| A | B |
|---|
| Achilles/Achilles heel | His heel was his one mortal place after being held by his heels and dipped in the River Styx; vulnerable spot or weakness |
| Adonis | Loved by Venus; handsome man |
| Amazon | Race of female warriors; strong woman |
| Atlas | Titan who held up the earth; collection of maps |
| Cassandra | She foretold the fall of Troy and nobody listened; person whose predictions are never believed |
| Chaos | Mix of earth, air, and water before Gaea and Uranus; a state of extreme confusion or disorder |
| Chimera/chimerical | Lion, goat, serpent monster; strangely fantastic or foolish |
| Gorgon | Snake-haired goddess who turned onlookers to stone; ugly creature |
| Greeks bearing gifts | Greeks gave Trojan Horse to Troy which led to Troy’s destruction; don’t trust your enemies |
| Halcyon | Bird who calmed the water; calm |
| Harpy | Winged woman with sharp claws who snatched food, objects, or people; a malicious fierce-tempered woman |
| Labyrinth | Maze that held the minotaur (half-bull, half-man); maze |
| Mercury/mercurial | Fast messenger god; liable to sudden unpredictable change |
| Midas/Midas touch | King whose touch turned everything to gold; the ability to make money easily |
| Narcissus/narcissism | Youth who was cursed by falling in love with his own reflection; abnormal love of self |
| Nemesis | Goddess of vengeance; enemy |
| Nike | Goddess of victory; (sneaker company) |
| Odyssey | Epic poem about Odysseus’s 10 years to get home from the Trojan War; a long journey |
| Pandora's box | When this was opened, all the evils of the world were released; a source of troubles |
| Pan/panic | God of shepherds represented as a man with goat's legs, horns, and ears; an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety |
| Phoenix | Bird that periodically burned to death and emerged from the ashes anew; something renewed after suffering destruction |
| Proteus/protean | God who could change his shape and predict the future; able to change |
| Pyrrhus/Pyrrhic victory | He sustained staggering losses in order to defeat the Romans; a victory at great cost |
| Sirens/Siren song | Half woman-half bird creatures that lured sailors to their death with their song; seductive, dangerous woman |
| Sisyphus/Sisyphean task | His punishment was to roll a boulder up a hill over and over; pointless or tiresomely long activities; futile tasks |
| Damocles/Sword of Damocles | He switched places with a king for a great banquet, but left when he noticed the sword dangling by a thread above his head; the imminent and ever-present danger faced by those in positions of power |
| Tantalus/tantalize | He was punished by having food and drink just out of reach; to tease or torment with something just out of reach |
| Trojan horse | Trick horse that Greek soldier hid in to defeat Troy; something that appears desirable but actually contains something harmful |
| allusion | an implied or indirect reference to a person, event, thing, or a part of another text |
