Glossary:

• Achaeans: Another name for the Greeks.
• Ajax: The son of Telamon and Periboea, he is Achilles cousin and played a major role in the Trojan War before committing suicide after being judged less worthy than Odysseus for having Achilles’ armor.
• Alexandria: A city in Northern Egypt founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC that is most famous for the destruction of its magnificent library.
• Andromache: A native of Thebe she was taken to Troy after Achilles sacked the town and killed her father and brothers. After the war, she is completely alone.
• Apollo: An important Olympian god, he is the god of music, poetry, art, oracles, archery, plague, medicine, sun, light and knowledge; he may have been responsible for the death of Achilles via arrow. In addition, he triggered Achilles’ anger by demanding the return of Chryseis, the daughter of one of his priests, which led to Agamemnon’s request for Briseis.
• Aphrodite: The goddess of love, beauty and sexuality; selected by Paris as the most fair, she made Helen of Sparta fall in love with him and flee to Troy.
• Ares: A war god, he was on the side of the Trojans at the behest of Aphrodite, but was sent away from the field when Athena and Diomedes collaborated in striking him.
• Argives: A citizen of Argos, but also another term for an ancient Greek.
• Astyanax: The son of Hector and Andromache and thus the heir to Troy, Astyanax is a nickname meaning high king, and his birth name was Scamandrius, after the nearby river. While his method of death varies, being thrown from the walls of Troy is the most popular fate.
• Athena: The goddess of wisdom, craft, war, diplomacy, weaving, medicine, and commerce; angered by Paris’ snub, she fought with the Greeks at Troy but was angered by their actions against her divinity later.
• Aulis: A Greek port-town in Boeotia identified with contemporary Avlida. It is famous for being the location that the Greeks gathered to leave for Troy, and where Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia.
• Babylon: A kingdom in ancient Mesopotamia on the Euphrates river.
• Dardans: Another name for the Trojans
• Diomedes: The King of Argos, he was a major fighter in the Trojan War and a major character in the first third of the Iliad. Athena helped him to wound Ares and granted him the gift of recognizing immortals and thus is a rare mortal who has injured multiple gods. He is also agreed to have been the one who took the Palladium, statue of Athena, from Troy; Helenus, another Trojan prince, admitted Troy could not fall while it remained within its walls. He was in the Trojan horse, as well. After the war, he made it home safety and tradition dictates he moved to Italy.
• Funeral Games: Competitions in honor of the recently deceased are found around the world. They were very popular in Mycenaean Greece, which was the first majorly advanced Greek society. The Olympic games probably derived from games held in honor of Zeus and could become annual
• Gaul: A region of Western Europe inhabited by the Celts under Roman control during the Iron Age.
• Hecuba: The Queen of Troy during the War with unclear parentage. She
• Hephaestus: The god of fire, metalwork, masonry, forges, and blacksmiths. Much of the magical armor and weapons used at Troy were forged by him.
• Heracles: A son of Zeus and a mortal woman, he became a sort of demi-god known for his interesting feats in life; the roman equivalent is Hercules.
• Hermes: The god of trade, thieves, travelers, border crossings, and athletes; he is also the messenger to the gods and is often a guide to the Underworld. At Troy, he led Priam into the Greek encampment to reclaim the body of his son, Hector.
• The Muses: The nine goddesses of inspiration, each are attributed to a different element of knowledge and art; they are thought to be the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne (memory). They are Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Euterpe (flutes and lyrics poetry), Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Terpsichore (dance), Erato (love poetry), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry), and Urania (astronomy).
• Nestor: The king of Pylos after Heracles killed his father and siblings, he supplies advice at Troy but does not fight himself due to his age. However, he advised Patroclue to disguise himself as Achilles, leading to his death.
• Odysseus: The king of Ithaca, he fought in the Iliad but may be better known for the tale of his long journey home in the Odyssey. In the first poem, he is often considered Achilles’ antithesis due to his reason and self-restraint. An intelligent man, he came up with the idea for the Trojan horse. While the Greeks show him positively, the Romans, who thought they descended from Trojan Aeneas, hated him.
• Olympus: The name of the mountain on which the gods lived.
• Patroclus: Achilles’ closest friend, his death triggers many of his subsequent actions. He was killed by Hector while in disguise as Achilles, who would not fight.
• Peleus : Achilles’ father.
• Poseidon: The god of the sea, earthquakes, and horses. He, while partially stripped of divinity, built the walls around Troy under King Laomedon. Again a god, he sent a sea monster that was killed by Heracles.
• Priam: The king of Troy.
• Sinbad: A middle eastern mythical sailor added to 1001 Arabian Nights in the 17th or 18th century.
• Thebes: An incredibly important Greek settlement that features heavily in a lot of myths.
• Thetis: The sea-nymph who was Achilles mother. At Troy, she asked Hephaestus to forge new armor for her son.
• Thisbe: A character in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, she is Pyramus’ lover. In Babylon, they agree to meet near a tomb, but Pyramus thinks she was eaten by a lion and kills himself, leading to her death.

Death of Achilles feat. Paris and Apollo (c. 460 BC)

Death of Astyanax (c 500 BC)

Diomedes with the Palladium (c 1425 CE)

The Francois Vase depicting Patroclus' funeral games (570/560 BC)

Hermes guides Priam.

The Nine Muses

Reconstruction of Odysseus blinding Polyphemus from the villa of Emperor Tiberius at Sperlonga, 1st century AD

Thetis and Hephaestus.