Hollywood Has Nothing on the Insanity of the Real Greek Myths

1. Accidentally Seeing a Naked Goddess Was Bad News for This Mortal

Chiron was a mythical creature with the lower body of a horse, and the torso and upper body of a human. He was notable in Greek mythology and legend for his youth-nurturing nature. He instilled in Actaeon a passion for the hunt that proved the Theban hero’s undoing. One day, Actaeon was out hunting with his dogs in Boeotia. He unwittingly stumbled upon the chaste goddess Artemis – Diana to the Romans – while she was naked, bathing in a spring with some wood nymphs.

Although the extent of Actaeon’s sin, if it could even be called that, was to simply have had the misfortune of bumping into a naked goddess, Artemis was livid that a mortal saw her naked. So in her wrath, she turned him into a stag. The terrified Actaeon bounded into the woods, but his own dogs detected the scent of a stag. They failed to recognize their master in his new body, chased him down, and tore him to pieces.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Bulfinch, Thomas – Bulfinch’s Mythology (1998)

Cracked – Movies vs Ancient Mythology

Dalby, Andrew – The Story of Bacchus (2005)

Dictionary of Shakespeare’s Classical Mythology – Ixion

Encyclopedia Britannica – Cronus

Encyclopedia Britannica – Ixion

Encyclopedia Britannica – Tantalus

Encyclopedia Mythica – Actaeon

Encyclopedia Mythica – Lycurgus of Thrace

Evslin, Bernard – Gods, Demigods and Demons: A Handbook of Greek Mythology (2006)

Fry, Stephen – Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined (2018)

Fry, Stephen – Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece (2019)

Gantz, Timothy – Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (1993)

Genealogical Guide to Greek Mythology – Actaeon

Graves, Robert – The Greek Myths (1992)

Gray, Louis Herbert, ed. – The Mythology of All Races, Volume 1: Greek and Roman (1916)

Greek Mythology – Hercules: The Life of the Greek Hero

Greek Mythology – Io

Greeka – Io and Zeus

Greeka – The Danaides

Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 13 (1902) – A Study of the Danaid Myth

History Collection – Hollywood’s Witch Hunt Created a Communist Blacklist for These Celebrities

Keefer, Professor Julia, New York University – The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

Mayor, Adrienne – The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World (2014)

Mythopedia – Leto

Peabody, Josephine Preston, Tales Beyond Belief – The Myth of Niobe

Screen Rant – Disney’s Hercules: 10 Things That Would be Different if the Movie Was Mythologically Accurate

Theoi – Artemis Wrath

Theoi – Kronos

Theoi – The Titaness Leto

World History Encyclopedia – Amazon Women

World History Encyclopedia – Prometheus