MYTHS

Before the gods there was Chaos. Then came wide-bosomed Gaia, dim Tartarus in the depths, and Eros, fairest of the deathless ones — and from these first powers the whole genealogy of the world unfolds.

Zeus resolved to destroy the men of the Bronze Age beneath the waters. One chest rode the flood, carrying Deucalion and Pyrrha — and from the stones they cast over their shoulders a new human race was born.

Cursed by their father Oedipus, the sons of the Theban house turned on each other: Polynices brought seven Argive captains against the seven gates of Thebes, and the brothers died on each other's spears.

From Dardanus, the son of Zeus who crossed from Samothrace, the royal line of Troy ran through Erichthonius, Tros, and Ilus the founder of Ilion, to Laomedon who cheated gods and hero alike, and to Priam, under whom the city stood at its height — until the Achaeans came.

For Helen, taken from Sparta to Troy, the Achaean kings besieged Priam's city for ten years — the war of wars, where Achilles' wrath burned, Hector fell, and every homecoming was poisoned.