| A | B |
|---|
| Perseus | son of Danae and Jupiter; slays the Gorgon, Medusa using a shield as a mirror |
| Medusa | a beautiful nymph changed into a Gorgon with snakey hair and eyes that turn living things into stone |
| Andromeda | daughter of Cassiopeia, princess of Joppa; chained to a rock to be devoured by a sea monster because her mother bragged of her beauty |
| Graiae | three old women (sisters) who shared one eye and one tooth; gave instructions to Perseus to find Medusa |
| Bellerophon | falsely accused by King Proetus's wife of attempted rape; he sends Bellerophon to King Iobates, who sets him the task of killing the Chimera to purify him of his crime; after successfully killing the Chimera, develops hubristic tendencies that lead to "Nemesis": Zeus sends a gadfly to sting Pegasus, and Bellerophon falls to earth, permanently crippled |
| Chimera | head of a lion, body of a goat, tail of a serpent; killed by Bellerophon with Pegasus's assistance |
| pomerium | sacred boundary of the city of Rome; probably originally sanctified by blood |
| Lupercalia | Roman holiday on February 15; fertility ritual in which two noblemen run around the pomerium slapping women with leather thongs to make them fertile |
| Cassiopeia | queen of Joppa and mother of Cassiopeia; punished for her hubris by having her daughter condemned to death |
| Acrisius | grandfather of Perseus who locked up his daughter, Danae, so she could not bear a son that would kill him; throws Danae and Perseus into a chest after Danae is impregnated by Zeus; later he is killed by Perseus |
| Nemesis | Goddess of Divine Retribution (payback) for those who offend by their hubris, or excessive pride |
| Styx | river of the Underworld, gods and goddesses swear oaths by it |
| Lethe | river of forgetfulness in the Underworld, shades drink from it to forget their former lives |
| Tantalus | served his son, Pelops, to the gods to see if they were omniscient (Demeter eats Pelops' shoulder!); condemned to eternal hunger and thirst in Tartarus |
| Tartarus | region in the Underworld that holds the most terrible of human criminals |
| Danaides | 49 daughters of Danaus killed their husbands on their wedding night because he told them to do so; only Hypermnestra refused; Danaides carry water in buckets with holes throughout eternity in Tartarus |
| Ixion | tried to rape Hera; Zeus created a "cloud-Hera" from which centaurs were born; condemned to a flaming wheel in Tartarus for eternity |
| Sibyl | prophetess of Apollo who predicted the future |
| Charon | takes shades to the Underworld for a fee of one obol; unburied souls who cannot pay the price must wait |
| Hympermnestra | the only one of 50 Danaides (daughters of Danaus) who did not murder her husband on her wedding night; permitted to spend eternity in Elyseum |
| Pelops | son of Tantalus, killed by his father to test the gods' omniscience; the gods put him back together again except for his shoulder, which they replaced with ivory because Demeter had eaten it |
| Sisyphean task | any task that is impossible to complete, based on Sisyphus's punishment in Tartarus; he rolls a boulder uphill that continuously falls back down |
| Pirithoos | friend to Theseus who helped him to kidnap Helen as a young girl; Theseus goes to the Underworld with him to help steal Persephone, but Hades condemns them to be pinned to a bench for eternity |
| Hecatonchires | three giants who helped Zeus defeat the Titans in the Titanomachy; they guard the defeated Titans in Tartarus for him |
| Titanomachy | 10-year war between Zeus and the Titans (the earlier generation of gods) for control of Mt. Olympus; only two Titans side with Zeus (Themis and Prometheus); Titans defeated and are held in Tartarus |
