Adonis (Άδωνις)
God of beauty and desire, a central figure in various mystery religions. He is an annually-renewed, ever-youthful vegetation god, a life-death-rebirth deity whose nature is tied to the calendar. His name is often applied in modern times to handsome youths, of whom he is the archetype.

Athena (Αθηνά) (Roman counterpart: Minerva)
Goddess of intelligence and skill, warfare, battle strategy, handicrafts, and wisdom. According to most traditions, she was born from Zeus's head fully formed and armored. She was depicted crowned with a crested helm, armed with shield and a spear, and wearing the aegis over a long dress. Poets describe her as "grey-eyed" or having especially bright, keen eyes. She was a special patron of heroes such as Odysseus. She was also the patron of the city Athens (which was named after her) Her symbol is the olive tree. She is commonly shown accompanied by her sacred animal, the owl.

Apollo (Απόλλων)
God of music, arts, knowledge, healing, plague, prophecy, poetry, manly beauty and archery. He is the son of Zeus and Leto, and the twin brother of Artemis. As brother and sister, they were identified with the sun and moon; both use a bow and arrow. In the earliest myths, Apollo contends with his half-brother Hermes. In sculpture, Apollo was depicted as a very handsome, beardless young man with long hair and an ideal physique. As the embodiment of perfectionism, he could be cruel and destructive, and his love affairs were rarely happy. His attributes include the laurel wreath and lyre. He often appears in the company of the Muses. Animals sacred to Apollo include roe deer, swans, cicadas, hawks, ravens, crows, foxes, mice, and snakes.

Ares (Άρης) (Roman counterpart: Mars)
God of war, bloodshed, and violence. The son of Zeus and Hera, he was depicted as a beardless youth, either nude with a helmet and spear or sword, or as an armed warrior. Homer portrays him as moody and unreliable, and he generally represents the chaos of war in contrast to Athena, a goddess of military strategy and skill. Ares' sacred animals are the vulture, venomous snakes, dogs, and boars.

Artemis (Άρτεμις) (Roman counterpart: Diana)
Virgin goddess of the hunt, wilderness, animals, young girls, childbirth and plague. In later times she became associated with the moon. She is the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and twin sister of Apollo. In art she was often depicted as a young woman dressed in a short knee-length chiton and equipped with a hunting bow and a quiver of arrows. Her attributes include hunting spears, animal pelts, deer and other wild animals. Her sacred animals are deer, bears, and wild boars.

Aphrodite (Αφροδίτη) (Roman counterpart: Venus)
Goddess of love, beauty, desire, and pleasure. Although married to Hephaestus she had many lovers, most notably Ares, Adonis, and Anchises. She was depicted as a beautiful woman and of all the goddesses most likely to appear nude or seminude. Poets praise the radiance of her smile and her laughter. Her symbols include roses and other flowers, the scallop shell, and myrtle wreath. Her sacred animals are doves and sparrows.

Deimos (Δείμος) (meaning: terror)
The personification of terror. He was the son of Ares and Aphrodite. He is the twin brother of Phobos and nephew of the goddess Enyo who accompanied her brother Ares into battle, as well as his father's attendants, Trembling, Fear, Dread and Panic. Deimos is more of a personification and an abstraction of the sheer terror that is brought by war and he never appeared as an actual character in any story in Greek Mythology. His Roman equivalent was Formido or Metus.

Demeter (Δημήτηρ) (Roman counterpart: Ceres)
Goddess of grain, agriculture and the harvest, growth and nourishment. Demeter is a daughter of Cronus and Rhea and sister of Zeus, by whom she bore Persephone. She was one of the main deities of the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which her power over the life cycle of plants symbolized the passage of the human soul through its life course and into the afterlife. She was depicted as a mature woman, often crowned and holding sheafs of wheat and a torch. Her symbols are the cornucopia, wheat-ears, the winged serpent, and the lotus staff. Her sacred animals are pigs and snakes.

Dionysus (Διόνυσος)
God of wine, parties and festivals, madness, chaos and ecstasy. He was depicted in art as either an older bearded god or a pretty effeminate, long-haired youth. His attributes include the thyrsus (a pinecone-tipped staff), drinking cup, grape vine, and a crown of ivy. He is often in the company of his thiasos, a posse of attendants including satyrs, maenads, and his old tutor Silenus. The consort of Dionysus was Ariadne. Animals sacred to him include dolphins, serpents, tigers, and donkeys. A later addition to the Olympians, in some accounts he replaced Hestia (Roman counterpart: Vesta).

Hecate (Εκάτη)
Α goddess in Greek religion and mythology, most often shown holding two torches or a key and in later periods depicted in triple form. She was variously associated with crossroads, entrance-ways, fire, light, the Moon, magic, witchcraft, knowledge of herbs and poisonous plants, necromancy, and sorcery. She had rulership over earth, sea and sky, as well as a more universal role as Saviour (Soteira), Mother of Angels and the Cosmic World Soul. She was one of the main deities worshiped in Athenian households as a protective goddess and one who bestowed prosperity and daily blessings on the family.

