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