gAiAAcheLous

 (Gaea, n Ge; Grek earTh) mytology, Greek The personi-fication of the EARTH MOTHER in Greek mythology; known to the Romans as TELLUS. She was born out of CHAOS at the beginning of time and in turn bore URANUS, the starlit sky.

Gaia was the mother of the seas, the mountains and valleys, and all the other natural features of the Earth. Once the Earth formed, Gaia mated with her son Uranus and produced the TITANS, the first race on Earth. Then came the CYCLOPES and the HECATON-CHEIRES (Hundred-Handed Ones). Uranus was hor-rified by his monstrous offspring and banished them all to the UNDERwORLD. At first, Gaia mourned her children but then she became angry with Uranus. She fashioned a sharp sickle and gave it to CRONUS, her youngest and bravest Titan son, bidding him to attack Uranus. Cronus mutilated his father’s body and cast its parts into the ocean. From the blood that dropped upon the Earth sprang the FURIES, the GIGANTES (Giants), and the ash NYMPHS (the Meliae).

According to the Greek poet HESIOD and others, the primitive Greeks worshiped the Earth, which they pictured as a bountiful mother. She was the supreme deity not only of humans but of gods. Later, when the OLYMPIAN GODS were established, people still held Gaia in reverence. She presided over marriages and was honored as a prophetess. They offered her gifts of fruits and grains at her many shrines. Gaia was represented as a gigantic, full-breasted woman.

gALAteA (1) (Milk White) The most famous Galatea in Greek mythology was a NEREID, or sea NYMPH, daughter of NEREUS and DORIS. This Galatea was a prominent character in the stories of Sicily, the huge island off the tip of the “boot” of Italy, which was home to early Greek colonies. The one-eyed giant sea monster, POLYPHEMUS, fell in love with this fair creature, but she did not return his love, for she loved Acis, son of the god PAN. One day, Polyphemus

discovered Galatea and Acis as they lay together on the banks of a river. In a fit of jealousy, the giant hurled a boulder at them. To protect Acis, Galatea turned him into a river. This story was told by the first-century Roman poet OvID and has been retold by poets and musicians. The English composer George Frederick Handel based his musical masque Acis and Galatea on this love story.

gALAteA (2) Greek In a story from CRETE, a young woman named Galatea was married to a good man from a poor family. When she became pregnant, he told her he wanted only a son, and if a daughter should be born, Galatea was to leave her out in the wilds to die. While her husband was away on a trip, Galatea gave birth to a girl, but the mother could not expose her daughter. Instead, Galatea sought the help of soothsayer, who told her to dress the girl as a boy. This trick worked until the daughter reached early womanhood. In great fear, Galatea prayed for help from LETO, a kind, gentle TITAN goddess who took pity on Galatea and changed her daughter into a son.

gALAteA (3) Greek The name given to the ivory statue of a maiden, loved by PYGMALION, a king of Cyprus, after the goddess of love, APHRODITE, brought the statue to life.

gALLi Greek Priests of the goddess CYSELE. They celebrated her with wild dances, loud music, and the clashing of shields and swords. These priests were akin to the CORYSANTES, who also worshipped Cybele, and were later identified with the CURETES of CRETE.

gAnymede Greek A Trojan prince, great-grand-son of DARDANUS, the founder of TROY. The god ZEUS, enraptured by the beauty of young Ganymede, carried him off to OLYMPUS to be a cupbearer to the gods. Some say that Zeus took the form of an eagle

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for this exploit; others that the god came as a wind storm. There are many famed depictions of this event. Ganymede is also the name of a moon of the planet JUPITER.

GENius (plural: GENiTi) (Creative Force, Guard-ian Spirit) Roman The spirit that attended a man from birth until death. (A JUNO spirit accompanied a woman.) The genius determined the person’s character, happiness, and fortune.

The genius was the source of creativity; hence the word genius is used to describe an exceptionally talented person. In some accounts, each person was thought to have both a good and a bad genius. Bad luck was the work of the evil genius. The plural of genius is genii.

