Greek Heroes & Heroines
List of Greek Mortal Heroes and Heroines in Classical Greek Mythology
Greek heroes, heroines and mortals, compiled from the works of Hesiod’s Theogony (c700 BCE) and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey 760-710 BCE) and dozens of other reference sources. We’ve included their family tree connections where relevant/available.
- List Lovers list of Greek heroes and heroines was last updated 10 Dec 2024.
Tips: Click column headings with arrows to sort our family tree of Greek heroes, heroines and mortals. Click the ➕ icon to expand columns on tablets and mobiles. Resize your browser to see more/less columns. In the Filter box below enter the hero, heroine or whatever you’re looking for (e.g. Achilles) and only table rows that include Achilles will be displayed.
Key: Bold indicates male/masculine entities and bold+Italics indicates female/feminine entities
| Name | Roman Equivalent | Title | Group | Gender | Parents | Siblings | Consort/s | Offspring | Greek Gods and Goddesses Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greek Heros, Heroines and Mortals beginning with A | |||||||||
| Achilles | Hero, deified mortal, demigod | Male | Peleus (mortal) and nymph Thetis (nymph, minor sea goddess). | (maybe) Patroclus. | In order to make Achilles immortal Thetis dipped him in the river Styx holding him by his heel which did not touch the water and his heel remained his mortal weakness (there are other stories). Achilles become a Trojan war95* hero after slaying Hector, the Trojan prince, as revenge for killing his best friend the Trojan prince. Paris, Hector’s brother kills Achilles with an arrow to his “Achilles’ heel”. When Achilles was cremated his ashes were mixed with Patroclus‘ ashes.
“Achilles’ heel” is a popular idiom based on Greek mythology: Achilles was dipped by his heel into the river Styx to make him immortal but the water did not touch his heel which remained mortal and he was killed by an arrow to his “Achilles’ heel”. |
||||
| Actaeon | Pupil of centaur Chiron | Mortal | Male | Aristaeus (a herdsman) and Autonoe. | Actaeon accidentally saw Artemis naked while she was bathing in the woods and was captivated by her beauty. Artemis saw him and told him never to speak again or she would change him into a deer. Actaeon heard his hunting dogs, called them, turned into a deer and was killed by his own dogs. There are many variations of this story. | ||||
| Adonis | Adonis | God of desire and beauty, vegetation and rebirth. | Mortal, minor god | Male |
|
|
Aphrodite, Persephone | Smyrna/Myrrha was punished by Aphrodite to love her father. Smyrna tricked him into sleeping with her. he found out, she fled, was nearly caught but the gods changed her into a tree called “Smurna”. Nine months later Adonis burst from the tree. Aphrodite fell in love with Adonis and entrusted Persephone to raise him who later refused to give Adonis up.
Zeus decided Adonis would spend four months each with Aphrodite and Persephone and could choose where to spend the other four months, Adonis chose Aphrodite. Adonis died of a wound from a wild boar, sent by Artemis (or Ares) and descended to the underworld but was allowed to spend six months each year in the upper world with Aphrodite9* |
|
| Aeneas | Leader of the Trojan Dardanians. | Mortal | Male | Prince Anchises and Aphrodite. | Lyrus | Aphrodite pretended to be a Phrygian princess and seduced prince Anchises. She later revealed her true identity and that they would have a son, Aeneas. She warned Anchises to keep quiet about their affair but he didn’t and Zeus blinded or killed him with a thunderbolt.