Endymion (Ενδυμίων)
Lover of Selene, granted eternal sleep so as never to age or die. Apollonius of Rhodes is one of the many poet who tell how Selene, the Titan goddess of the moon, loved the mortal. She believed him to be so beautiful that she asked Zeus to grant him eternal youth so that he would never leave her. Alternatively, Selene so loved how Endymion looked when he was asleep in the cave on Mount Latmus, near Miletus in Caria, that she entreated Zeus that he might remain that way. In either case, Zeus granted her wish and put him into an eternal sleep. Every night, Selene visited him where he slept. Selene and Endymion had fifty daughters who are equated by some scholars with the fifty months of the Olympiad.

Erebus (Έρεβος)
In Greek mythology he was often conceived as a primordial deity, representing the personification of darkness; for instance, Hesiod's Theogony identifies him as one of the first five beings in existence, born of Chaos. Erebus features little in Greek mythological tradition and literature, but is said to have fathered several other deities with Nyx; depending on the source of the mythology, this union includes Aether, Hemera, the Hesperides, Hypnos, the Moirai, Geras, Styx, Charon, and Thanatos.

Hermes (Ερμής) (Roman counterpart: Mercury)
God of boundaries, travel, communication, trade, thievery, trickery, language, writing, diplomacy, athletics, and animal husbandry. The son of Zeus and Maia, Hermes is the messenger of the gods, and a psychopomp who leads the souls of the dead into the afterlife. He was depicted either as a handsome and athletic beardless youth, or as an older bearded man. His attributes include the herald's wand or caduceus, winged sandals, and a traveler's cap. His sacred animals are the tortoise, the ram, and the hawk.

Zeus (Ζευς or Δίας) (Roman counterpart: Jupiter)
King of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky, weather, thunder, lightning, law, order, and justice. He is the youngest son of Cronus and Rhea. He overthrew Cronus and gained the sovereignty of heaven for himself. In artwork, he was depicted as a regal, mature man with a sturdy figure and dark beard. His usual attributes are the royal scepter and the lightning bolt, and his sacred animals are the eagle and the bull.

Helios (Ήλιος)
The personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. Helios was described as a handsome god crowned with the shining aureole of the Sun, who drove the chariot of the sun across the sky each day to earth-circling Oceanus and through the world-ocean returned to the East at night. In the Homeric hymn to Helios, Helios is said to drive a golden chariot drawn by steeds and Pindar speaks of Helios's "fire-darting steeds". Still later, the horses were given fiery names: Pyrois, Aeos, Aethon, and Phlegon.

Hera (Ήρα) (Roman counterpart: Juno)
Queen of the gods and goddess of marriage, women, childbirth, heirs, kings, and empires. She is the wife of Zeus and daughter of Cronus and Rhea. She was usually depicted as a regal woman in the prime of her life, wearing a diadem and veil and holding a lotus-tipped staff. Although she was the goddess of marriage, Zeus's many infidelities drive her to jealousy and vengefulness. Her sacred animals are the heifer, the peacock, and the cuckoo.

Hephaestus (Ήφαιστος)
Crippled god of fire, metalworking, and crafts. Either the son of Zeus and Hera or Hera alone, he is the smith of the gods and the husband of the adulterous Aphrodite. He was usually depicted as a bearded man with hammer, tongs and anvil—the tools of a smith—and sometimes riding a donkey. His sacred animals are the donkey, the guard dog and the crane. Among his creations was the armor of Achilles. Hephaestus used the fire of the forge as a creative force.

Thanatos (Θάνατος)
He was the daemon personification of death. He was a minor figure in Greek mythology, often referred to but rarely appearing in person.

Thetis (Θέτις)
She is encountered in Greek mythology mostly as a sea nymph or known as the goddess of water, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of the ancient sea god Nereus. When described as a Nereid in Classical myths, Thetis was the daughter of Nereus and Doris, and a granddaughter of Tethys with whom she sometimes shares characteristics. Often she seems to lead the Nereids as they attend to her tasks. Sometimes she also is identified with Metis.

Cronus (Κρόνος) (Roman counterpart: Saturn)
In the most classic and well known version of Greek mythology he was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titans, divine descendants of Gaia, the earth, and Uranus, the sky. He overthrew his father and ruled during the mythological Golden Age, until he was overthrown by his own son Zeus and imprisoned in Tartarus. Cronus was usually depicted with the harpe and a sickle, which was the instrument he used to castrate and depose Uranus, his father. In Athens, on the twelfth day of the Attic month of Hekatombaion, a festival called Kronia was held in honour of Cronus to celebrate the harvest, suggesting that, as a result of his association with the virtuous Golden Age, Cronus continued to preside as a patron of harvest.