(The genie of Eastern mythology were jinns [fallen angels] and had nothing to do with the genii of Roman mythology.)

GERyON Greek A monster with three heads, three bodies, and six hands. Geryon owned red cattle, which were guarded by the two-headed dog, Orthrus, and the herdsman, Eurytion. In his Tenth Labor, the hero HERACLES slew the dog and the herdsman. After a fearsome battle, Heracles defeated Geryon.

From Geryon’s blood sprang a tree that produced a stoneless, cherrylike fruit that yielded a blood-red dye.

GiGANTEs (Giants) Greek The offspring of GAIA and the blood of the wounded URANUS. Gaia prompted the giants to attack the TITAN gods, and the War of the Giants began. The gods finally won, with the help of the hero HERACLES, who used his bow to good effect. ZEUS killed Porphyrion with a thunderbolt, ATHENE killed Enceladus, and HEPHA-ESTUS hurled red-hot iron. DIONYSUS tripped up the giants with his vines. APOLLO, HERMES, and POSEIDON also joined in. The giants were completely defeated. Scholars say that the battle represented the conflict either between barbarism and order, or between humans and the forces of nature.

GLAucus (1) Greek The most famous Glaucus was the grandson of BELLEROPHON, a hero in the iliAD. Glaucus fought on the Trojan side during the TROJAN WAR. He and the Greek hero DIOMEDES (1) discovered that their grandparents had been friends, so the two exchanged armor and vows of friendship. Another of Glaucus’s friends was SARPEDON. When Sarpedon was killed, Glaucus appealed to the god APOLLO to help him retrieve the body. This he did,

with the help of the hero HECTOR. AJAx (1) eventually killed Glaucus in battle.

GLAucus (2) Greek The son of SISYPHUS and father of BELLEROPHON and owner of a famous herd of mares. However, Glaucus refused to let them breed, thus incurring the anger of APHRODITE, god-dess of love. Aphrodite drove the mares mad and they tore Glaucus to pieces in their frenzy.

GLAucus (3) Greek This Glaucus was born a human but by chance ate an herb that made him immortal. He became a prominent sea god, pictured as a merman, his top half human and his lower half a fish tail. Glaucus was a lesser god, but he had the power of seeing into the future, and this gift made him a favorite deity of sailors and fishermen, who paid him special attention. Glaucus is said to have traveled the entire coast of the Mediterranean Sea each year, visiting each of its ports on that journey. Glaucus was either the son of a fisherman from Anthedon or the son of the great sea god POSEIDON.

GOLDEN BOuGH Roman The SYSIL OF CUMAE sent the hero AENEAS to obtain the Golden Bough, which would give him safe passage to the UNDER-wORLD. The Golden Bough is thought to be the MISTLETOE, a plant that appears in many mytholo­gies.

GOLDEN FLEEcE Greek This fabled fleece was worn on the back of an extraordinary ram. The ram could talk and think, it could move through the air as easily as on land, and it had a fleece of gold. The god HERMES sent the ram to rescue PHRIxUS and HELLE, children of ATHAMAS, king of BOEOTIA. The hero JASON and his companions, the ARGONAUTS, overcame enormous obstacles to capture the precious fleece and return it to King PELIAS of IOLCUS, in Boeotia.

Many scholars think that the “golden fleece” represented either gold amber or perhaps the alluvial gold found in riverbeds near the Black Sea and col-lected by the natives in fleeces laid on the river beds.

GORDiAN kNOT Greek A puzzling and intri-cate knot tied by Gordius, king of PHRYGIA, in ASIA MINOR, in a rope linking the yoke and the pole of the ox-cart that had carried him to the temple of ZEUS. Zeus, obeying the words of an ORACLE, made the peasant Gordius the new king of Phrygia. It is said that the ox-cart remained for centuries at Gordium, the capital city of Phrygia founded by Gordius.