There are many variations of this story. Aeneas became the leader of the Trojan Dardanians and, with the protection of Aphrodite, Apollo and Poseidon, was one of only a few Trojans to survive the Trojan war95*. He settled in Italy where Rome was built by his descendants, twins Remus and Romulus. |
|||
| Antaeus | Half-giant | Male | Poseiden and Gaia. |
|
Tinjis | Alceis or Barce. | Antaeus was an invincible wrestler so long as he remained in contact with his mother earth (Gaia). He challenged passers-by and used their skulls to build a temple to Poseidon. Heracles beat Antaeus, en-route to 11 of 12 labours, by lifting him in a bearhug and crushing him off the ground. | ||
| Asclepius (Asklepios, Hepius) | Aesculapius | God of healing and medicine. | deified mortal | Male |
|
|
Epione (goddess of soothing pain). |
|
Coronis was killed, while pregnant, for being unfaithful to Apollo. Before her body was burned Apollo saved Asclepius who was given the centaur Chiron, to be raised. Asclepius was taught medicine and eventually learned to raise the dead. Asclepius resurrected Hippolytus which angered Hades who complained to Zeus who killed Asclepius with a lightning bolt. Asklepios means “to cut open”. |
| Atalanta (Atlanta) |
Heroine | Female | Her parentage is uncertain, best guesses are:
|
|
With Melanion: Parthenopaeus. | King Iasus wanted a son so, when Atalanta was born, he left her in the woods or on a mountain to die. Stories relate Atalanta was suckled by a bear until hunters found and raised her. Atalanta learned to hunt and fight like a bear. Atalanta was later reunited with her father. Atalanta sailed with Jason and the Argonauts. | |||
| Attis (Atus, Attus, or Attin) |
Attis | God of vegetation. | deified mortal, Phrygian god | Male | Galaos and Nana (Naiad nymph of the River Sangarius). | Cybele | Cybele made Attis castrate himself as punishment for his infidelity. | ||
| Greek heros beginning with B | |||||||||
| Bellerophon | Bellerophon was a monster slayer and Greek hero. | hero | Male |
|
Philonoe (wife, daughter of Iobates). |
|
Bellerophon, born in Corinth, committed a murder as a youth and was sent to King Proetus for justice. The king’s wife Queen Anteia/Stheneboea fancied Bellerophon but when he spurned her attention she told Proetus he had attempted to ravish her.
Proitos, fearing the wrath of the Erinyes if he killed a guest, sent Bellerophon to his father in law, King Iobates with a sealed message asking him to kill Bellerophon. Before reading the message Iobates feasted with Bellerophon for nine days so when he finally read the message he also feared the wrath of the Erinyes. Instead he sent Bellerophon on an impossible mission to kill the fire-breathing Chimera which was ravaging the land. Along the way Bellerophon met Polyeidos, a famous seer, who told him how to capture and tame a winged horse, called Pegasus, at the town fountain. Bellerophon and Pegasus managed to kill the Chimera only to be sent to subdue the barbarous Solymoi, then the Amazons. When he succeeded he was ambushed by pirate Cheirmarrhus and the palace guards but he killed them all. Finally Iobates relented and allowed Bellerophon to marry his daughter Philonoe and gave him half his kingdom. Bellerophon’s hubris prompted him to attempt to fly on Pegasus to join the gods on Mount Olympus. This angered Zeus who sent a gadfly to sting Pegasus causing Bellerophon to fall back to earth where he landed in a thorn bush. Blinded and crippled Bellerophon lived out his life in misery as a hermit. Pegasus did make it to Mount Olympus and was used to carry thunderbolts for Zeus. |
||
| Greek Heros beginning with C | |||||||||
| Cadmus | Castor and Pollux | Cadmus was a Greek hero and slayer of monsters. | hero | Male |
|
|
Harmonia |
|
Cadmus was a slayer of monsters, along with Bellerophon and Perseus, and a Greek hero. Cadmus founded the Greek city of Thebes. |
| Castor and Pollux / Polydeuces (Dioscuri) |
Castor and Pollux | Gods of sailors, horsemanship and travelers. | deified mortals | Male |
|
Twin sisters and half sisters:
|
Castor and Pollux were the twin sons of Leda and known together as the Dioscuri. Kind and generous Pollux was the divine son of Zeus, who seduced Leda in the guise of a swan. After Castor was killed Pollux prayed to Zeus to give Castor immortality so they could remain together. Zeus compromised changing them into the Gemini twins constellation and, to balance the cosmos, every year they had to spend six months on Olympus and the other six months in the Underworld. | ||
| Greek Heros beginning with G |
|||||||||
| Ganymede | Catamitus | God of rain. | hero, deified mortal | Male | Tros of Dardania and Callirrhoe. |
|
Zeus | Zeus’ male lover. Ganymede was granted eternal youth and immortality and the office of cupbearer to the gods. | |
| Greek Heroes & Mortals beginning with H |
|||||||||
| Helen of Troy | Queen of Laconia. | demigod | Female | Zeus and Leda (or Zeus and Nemesis3&6*). |
|
|
With King Menelaus: Hermione. | Helen of Troy was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. She was married to King Menelaus but she was abducted by (or eloped with) Paris, Prince of Troy. King Menelaus was outraged and, together with his brother Agamemnon and other kings, they eventually attacked the walled city of Troy starting the Trojan war95* between Greece and the Trojans.
