Helen

Hermione’s Birth Suddenly Triggered Zeus’s Plan

To say my mother was “a force of nature” is an understatement! As Hilda Doolittle wrote, she [Helen] is “the admitted first cause of all time and all history.” She was, is, and will always be “the destroyer of worlds,” well at least the world before my birth. I can’t begin to tell you how inhumanly beautiful she was. The effect the very sight of her had on men and… Read more

More Strange Births

It struck me after viewing the Gallery concerning Aphrodite’s birth, that many strange births occur in Greek mythology. Was it the idea of being able to envision the possibility of giving birth without following the usual and natural birth delivery, be it a goddess or a woman or even horses? Was it the need to add mysterious and supernatural elements to creation, to give eccentric accounts? A famous goddess, Athena,… Read more

Rhodes: the Isle of Helios

Head of Helios In this post, following the one on Thera, I offer you a safe and virtual journey through time to another Greek island of the Aegean Sea. Rhodes is well known for its famous statue of the Kolossos of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but the Kolossos (the god Helios) was destroyed during an earthquake in c226BCE, and it was not rebuilt according… Read more

Troy: Myth and Reality, The British Museum | Part 1: The judgment of Paris, signs, and the role of Helen

Meeting with several members of the Kosmos Society in London in February was a wonderful experience. We went together to the amazing exhibition “Troy: Myth and Reality” at the British Museum. The British Museum was packed with fans of Homeric poetry, so we were among people sharing similar enthusiasm. Now we offer some of our highlights. Kosmos Society members ready to enter the exhibition The Troy Exhibition at the British… Read more

Book Club | August 2019: Apollodorus Library, 3.8–3.16

When Thetis had got a babe by Peleus, she wished to make it immortal, and unknown to Peleus she used to hide it in the fire by night in order to destroy the mortal element which the child inherited from its father, but by day she anointed him with ambrosia. But Peleus watched her, and, seeing the child writhing on the fire, he cried out; and Thetis, thus prevented from… Read more