Maia
( none )
Greek mother of Hermes fathered by Zeus. She was oldest and most beautiful of the Pleiade sisters. She was daughter of the Titans Atlas and Pleione (an Oceanid). Zeus She bore Hermes by Zeus in a cave in Mount Cyllene of Arcadia. She defended her prodigy of a son against Apollo who knew that the prodigy had stolen some of his cattle. However as Hermes had made a lyre from a tortoise shell Apollo not only forgave him but gave his cadeaus (cattle prod) and his godhood. Also he made Hermes member of the inner circle of gods, the Olympiads. Maia did alright but not much more is mentioned about her.
The Romans named their 3rd month after her, and the pagans in the north celebrated the first day of this month as Beltaine. As the festival was about fertility Maia was then associated with fertility and rebirth, something the Greeks never did associate her with.
Medeia
( Latin Medea )
Likely she was a version of an ancient Thracian goddess. However anyone who has studied Greek mythology knows the story of Medeia from a play of that name by Euripides.
Medea was a Colchian princess and priestess of Hecate. Colchis was a kingdom on the northeast shore of the Caspian Sea, nestled under the Caucasian mountains. She is called daughter of this goddess by Pindar, but Hesiod says that her mother was the Oceanid Idyia. Apparently her father Aeetes, son of Helios & Perseis (Perseis is one of the Oceanids) was once king of Ephyraea (Corinth) before he emigrated to Colchis, which makes Colchis a Greek colony. Aeetes is brother of Pasiphae, the wife of King Minos of Crete, and he is also the brother of Circe. Aeetes ruled in the city of Aea in Colchis. When the Argonauts came to Aea in Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece she fell in love with the captain of the Argo, Jason, and helped him to get the Golden Fleece against the will of her father. In order to do this she, with the help of drugs, put to sleep the Ladon, offspring of Gaia, which guarded the Golden Fleece. Because of this and because of her love for Jason she fled from Colchis with the Argonauts.
During the flight she is said to have killed or have taken part in the murder of her brother Apsyrtus. As King Aeetes started off in pursuit of Medea and the Argonauts, she then murdered her brother and cut him limb from limb, throwing the pieces into the sea. So, gathering Apsyrtus' limbs, Aeetes fell behind in the pursuit. But Nonnus said that it was Jason who cut him into pieces, or after Cicero that Apsyrtus was, with Medea's help, treacherously killed by Jason on an island in the mouth of the river Ister (the Danube). Still during their flight, the Argonauts and Medea came to Phaeacia (Corcyra). King Alcinous of the Phaeacians received them and protected Medea. The Colchians demanded of Alcinous that he should give her up. He answered that if she already made love with Jason, he would let her stay in his kingdom, but that if she were still a maid he would send her away to her father. However his wife Queen Arete anticipated matters by marrying Medea to Jason in the cave of Macris.
When they reached Crete, Medea was instrumental in destroying the bronze protector of Crete, Talos. Talos had been given to Europa by Zeus to guard Crete from intruders. However Medea found that there was a nail in the ankle of this Cyborg. Pulling it out, the creature died as his lifeblood flowed out. Leaving Crete the Argonauts went on to destroy Pelias. Medea told his daughters to chop into fine pieces and boil the chunks. Medeia would then restore the father to life. The father stayed dead. And as a reward for this gruesome party trick, his son Acastus became king shortly afterward he drove the Argonauts out of his kingdom.
Jason and Medeia then went to Corinth and lived happily for three years. Jason, unfortunately, divorced Medeia in order to marry Glauce, daughter of the King of Corinth, Creon. Naturally this led to more bloodshed, and although there are different versions of the details, basically Medeia killed Glauce, Creon, Jason, and the two children she had had by him, Mermerus and Pheres. Most people, born to kill like this would consider this a complete story. However the writers were not finished with her. She went to Athens from Corinth, and there she married the King Aegeus and had a son Medus. Another son of Aegeus, Theseus, returned and although Medeia tried to poison him to ensure her sons succession to the throne. She failed, and had to flee, so she fled to her original home Colchis. There she found her father had been displaced by his brother Perses. Naturally she poisoned him, and her son Medus became king.
There are different versions but none of the stories say how she died, or if she ever did.
Medusa
( none )
One of the Graii, but unlike them she was very beautiful, though her vanity caused her to say she was more beautiful than Athena, who made Medusa mortal unlike her sisters. To be nastier Athena also changed her hair into live snakes, and set a curse on her so when someone looked at Medusa they were to be turned into stone. The horse Pegasus is her offspring when she mated with Poseidon (before she offended Athena). There is also the famous story of Perseus slaying Medusa.