After the Trojan Horse ruse helped end the war Helen of Troy was returned to Sparta and King Menelaus who, although he felt betrayed by Helen of Troy, found her beauty helped him forgive her. |
|
| Heracles (born Alcaeus or Alcides) |
Hercules | God of physical strength. Divine protector of mankind. Gatekeeper of Olympus. | divine hero | Male | Zeus and Alcmene. Amphitryon (foster father). | Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Aphrodite, Athena, Dionysus, Hebe, Hermes, Helen of Troy, Hephaestus, Iphicles, Perseus (half brother), Minos, the Muses, the Graces. |
|
Heracles, driven temporarily mad by Hera, killed his children and (maybe) wife Megara. As penance Heracles had to serve his cruel uncle Eurystheus, king of Tiryns, and perform “the twelve labors of Heracles“:
After completing the labors Heracles may have sailed with the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece. |
|
| Greek Heroes & Mortals beginning with J |
|||||||||
| Jason (Iason, Jason and the Argonauts) |
Leader of the Argonauts. | mortal | Male |
|
Promachus |
|
|
Jason, son of King Aeson of Iolcus, returns to regain the throne stolen from his father by his wicked uncle Pelias. King Pelias agrees to step down if Jason brings him the Golden Fleece from Colchis and the quest is on. Jason assembles a crew of heroes (including Heracles, Hylas, Zetes and Calais, Orpheus, twins Castor and Polydeuces, Peleus, Achilles’ father, Telamon and Atalanta a ferocious huntress and others) and they set off aboard the Argo.
Jason and the Argonauts have many adventures on the way to Colchis. They leave Lemnos, an island full of women where they stayed for some time and created the Minyans, they battled giants near the Doilones, lose Hylas and leave Heracles behind on Cius. At Bosporus Zetes and Calais drive the Harpies away from King Phineus, a seer, who tells the Argonauts how to get through the deadly Sympleglades (“Clashing Rocks”). They sail past some legendary islands and rescue the sons of Phrixus as their ship is sinking who tell the Argonauts the Golden Fleece is guarded by a dragon. When Jason and the Argonauts finally arrive in Colchis, King Aeetes says Jason can have the Fleece if he completes three (nearly impossible) tasks.
Luckily Hera on Mount Olympus has been following their journey. Hera likes Jason and hates Pelias so she sends Eros to make Medea, King Pelias’ daughter, fall in love with Jason and Medea helps Jason complete the three tasks. Medea gives Jason flameproof skin cream so he can plough the field, tells Jason how to outwit the not-so-clever warriors and gives Jason a sleeping potion which he sprays into the mouth of the dragon as it way about to swallow him. Jason grabs the Golden Fleece and they run for the Argo and set off with King Aeetes ship in pursuit. Medea and/or Jason kill her brother Apsyrtus and throws him overboard knowing King Aeete will stop to give him a proper burial and they make good their escape. Zeus, not impressed with this tactic, blows the Argo off course to the island of Aeaea, where Circe, a sorceress nymph, cleanses them of the murder of Medea’s brother. Jason and Medae are married by Queen Arete. Thanks to Orpheus playing a beautiful song on the lyre they manage to sail past the Sirens, without being lured onto the rocks. As they sail past Crete, Talos, a giant bronze man, hurls boulders at the ship. Medea saves the day by casting a spell on him while she removes a nail from his ankle holding in his ichor (divine blood) causing him to bleed to death. They finally sail on to Greece where Jason and the Argonauts march into Iolcus with the Golden Fleece to take his throne. Pelias refused to give up his throne so Medea devised a plan to get Pelias’s own daughters to kill him. Medea said she could restore youth and demonstrated on Jason’s elderly father Aeson (or an elderly ram) and promised to do the same for Pelias so his daughters killed him and she ignored them. Medea and Jason were banished from Iolcus as murderers by Pelias’s eldest son Acastus, who took the throne. Despite his vows to Medea, raising children and living happily together for ten years Jason abandoned Medea and became engaged to Creusa/Glauce, daughter of Creon, King of Corinth. After all the help Medea had given him she was angry but Jason replied he should thank Aphrodite, not Medea, because she made Medea fall in love with him. Medea took her revenge by giving Creusa a wedding gift which stuck to her body and burned her, and her father Creon, to death when she put it on. Medea killed her children, so they could not be murdered or enslaved as a result of her actions, and fled to Athens. Jason lost favor with Hera because he broke his vow to love Medea forever. Jason died lonely and unhappy while sleeping under the stern of the rotting Argo which fell on him, killing him instantly. Jason’s son Thessalus eventually became king of Iolcus. |
|
| Greek Gods and Goddesses beginning with L | |||||||||
| Lelantos | Lelantus | God of the unseen, air, hunter’s skill of stalking prey. | Titan 2nd Gen. | Male | Coeus and Phoebe |
|
Periboa | Aura | The literal meaning of the Greek words for his name mans “to escape notice” and “go unobserved”. The male counterpart to Leto. |
| Greek Heroes & Mortals beginning with M |
|||||||||
| Midas | Midas | King of Phrygia. | mortal | Male | Gordius and Cybele. | Possible offspring with unknown mothers
|
Dionysus granted Midas a reward and he asked that everything he touched turned to gold, which became a curse when his food also turned to gold. Dionysus told Midas to reverse the reward he should wash in the river Pactolus, which he did, and the river sands turned into gold. One of the most famous of all Greek gods and goddesses. | ||
| Minos | First king of Crete. Judge of the dead in the underworld. | deified mortal | Male. |
|
|
|
|
Minos was given the kingdom of Crete from the gods. Every nine years, Minos made King Aegeus choose seven young boys and seven young girls to be sent to the labyrinth to be eaten by the Minotaur. Minos died chasing a fugitive in Sicily. Zeus appointed Minos to be one of the judges of the dead in Hades. |
|
| Famous Greek Mortals beginning with N |
|||||||||
| Narcissus | Narcissus | – | mortal | Male |
|
Narcissus was very handsome but incapable of love. Ameinias/Aminias was distraught when Narcissus cruelly spurned him. He killed himself praying for Nemesis to avenge him. Nemesis answered his prayer causing Narcissus to fall in love with his own reflection. Narcissus died of love and turned into the flower named after him. | |||
| Greek Heroes & Mortals beginning with O |
|||||||||
| Odysseus | Ulysses | King of Ithaca. | mortal | Male |
|
|
|
Odysseus was brilliant, versatile and cunning and most famous for “The Odyssey” an epic poem written by Greek poet Homer. According to the poem Odysseus’s journey kept him away from his home and family for another ten years after the end of the decade-long Trojan War.
