-who turning her burning love into a burning wedding dress instead.
Greaves
Greaves are the bronze shin-plates that Greek soldiers wore to protect them from swords, horse kicks and stinging nettles.
Harpies
Birds with the heads and shoulders of women, these creatures were famous for snatching food away from people and never being invited on picnics.
Hector
A prince of Troy who was popped off by Achilles during the Battle of Troy, according to Homer in his epic poem, The Iliad.
Herakles
One of Jason’s Argonauts, Herakles was the strongest man on Earth. He began his monster-mashing career early when he throttled the two giant snakes that the goddess Hera had released into his cradle. Without his later antics there wouldn’t have been much point going to the Underworld Zoo since it was largely down to his handiwork in performing his Twelve Labours that Alex had so many creatures to care for.
Homer
No, not the yellow one with a skateboarding son, but the ancient Greek poet famous for giving us the story of the Battle of Troy in his epic poem, The Iliad.
Hoplite
A Greek foot soldier. Hoplites were armed with spears and shields and attacked the opposing army in their phalanx formation.
The Hydra
This reptilian monster with hundreds of heads lived in a swamp and spent her days mooching about blowing mud bubbles. Then Herakles arrived. Chopping off each of her heads, he was horrified to see two more grow back on each stump. However, he finally killed the monster with the help of his nephew, who seared each neck stump with a fiery club so that no new heads could grow back.
Jason
The Prince of Iolkus, robbed of the throne by his wicked Uncle Pelias who snuck in and made himself king. Brought up by a centaur, Jason later sailed to Kolkis to steal the Golden Fleece.
Krater
Despite sounding like the smoky hole you find on top of a volcano, a krater was a large clay pot used for mixing wine and water to serve to guests at parties. Like an ancient Greek punch bowl, drinks were drawn from it. Or, in Aries’ case, slurped.
The Lion of Nemea
A ferocious big cat strangled by Herakles, who then snaffled its impenetrable pelt to complete his strongman’s outfit.
Man-Eating Horses
The clue’s in the name. These four terrifying horses belonged to the giant Diomedes and with their huge appetites and horrible diet put the ‘mare’ into nightmare.
Medea
The sorceress of Kolkis who helped Jason steal the fleece from the sacred grove and became his first wife.
Medusa
An old lady with hair that was made of real snakes. As if this wasn’t bad enough, anyone who looked at her was immediately turned into stone, which made it very difficult to get a good hairdresser.
Midas
Midas was the king who was given the golden touch so that everything he put his hand on turned into gold. The gift became a curse when he hugged his daughter who promptly became a gleaming statue. However, on the bright side she did make a delightful garden feature.
The Minotaur was a monster with the head and shoulders of a bull and the body of a man. This made finding clothes very difficult and so he was usually to be found pacing about in his maze, beneath the palace at Knossos, in just a pair of big underpants. Every so often young men and women were pushed screaming into his lair for him to eat. This went on until Theseus took the place of one of the men and stomped into the maze with a sword and ball of wool. He slew the Minotaur with his sword and then found his way back out of the maze by following the wool he had unwound along the passages.
Narcissus
Narcissus was an extremely handsome man who fell in love with his own reflection in a forest pool and spent his life gazing wide-eyed at it. He was so besotted by his own loveliness that he couldn’t leave it. He stayed by the pool until he died. I know. How silly was that? But, as I said, he was good-looking, not smart.
Obol
An ancient Greek coin. Although the word ‘obol’ sounds like ‘oboe’, you’ll find that however hard you blow, you can’t get a decent tune out of it.
Oracles
Oracles, for those of you who’ve never had their palms read on Brighton Pier, were widely respected Greek women, whom people consulted to find out what was going to happen. A sort of ancient Greek fortune teller, they leaned over steaming pots to see into the future. Of course, it’s not the leaning over steaming pots bit that’s important, otherwise all dinner ladies would be oracles and they’re not, because when they look into pots all they see is custard.
