King of Ithaca

A

Achilles

–

Myrmidon prince; later the principal hero of the Trojan War

Actoris

–

Penelope’s body slave

Aegisthus

–

son of Thyestes; he murdered his uncle and foster-parent, Atreus, the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus

Agamemnon

–

king of Mycenae, and most powerful of the Greeks

Ajax (greater)

–

king of Salamis

Ajax (lesser)

–

prince of Locris

Alybas

–

home city of Eperitus, in northern Greece

Anticleia

–

queen of Ithaca; mother of Odysseus

Antiphus

–

Ithacan guardsman

Aphrodite

–

goddess of love

Apollo

–

archer god, associated with music, song and healing

Arcadia

–

region in the central Peloponnese

Arceisius

–

shepherd boy named after a former king of Ithaca

Ares

–

god of war

Argos

–

powerful city in the north-eastern Peloponnese

Artemis

–

hunter goddess, noted for her virginity and her vengefulness

Athena

–

goddess of wisdom and warfare

Athens

–

city on Aegean seaboard

Atreides

–

the sons of Atreus: Agamemnon and Menelaus

Atreus

–

former king of Mycenae

Attica

–

region of which Athens was the capital

C

Castor

–

Cretan prince

Cedalion

–

former apprentice of Hephaistos, taken by the blind Orion to act as his guide

chelonion

–

flower native to Ithaca

Clytaemnestra

–

daughter of Tyndareus and wife of Agamemnon

Crete

–

island to the south of Greece

Ctymene

–

sister of Odysseus

D

Damastor

–

Ithacan guardsman

Demeter

–

goddess of agriculture

Diocles

–

Spartan warrior

Diomedes

–

king of Argos and ally of Agamemnon

Dulichium

–

Ionian island forming northernmost part of Laertes’s kingdom

E

Echidna

–

monster with the upper torso of a beautiful woman and the body of a serpent

Elatos

–

chief priest of the oracle at Pythia

Eperitus

–

warrior from Alybas, exiled for refusing to support his father after he had murdered King Pandion

Epigoni

–

collective name for the sons of seven Argive heroes who led a doomed expedition against Thebes; the Epigoni, amongst them Diomedes, later avenged their fathers by laying waste to the city

Eumaeus

–

faithful slave to Laertes

Eupeithes

–

ambitious and treacherous Ithacan noble

Eurotas

–

Spartan river, named after the king who drowned himself in its waters

Eurycleia

–

slave to Laertes, formerly Odysseus’s nurse

Eurytus

–

father of Iphitus

G

Gaea

–

earth goddess

Gyrtias

–

warrior from Rhodes

H

Hades

–

god of the Underworld

Halitherses

–

captain of Ithacan royal guard

Helen

–

foster-daughter of Tyndareus (actually fathered by Zeus); renowned for her beauty

Hephaistos

–

god of fire; blacksmith to the gods of Olympus

Hera

–

goddess married to Zeus

Heracles

–

greatest of all Greek heroes (otherwise known as Hercules)

Hermes

–

messenger of the gods; his duties also include shepherding the souls of the dead to the Underworld

Hestia

–

goddess of the hearth and protectress of the household

I

Icarius

–

co-king of Sparta, with his brother Tyndareus; father of Penelope

Idomeneus

–

king of Crete

Ilium

–

the region of which Troy was the capital