Jupiter’s bundle of thunderbolts that have survived into computer technology, lightning in great floods, in the destruction of Tyre, and the three witches in Macbeth.
Poussin
Bacchus granted him the boon that everything he touched turned to gold. When that proved disastrous, his power was washed away, but he then offended Apollo and was given the ears of an ass.
Newly wed Eurydice is bitten by a snake and dies. Orpheus rescues her from the Underworld, but on their way back he looks back to check on her. All in magnificent paintings.
The Roman goddess Minerva, the Greek statesman Solon, King Solomon, the three Magi, a ‘philosopher’ of Enlightenment, a scientist with a microscope, and the School of Athens.
Stories of shape-shifters who could morph readily into animals and even inanimate objects. Includes Proteus, Erysichthon’s daughter, and leads on to Achelous himself.
More than a dozen heroes are called to hunt a boar as big as an ox that is destroying crops and livestock. Their attempts are farcical until the young woman Atalanta impales the boar with her arrow.
The stories of Cambyses the corrupt judge, Phryne charged with impiety, the judgement of Solomon, the Tichborne Trial, and several others.
One of Ovid’s best stories, of a man who inadvertently kills his wife when she suspects him of having an affair with a nymph when he should be hunting.
What happens when a mortal is turned into a heavenly body, as with Orion; or when the Virgin Mary was taken up into Heaven.
Fathered by King Aegeus and Poseidon, after revealing sandals and a sword, Medea tried to poison him with aconite to stop him knowing his father.
