Monsters: Did you mean...?

In Greek mythology, Tartarus was the lowest point of the universe, below the underworld but separate from it. Tartarus is best known from Hesiod's Theogony as one of the first beings to come into existence in the universe and also as the...

The Woman and the Monster is a legend of the Arapaho nation about a woman who, seeming to drown in a river, is transported to the realm of an elemental water spirit who teaches her the proper way for her people to honor him and, in so doing...

Homer's Odyssey is an epic poem written in the 8th century BCE which describes the long voyage home of the Greek hero Odysseus. The mythical king sails back to Ithaca with his men after the Trojan War but is beset by all kinds of delays and...

The Enuma Elish (also known as The Seven Tablets of Creation) is the Babylonian creation myth whose title is derived from the opening lines of the piece, "When on High". The myth tells the story of the great god Marduk's victory over the...

Achilles The hero of the Trojan War, leader of the Myrmidons, slayer of Hector and Greece's greatest warrior, who sadly came unstuck when Paris sent a flying arrow guided by Apollo, which caught him in his only weak spot, his heel. Adonis...

Red-figure plate showing Bellerophon riding Pegasus and chasing the Chimera, by the Baltimore painter, second half of the 4th century BCE. (Photo taken at the "Monsters. Fantastic Creatures of Fear and Myth" exhibition, Palazzo Massimo alle...

Mosaic with a ketos (sea monster - Latinized as cetus) found at Caulonia (Monasterace) in the Casa del Drago, 3rd century BCE. Photo taken at the "Monsters. Fantastic Creatures of Fear and Myth" exhibition, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome...

The Chimera on black-figured amphora, from southern Etruria, 550-525 BCE. Photo taken at the "Monsters. Fantastic Creatures of Fear and Myth" exhibition, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome, in 2014.

Corinthian plate with Chimera, 590-575 BCE. Photo taken at the "Monsters. Fantastic Creatures of Fear and Myth" exhibition, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome in 2014.

Hydria (ceramic water container) with Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra (an ancient serpent-like water monster), from Etruria, attributed to the Painter of Aquila, 530-500 BCE. Photo taken at the "Monsters. Fantastic Creatures of Fear and...