Here’s List Lovers Odyssey plot summary: While Odysseus is battling mystical creatures and interference from gods, his wife Penelope and son Telemachus are left to fend off over 100 suitors after Penelope’s hand and Ithaca’s throne desperately hoping Odysseus will return. Telemachus is coming of age and the suitors, angry about the delay, plot to ambush and kill him. King Menelaus reports Odysseus is alive and is being held captive by beautiful Calypso, who wants to marry Odysseus and grant him immortality. Athena persuades the gods to free Odysseus but Poseidon takes revenge on Odysseus for blinding his son Cyclops and shipwrecks them on Phaeacia, ruled by King Alcinous where he relates his story. After the Trojan War, Odysseus, and his men, sail for home and are hit by a storm which blows them to the land of the Lotus-eaters where eating the lotus plant removes ambition and memory. They succumb but eventually get away and their next stop is the land of the Cyclops, home to cannibalistic one-eyed giants. Polyphemus (known simply as Cyclops) traps Odysseus who blinds him to make good his escape. Their next host is Aeolus, the wind god, who collects all the adverse weather in a bag as a parting gift for Odysseus and they sail within sight of Ithaca. While Odysseus is sleeping his greedy crew open the bag, expecting treasure, and release winds which blow them back to Aeolus, who speculates they are cursed by the gods and won’t help them again. They sail on to the cannibalistic Laestrygonians, who sink eleven of their twelve ships and eat most of the men leaving just Odysseus and his crew to sail on to Aeaea where enchantress Circe turns some of the crew into pigs. Taking advice from Hermes, Odysseus outwits Circe and becomes her lover and she eventually lifts the spell from his men. They set sail a year later, on Cicres’s advice, for the Land of the Dead where Odysseus receives various Greek heroes, a visit from his mother and an important prophecy from seer Tiresias. They resume their journey, barely surviving the Sirens’ song, an attack by Scylla, a six-headed monster, and arrive at the island of Helios the sun god. Odysseus warns the men not to eat the cattle but they do anyway, which outrages Zeus, who destroys their ship as it departs killing everyone, apart from Odysseus, who washes up on Calypso’s island. The Phaeacians, grateful for the story and being good hosts, sail Odysseus to Ithaca. Meanwhile, Athena helped Telemachus avoid the suitors’ ambush, and set up a meeting where Odysseus and Telemachus are reunited and, with the help of his faithful swineherd Eumaeus, Odysseus returns to his palace disguised as a beggar. Odysseus takes insults and assaults from the suitors and Penelope suspects he could be her husband, which is confirmed by his childhood nurse Eurycleia, who noticed an old scar on his leg when she bathed him. Penelope announces a contest for her hand to any man who can string the great bow of Odysseus and shoot an arrow through a dozen axes. Odysseus wins and helped by Athena, Telemachus and two faithful herdsmen they kill all the suitors. Odysseus, Penelope and his elderly father Laertes are reunited and they manage to make peace with the suitors’ families, avoiding a civil war. |
|
| Oedipus | Oedipus | King of Thebes. | mortal | Male | King Laius and Queen Jocasta. | Jocasta (wife, in an unknowingly incestuous relationship). | Polynices, Eteocles, Antigone and Ismene. | Oedipus is a tragic hero in Greek mythology because he accidentally fulfilled a prophecy that he would kill his father Laius and marry his mother Jocasta. Upon realizing she had married her own son and her husband’s murderer Jocasta hanged herself. Oedipus then blinded himself with pins from her dress bringing disaster to the city and his family.
Oedipus’ story is told in three plays by Sophocles: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone. |
|
| Orpheus | mortal | Male |
|
|
Eurydice | Musaeus of Athens24* (or his father was Eumolpus). | Orpheus was a muse (musician, poet and prophet). Orpheus fell in love with nymph Eurydice/Euridice/Argiope and they got married but she was killed by a viper. Grief stricken Orpheus played such mournful songs that even the gods wept.