Melete
( none )
Boeotian Muse of practice. The other Boeotian Muses were Aoide (Aeode) and Mneme.
Melicertes
( none )
Greek Palaemon adopted from the Phoenican Melkart.
Melpomene
( none )
Greek Muse of tragedy. Daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne. Her attributes include the tragic mask and the cothurnus (pl. cothurni), the boots traditionally worn by tragedy actors.
Mese
( none )
In Greek mythology, the Delphic Muse associated with the middle string of the lyre. The other Delphic Muses were Hypate and Nete.
Metis
( none )
Greek goddess of wisdom. Daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. The first wife of Zeus whom he swallowed when he discovered that she was pregnant, fearing that she might give birth to a son mightier than he. Subsequently, Athena sprang fully armed from the head of Zeus. Metis is thus given as the mother of Athena, although some sources consider that, given the circumstances, Athena was the daughter of Zeus alone.
Minotaur
( Asterius )
The head of a bull and the body of a man is what the minotaur was.
He was born because King Minos did not do as he promised. Minos of Crete promised that if the gods made a bull appear he would sacrifice it to them. He made this strange prayer because after a drunken argument with some of his subjects he claimed that he held the throne of Crete because the gods respected him. He claimed that whatever he asked they would give him, so he prayed for a bull to appear and he would thank the gods by sacrificing it. He prayed to Poseidon, who sent a beautiful bull which walked out of the sea. Minos thought it better if kept this bull around to show people what Poseidon had sent him, and sacrificed a different bull instead. Poseidon felt cheated, and so Poseidon and Aphrodite caused Minos' wife Pasiphae to lust after the bull that Poseidon had sent. It is said Aphrodite went along with this idea since Pasiphae had not sacrificed to her for several years and so thought the Queen should be humiliated.
Pasiphae asked Daedalus, the engineer, to help her consummate her passion. Apollodonis describes in detail how that was done. The result was that Pasiphae gave birth to Asterius or Minotaur. Minos was horrified and realized that this was punishment for breaking his word. He asked Daedalus to construct an underground maze, the Labyrinth to keep his stepson in, because he did not want to see him at all. After Daedalus constructed the Labyrinth Minos thought to punish the Athenians whom he had just defeated in war by requiring them to send 7 young children each year. He sent the children into the Labyrinth where the Minotaur would kill and eat them. The story of Theseus explains how the Minotaur was killed and the cruel tribute from Athens was stopped.
Minos
( none )
One of the three Greek judges of the underworld, along with Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon. He was originally a king of Crete. His cult involved the worship of bulls or of Minos in the form of a bull.
Mneme
( none )
Boeotian Muse of memory. The other Boeotian Muses were Aoide (Aeode) and Melete.
Mnemosyne
( none )
Greek goddess of memory. According to Hesiod, mother of the nine Muses by Zeus. One of the Titans. Daughter of Ouranus (heaven) and Gaia (earth).
Mnevis
( Egyptian Mnewer )
Sacred bull of Heliopolis.
Moirai
( Moires, Moirae )
The Greek Fates. According to Hesiod, the daughters of Zeus and Themis. They were Atropos (the unbending, or the inevitable), Clotho (the spinner), and Lachesis (the caster of lots). As determiners of fate, they had supremacy, even over the gods. Clotho spun out the thread of life, Lachesis determined its length, and Atropos cut it, resulting in death. The Romans called them the Parcae.
Momos
( Momus )
Greek personification of blame, censure. According to Hesiod, the son of Erebos and Nyx. A god of faultfinding and criticism, he was eventually banished from Olympus for mocking the other gods.
Moros
( none )
According to the ancient writer Hesiod, Moros was the son of Erebus and Nyx. Brother of Thanatos. Moros was the god of doom. Moros is doom in ancient Greek but in modern Greek it means foolish and that meaning is derived from moro meaning child. Some have taken doom to mean destiny, but the fate of all creatures is usually assigned to the Moirai. Parents have been known to use this god to frighten their children.
Morpheus
( none )
Greek god of dreams. Son of Hypnos, the god of sleep. His name derives from the Greek morphe (form, shape), and he was responsible for shaping dreams, or giving shape to the beings which inhabit dreams.
Muses
( Mousai, Moisai, Musae )
Greek goddesses of the arts and sciences. Nine in number. Hesiod was the first to give them individual identities, and gave their parents as Zeus and Mnemosyne. They included Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Erato (love poetry), Euterpe (lyric poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Polyhymnia (song), Terpsichore (dance), Thalia (comedy), and Urania (astronomy).
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