A superstition grew up around the knot: whoever could untie the knot would become the ruler of Asia. No one ever untied the knot, but in legend, Alexander the Great slashed through the knot with his mighty sword and did indeed become the ruler of Asia. The legend of the Gordian knot seems to demonstrate that, in some cases, the power of the sword is greater than that of superstition. “To cut the Gordian knot” has come to mean resolving a difficult problem with one decisive, forceful step.

GORGONS (Grim Ones) Greek Three female monsters (the Euryae); daughters of CETO and PHOR-cYs; sisters of the GRAEA. Their names were EuRYALE, STHENO, and MEDusA. They had the bodies of women, brass claws for hands, and snakes for hair. Two were immortal, but Medusa was not. The hero PERsEus killed her and cut off her head.

GRACES, THE THREE Greek Goddesses of beau-ty and charm, they were themselves embodiments of both. The Graces are usually thought to be the daughters of the god ZEus and EuRYNOME. The poet HEsIOD named them: Thalia (Flowering), Euphrosyne (Joy), and Aglaia (Radiance). The Three Graces were the personification of joy and well being. They were present at human and divine marriages, and constantly attendant upon the goddess of love, APHRODITE. They were also associated with the god APOLLO.

The Three Graces are often depicted as mingling with nymphs in joyous dances celebrating the boun-ties of nature.

GRAEA (Gray Women) Greek Daughters of PHORcYs and CETO; sisters of the GORGONs. Their names were Dino, Enyo, and Pemphredo. The per-sonification of old age, they had only one eye and one tooth to share among themselves. PERsEus stole the eye as they passed it from one to another. He gave it back to them after they had told him the whereabouts of their sister, MEDusA, and where to find the helmet, winged sandals, and magic wallet he needed to complete his quest.

GREECE Today, a nation in southeastern Europe, part of the Balkan Peninsula. This country’s official name is the Hellenic Republic, and the people who live there call their country “Ellas” or “Hellas.” These names reflect images of the ancient past of this part of the Mediterranean world. Greek comes from Graeci, the name the Latin-speaking people of Italy gave

to colonists from across the Ionian Sea. The word Hellenic refers to the god HELLEN, ancestor of the ancient peoples of the southern Balkan Peninsula and the name the people of this land gave themselves from ancient times.

People have inhabited the land that is now Greece from prehistoric times. Archaeologists have discov-ered Stone Age farming settlements on this peninsula from as long ago as 6500 B.c. The ruins of towns and villages built during the early and middle Bronze Age (3000 to 1600 B.c.) are also quite common. Evidence from all of these sites shows that, during the Bronze Age, the people of Greece began trading extensively with neighbors on CRETE and in AsIA MINOR and the Middle East.

In the late Bronze Age (1600 to 1150 B.c.), the first true cities and small kingdoms appeared, many of them on the southern part of the peninsula, an area known as the PELOPONNEsus. Here and in this age, the first significant power centers of ancient Greece developed. The city of MYcENAE grew into a major trading and military center on the northeastern side of the Peloponnesus, not far from the Isthmus of CORINTH. AGAMEMNON, one of the great heroes of Greek legends, was king of this city, according to HOMER’s ILIAD and other ancient sources. This city also gave its name to the first great age of Greece, the Mycenaean Age.

Homer, the Greek poet credited with writing the Iliad and the ODYSSEY, lived and wrote, according to the best scholarly evidence, around 1050 to 700 B.c., a time known as the Archaic Age of Greek history. His subject matter, though, was the Mycenaean Age and the heroes and warriors of that time. The first people who worshiped the gods and goddesses that Homer wrote about lived in a time that left few if any written records, but their stories were preserved by the developing Greek culture. More than a century of archaeology has revealed much about this mythology and about the lives of the people who believed in these gods.

The great Classical Age of Greece began about 490 B.c. It was separated from the Mycenaean Age by a dark age of conflict and by the Archaic Age, includ-ing the time of Homer, from 750 to 490 B.c. During the Classical age, people built great temples to the gods, poets and dramatists drew upon the myths of the Greek religion to write their great works, and artists carved statues and fashioned jewelry to com-memorate the gods. The Classical Age was the height of cultural development.