Parthenon
Athena’s temple still stands high on its rock in Athens today. However, during its long lifetime it has been blown up by people from Venice who stored gunpowder under its roof, had bits taken away by Lord Elgin and endured years of traffic pollution, acid rain and curious tourists stomping all over it. So, I’m afraid it doesn’t look quite as snazzy as it used to and Athena would not be amused.
Pegasus
A beautiful white horse with wings so that it could fly. And you thought seagull doo-doo was bad…
Perseus
Another have-a-go hero, Athena’s nephew, Perseus, killed Medusa by reflecting her face back at her in his shiny shield and turning her to stone.
Phalanx
A rectangular formation of soldiers, or hoplites, who marched behind a wall of shields with their spears high and ready to fight the enemy.
Part of the bow, the prow is the very front of a ship, the bit above the waterline. Oddly enough, Jason was killed by the Argo’s prow. It happened many years after the voyage when he took a nap under the beached Argo, only to be dispatched first class to the Underworld when its prow dropped off due to rampant wood rot. (Of course, I think we can guess who magicked the rot into it, can’t we?)
Queen Persephone
Pronounced pur-sef-pho-knee (otherwise it sounds like a mobile someone called Percy might text on) Persephone was a teenager minding her own business on Earth, when one day King Hades suddenly burst through the ground of the field where she was gathering flowers and dragged her down to the Underworld to be his wife. Her mother, Demeter, the goddess of grain, was distraught and travelled down to the Underworld to demand King Hades return her daughter. However, anyone who’d eaten food in the Underworld may not return, and Persephone had eaten six pomegranate seeds. Hades ruled that Persephone must spend six months, for the six seeds eaten, in the Underworld each year, but could live with her mother on Earth during the other six. Of course, during those months, Demeter was delighted, the sun shone and harvests flourished giving the Greeks spring and summer. But for the six that her daughter resided in the Underworld the Earth was cold and rain-swept giving the Greeks autumn and winter.
River Styx
The Styx is the river that separates the Underworld from the Earth and the dead from the living and, as you might expect, it’s not terribly cheerful. It’s not the sort of place that you’d choose to picnic in or pitch a tent. The river doesn’t babble or tinkle, nor does it weave prettily beneath rustic bridges and there are absolutely no fluffy-wuffy duckies. Instead, the water roils and twists, lurching black and menacing beneath rock that skitters with eyeless cave spiders.
Sconces
Sconces are iron candleholders. Written down the word looks like ‘scones’. However, jam and cream doesn’t improve the flavour of sconces and they really hurt your teeth when you bite into one.
Scylla
This sea monster had six heads, tentacles for legs and a ring of dogs’ heads around her waist that wouldn’t win best of anything at Crufts. She lived next to Charybdis, the whirlpool, so that sailors who tried to sail between her and Charybdis either sailed too close to Scylla and were devoured, or sailed too close to Charybdis and were drowned.
Shades
This is the correct name for the ancient Greek ghosts who dwell in the Underworld, making Alex and Aries a pair of shades. However, only Aries would be much good at blocking out the sun.
The Spartan Army
Sparta was an area of ancient Greece famous for its ferocious army. Boys joined when they were seven years old and, if they survived the brutal military training, served until they were thirty. Girls didn’t join the army, but were scarily tough and would punch you on the nose for nothing.
Stymphalian Birds
Man-eating birds with beaks made out of bronze. You wouldn’t want one of these sharing a cage with your budgie.
Tartarus
This was the darkest, most horrible part of the Underworld, containing a prison where the wickedest ghosts were held.
Theseus
One of Jason’s Argonauts, this prince killed the half-man half-bull Minotaur in his maze armed with just a sword and a ball of wool.
Trireme
A trireme was an ancient Greek ship with three rows of oars on each side with one man per oar. They were streamlined and fast and used as warships in sea battles. The tri of trireme means three, like the tri in tricycle. However, tricycles were not nearly as useful in crossing the oceans and left everyone very wet and bad-tempered.