Orpheus travelled to the underworld and Hades and Persephone agreed to allow Eurydice to return to the upper world so long as he walked in front of her and didn’t look back until they had both reached the upper world. Sadly when he reached the upper world Orpheus looked back before Eurydice had reached the upper world and she vanished forever. Orpheus joined Jason and the Argonauts on their epic voyage and, as the seer Chiron had foretold to Orpheus, when the Argo approached the Sirens, Orpheus played music on his lyre that was louder and more beautiful to drown out the Sirens’ bewitching songs. According to Phanokles, Orpheus loved Calais, son of Boreas, with all his heart and sang about it shady groves. There are various myths about Orpheus’s death. He may have been killed by Ciconian women, spurned by Orpheus for taking only male lovers, who tore him to pieces during a frenzied Bacchic orgy. Orpheus’s head was thrown into the River Hebrus and never stopped singing as the river, waves and winds carried it to Lesbos where his head was buried and a shrine and oracle prophesied in a cave in Antissa, Lesbos until it was silenced by Apollo. Orpheus’s lyre and body fragments were carried to heaven by the Muses and Apollo placed the lyre in the night sky as the constellation, Lyra. The Muses buried his body fragments at Leibethra below Mount Olympus, where nightingales sang over his grave. After the river Sys flooded Leibethra, the Macedonians took Orpheus’s bones to Dion and his soul returned to the underworld where Orpheus was reunited with Eurydice. |
||
| Greek Heroes & Mortals beginning with P |
|||||||||
| Pandora | Pandora | Was given a jar which, when opened, releases all evils upon man. | first mortal woman | Female | Pandora was created from clay by Hephaestus on Zeus’ orders and she was the first woman. Each Olympian god gave a gift to make her complete. | Epimetheus | Pandora was given to Epimetheus as a bride by the gods to punish his father Prometheus who had tricked Zeus and helped the humans. Zeus gave Pandora a storage jar (Pandora’s box is a popular idiom based on Greek mythology) as a wedding gift which she opened when she was received in Epimetheus’s house and unleashed evil spirits into the world to plague mankind. Pandora closed the jar (box) leaving just Elpis (hope) inside. |
||
| Perseus | Perseus was Greek hero and slayer of monsters. | hero | Male | Zeus and Danaë, Acrisius (stepfather). |
|
Andromeda |
|
Famous Greek hero who beheaded the Gorgon Medusa, saved Andromeda from the sea monster Cetus, founder of Mycenae and the Perseid Danaans dynasty (with Bellerophon and Cadmus) | |
See also: Greek gods & goddesses A-Z… | Greek mythology groups…
* Notes about Greek heros, heroines and deified mortals:
- This list is primarily compiled from the works of Hesiod (Theogony c700 BC) and Homer (Iliad and Odyssey 760-710 BC) because these authority sources are credited by ancient authors with establishing Greek religious customs. We have also referenced other sources, including later Roman sources, as indicated:
1*Hesiod, Theogony. 2*Homer, Iliad. 3*Hyginus. 4*Roman poet Ovid, Metamorphoses. 5*Plato, Republic. 6*Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca. 7*Cicero. 8*Pherecydes of Syros (6th century BCE). 9*Orphic cosmogony. 10*Nonnus, Dionysiaca. 11*Pausanias and Varro. 12*Pausanias, Guide to Greece. 13*Strabo, Geography. 14*Athenaeus. 15*Fulgentius. 16*The Theoi Project. 17*Herodotus. 18* Cicero. 19*Pindar. 20*the Suda. 21*Aeschylus. 22*Bacchylides. 23*Greek poet Panyasis. 24*Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historian. 25*Plato, Apology 41a. 26*Euripides. 27*Tzetzes. 28*Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius. 29*Aelian, Historical Miscellany. 30*Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica. 31*Scholia on Homer Iliad. 32*Scholia on Theocritus. 33*Roman poet Ovid, Heroides. 34*Stephanus Byzantinus. 35*Conon. 36*Virgil, Aeneid. 37*Plutarch. 38*Scholia on Euripides, Phoenician Women. 38*Ptolemy Hephaestion, New History. 39*Robert Graves, The Greek Myths.
95*The Trojan war: Decade long war between the Achaeans (Greeks) and the Trojans (North West Anatolia, Turkey). The Trojans lost. 96*Titanomachy: Decade long war between Titan and Olympian gods. The Olympians won. AKA War of the Titans. 97*Gigantomachy: A later battle between the Gigantes and the Olympian gods. The Olympians won. 98*Protogenoi: First born, primordial deities without gender. 99*Parthenogenesis: asexual reproduction. - Latin spellings have been used throughout instead of the original Greek or Transliteration spellings, although some have been included for clarity.
- In Greek mythology gods often desired mortal women and got what they wanted one way or another. Sometimes by seduction, sometimes in disguise and sometimes by rape/forced sex against their will. In many cases the myths are ambiguous.
Related Lists Which May Interest You:
- List Lovers Greek mythology creation story explainer…
- We’ve done our best to include all the famous greek heros, heroines and deified mortals but it’s always a work in progress so please help us improve this List Lovers list by adding your comments below…
Share via Social Media or Add a Comment