Lethe (Λήθη)
The river of forgetfulness, one of the five rivers of the Greek underworld, the other four being Styx (the river of hate), Akheron (the river of sorrow), Kokytos (the river of lamentation) and Phlegethon (the river of fire). According to Statius, it bordered Elysium, the final resting place of the virtuous. The shades of the dead were required to drink the waters of the Lethe in order to forget their earthly life. Lethe was also the name of the personification of forgetfulness and oblivion, with whom the river was often associated.

Mnemosyne (Μνημοσύνη)
She was the personification of memory in Greek mythology. A Titanide, or Titaness, she was the daughter of Gaea/Gaia and Uranus and the mother of the nine Muses by Zeus: Calliope (Epic Poetry), Clio (History), Erato (Love Poetry), Euterpe (Music), Melpomene (Tragedy), Polyhymnia (Hymns), Terpsichore (Dance), Thalia (Comedy), Urania (Astronomy).

Uranus (Ουρανός)
He was the primal Greek god personifying the sky. In Ancient Greek literature, Uranus or Father Sky was the son and husband of Gaia, Mother Earth. According to Hesiod's Theogony, Uranus was conceived by Gaia alone, but other sources cite Aether as his father. Uranus and Gaia were the parents of the first generation of Titans, and the ancestors of most of the Greek gods, but no cult addressed directly to Uranus survived into Classical times, and Uranus does not appear among the usual themes of Greek painted pottery. Elemental Earth, Sky and Styx might be joined, however, in a solemn invocation in Homeric epic.

Pluto (Πλούτωνας) or Hades (Άδης)
King of the underworld and the dead, and god of the earth's hidden wealth, both agricultural produce and precious metals. His consort is Persephone. His attributes are the drinking horn or cornucopia, key, sceptre, and the three-headed dog Cerberus. The screech owl was sacred to him. He was one of three sons of Cronus and Rhea, and thus sovereign over one of the three realms of the universe, the underworld. As a chthonic god, however, his place among the Olympians is ambiguous. In the mystery religions and Athenian literature, Pluto (Plouton, "the Rich") was his preferred name, with Hades more common for the underworld as a place.

Poseidon (Ποσειδώνας) (Roman counterpart: Neptune)
God of the sea, rivers, floods, droughts, earthquakes, and the creator of horses; known as the "Earth Shaker". He is a son of Cronus and Rhea and brother to Zeus and Hades. He rules one of the three realms of the universe as king of the sea and the waters. In classical artwork, he was depicted as a mature man of sturdy build with an often luxuriant beard, and holding a trident. The horse and the dolphin are sacred to him. His wedding with Amphitrite is often presented as a triumphal procession. His symbols are the trident, horse, dolphin, fish and bull.

Selene (Σελήνη) (Roman counterpart: Luna)
She is the goddess of the moon. She is the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia, and sister of the sun-god Helios, and of Eos, goddess of the dawn. She drives her moon chariot across the heavens. Several lovers are attributed to her in various myths, including Zeus, Pan, and the mortal Endymion. In classical times, Selene was often identified with Artemis, much as her brother, Helios, was identified with Apollo. Both Selene and Artemis were also associated with Hecate, and all three were regarded as lunar goddesses, although only Selene was regarded as the personification of the moon itself.

Phobos (Φόβος) (meaning: fear)
He is the personification of fear in Greek mythology. He is the offspring of Aphrodite and Ares. He was known for accompanying Ares into battle along with the ancient war goddess Enyo, the goddess of discord Eris (both sisters of Ares), and Phobos' twin brother Deimos (terror). In Classical Greek mythology, Phobos is more of a personification of the fear brought by war and does not appear as a character in any myths. Timor or Timorus is his Roman equivalent.

Chaos (Χάος)
It refers to the formless or void state preceding the creation of the universe or cosmos in the Greek creation myths, more specifically the initial "gap" created by the original separation of heaven and earth.

Charon (Χάρων)
In Greek mythology he is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on the mouth of a dead person. Some authors say that those who could not pay the fee, or those whose bodies were left unburied, had to wander the shores for one hundred years. In the catabasis mytheme, heroes – such as Heracles, Orpheus, Aeneas, Dante, Dionysus and Psyche – journey to the underworld and return, still alive, conveyed by the boat of Charon.

Chronos (Χρόνος) (meaning: time)
He is the personification of Time in pre-Socratic philosophy and later literature. Chronos was imagined as a god, serpentine in form, with three heads—those of a man, a bull, and a lion. He and his consort, serpentine Ananke (Inevitability), circled the primal world egg in their coils and split it apart to form the ordered universe of earth, sea and sky.