The Twelve Labours of Herakles
Pronounced hair-a-klees, the Romans called this hero Hercules. By either name his stepmother, Hera, hated him because he was the son of one of her husband, Zeus’s, many girlfriends. To punish Herakles, she sent him into a mad destructive rage during which he killed his wife and children. When he came round he was horrified and stricken by grief. The god, Apollo, gave him the chance to cleanse his conscience by performing certain labours, or tasks, for King Eurystheus. A bit like Jason’s three tasks on Kolkis, Herakles’ labours were believed to be impossible. Worse, Herakles had twelve of them and they comprised a mixture of killing, capturing, stealing and er, spring cleaning.
He killed the Lion of Nemea (and wore his lion-skin pelt), the Hydra and the Stymphalian birds.
He captured the Ceryneian Hind, the Erymanthian Boar (a wild pig with bristles and tusks), the Bull of Crete and the three-headed dog, Cerberus, who guarded the entrance to the Underworld.
He stole the four man-eating horses (and fed Diomedes, their owner, to them), a flock of sheep from under a monster’s nose and the golden apples from Zeus’s back garden. He also stole the girdle of the queen of the Amazons and, believe me, she wasn’t happy about it when she couldn’t get her frock on.
His tidying job was to clean the Augean stables, a horse block even filthier than Medea’s cellar, which had been left festering for several years. However, rather than scrub them by hand, he diverted a river to whoosh through them and flush them clean. Neat, eh?
And finally, just in case you were wondering:
The Legend of the Golden Fleece
Long, long ago in ancient Greece, a hero named Jason sailed across the sea with his band of Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece, in order to win back the throne his wicked uncle, Pelias, had stolen from Jason’s father.
With its ringlets of glittering gold, the fleece was truly the greatest treasure on Earth. Once it had belonged to Aries, the flying ram, but he was sacrificed and his coat given to King Aeetes of Kolkis.
To protect it, he hung it on the topmost branches of an oak in the palace’s dark forest and left it guarded by a man-eating snake. Eighteen metres long, a writhing, slithering heap of coils and teeth, Drako, was said never to sleep. Instead he watched the fleece, day and night, night and day, the ruby lights of his eyes blazing through the forest gloom, poised to slice through its creepers and shred would-be burglars into bundles of bones.
After a long and dangerous voyage, Jason and his men sailed into Kolkis Harbour. Jason presented himself to King Aeetes and told him that he had come for the fleece. King Aeetes could not refuse Jason – that would be seen as rude – and so he told Jason that he could have the fleece, if he could perform three special challenges. The challenges were, of course, impossible and Aeetes was sure that Jason would die in trying to achieve them.
However, Aeetes had reckoned without Medea, his daughter, a powerful sorceress. The moment she saw Jason she melted, falling helplessly in love, and vowed to use her dark magic to help him.
The king told Jason to yoke two fire-breathing bulls; Medea created a salve to protect Jason’s skin from the flames.
The king told Jason to plough a field with the yoked bulls; Medea hypnotised the animals so they followed his every command.
The king told Jason to plant dragons’ teeth and when those dragons’ teeth sprang out of the soil as skeletons dressed in armour, it was Medea who told Jason to throw a rock into their midst, confusing the bone men into fighting and destroying each other.
The king was furious at the thought of losing his fleece and in fury, he ordered his generals to kill Jason at the feast that evening. But Medea overheard him and crept down to her secret rooms to mix a potion of herbs and magic. Then she led Jason into the enchanted forest, sprinkled the mixture over Drako’s snout, sending the snake into a dark, blissful sleep, so that a moment later, Jason scaled the serpent’s slumbering coils, snatched the fleece and sailed home on the Argo with his new bride by his side.
And everyone lived happily ever after.
Oh no they didn’t.
Because as we know now, even though Mr Printer typed a big fat THE END at the end of Jason’s story, what he should have typed was THE BEGINNING. In fact, since Jason dumped Medea, resulting in her staying on Earth with the fleece and causing all manner of misery, writing THE END was the biggest, fibbiest myth of them all because the most important story, Aries’ story, was yet to start. To be honest, I expect the printer only typed THE END so that he could lock up early and go home for his dinner.