Geography of the myths
Mythic Places
Where things happen, not only who did them. Ten places the stories keep coming back to, with who rules them, who turns up, and which tales are tied to the ground.
A myth is easier to hold when you know where you are standing. Zeus was hidden in a cave on Crete, Odysseus talked to the dead on a dark shore, and a fortress of bronze sits beneath the Underworld. Some of these places are real hills and islands you can visit. Others only exist in the poems. Each page below says which is which.
Above the clouds
Olympus
The mountain the gods took from the Titans: a real peak with a palace above the weather, and the stories of everyone who tried to climb it.
5 min read
The house of Hades
The Underworld
Five rivers, a ferry, a three-headed dog and a very quiet queen. Where the dead go and the few stories of people who came back.
4 min read
Nine days down
Tartarus
The prison under the world where Zeus sent the Titans, and how it slowly turned from a fortress into a place of punishment.
4 min read
Island of secrets
Crete
Where Zeus was hidden as a baby and where Minos built the labyrinth. Bulls, a thread, a pair of wings and a bronze giant.
4 min read
The walled city
Troy
A real hill and a poet's war. Walls built by gods, a bribe over an apple, ten years of fighting and a wooden horse.
4 min read
The navel of the world
Delphi
The shrine where the Greeks went to ask what would happen next, and the answers that were never quite what they seemed.
4 min read
A road of islands
The Aegean Sea
A sea named for a grieving king, ruled from a palace under the water, and the place where the heroes' voyages go wrong.
3 min read
The best seat in the war
Mount Ida
The mountain above Troy where a baby was left to die, three goddesses asked for a verdict, and Zeus sat out the war.
5 min read
City of the seven gates
Thebes
Founded with a dragon's teeth and cursed from the start. The city of Cadmus, Semele, Oedipus and Antigone.
5 min read
Golden Mycenae
Mycenae
The fortress of lion-topped gates and royal gold, and the house of Atreus, whose feud fed the Greek tragedians.
5 min read
Looking for the people instead? Try the Family Tree or the Library.