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Maenads
The female companions of Dionysos (a.k.a. Bacchus, god of Wine) usually represented as frenzied revelers as shown in this image with a Maenad dancing with two Satyrs.

Marathonian Bull
The savage bull that the hero, Theseus, captured on the plain of Marathon north of the city of Athens.
Later versions of the story say that the Marathonian Bull was the same bull that Herakles (Heracles) had captured on the island of Crete during his seventh Labor; after Herakles returned the bull to his cousin, Eurystheus, the bull was supposedly released on the plain of Marathon and then recaptured by Theseus; the chronology of the Labors of Herakles and the life of Theseus would date this event to one generation before the Trojan War.

Marsyas
mar SEE as
Silenus Marsyas; a satyr who lost a contest of musical skills with Apollon and was then flayed alive.
Marsyas was a skilled musician and is credited with inventing the flute by imitating the notes produced by the multi-reed pipes and transferring the them to the single reed flute.
While traveling, Marsyas encountered the god Apollon and Dionysos (god of Wine) at Nysa; Apollon was accorded high favor by the Nysaeans for his skill on the lyre; although Hermes invented the lyre, it was Apollon who became the first master of the instrument.
A competition arose between Apollon and Marsyas to test their skills; the Nysaeans were chosen to be the judges of the contest; Apollon went first and played his lyre but did not sing to accompany himself; Marsyas went next and played his flute to the amazement and delight of the Nysaean judges; at that point, if the contest had been over, Marsyas would have won the competition but they had agreed to take turns and when Apollon played his lyre again, he sang a beautiful melody in harmony with his lyre.
When Marsyas saw the favorable reaction of the judges towards Apollon’s performance, he was outraged; he claimed that he had entered a test of skill which did not include the voice as an instrument; he claimed that Apollon was taking unfair advantage by adding the vocal accompaniment; he insisted that the judges should be required to choose only between the music of his flute and that of Apollon’s lyre.
Apollon replied that using his voice was no different than Marsyas using his breath to play the flute; he reasoned that they both used their hands and their breath in the contest and that if he could not use his breath to sing, Marsyas should not be allowed to use his breath to play the flute; the judges agreed with Apollon and declared him the winner of the contest.
Although victorious, Apollon was embittered by Marsyas’ quarreling and flayed him alive and his skin was displayed in the marketplace of Kelaenae (Celaenae); Apollon quickly began to repent his brutality and broke the strings of his lyre destroying their harmony; Apollon then placed his lyre and Marsyas’ flute in the cave of Dionysos as a votive offering.
Diodorus Siculus, book 3.58.3; book 3.59.1; book 3.59.2
Histories, book 7.26

Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
One of the Seven Wonders of the World.
The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was an above-ground tomb for the ruler of Halicarnassus, Mausolus; the tomb was completed by his wife, Artemisia, in 353 BCE; Mausolus was the Persian satrap of the district of Karia (Caria) with Halicarnassus as his capitol city.
Although Mausolus was a Persian, his inclinations were decidedly Greek; he was noted for his aggressive political maneuvering and lavish spending on public works projects; he was married to his sister, Artemisia, and died in the prime of his life.
As a lasting monument to his fame and fortune, Artemisia constructed an above-ground tomb in the center of the city of Halicarnassus to house the body of her beloved husband throughout eternity; the tomb was 140 feet (43 meters) in height including the podium, the colonnade, the pyramidal roof and the chariot statue that crowned the structure.
The above image is a model of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus located at Miniatuk, Istanbul.

Medeia (Medea) 1
MEE dee ah
A sorceress from Kolchis (Colchis) and the wife of Jason.
There are conflicting accounts about Medeia concerning her heritage; The Argonautika is the oldest and perhaps the best source of information about Medeia but the historian Diodorus Siculus also gives an account of Medeia which will be considered at the end of this Encyclopedia entry.
Medeia was the daughter of King Aietes (Aeetes) of Kolchis (Colchis) and his second wife Eidyia (Idyia); Aietes was the son of Helios (the Sun); Eidyia was the daughter of Okeanos (Ocean); the goddess Hekate (Hecate) and Aietes’ sister, the Dread Goddess Kirke (Circe), taught Medeia the uses of various drugs; this knowledge was a blessing and a curse to Medeia throughout her life.
Medeia and her sister Chalkiope (Chalciope) were and the half-sister of Apsyrtos (Apsyrtus); Apsyrtos was the son of Aietes and his first wife Asterodeia who was a nymph of the Caucasus Mountains.
Jason and the Argonauts went to Kolchis at the western edge of the Black Sea in order to retrieve the Golden Fleece; Jason needed the Fleece to reclaim his rightful sovereignty over Iolkos (Iolcus) and was determined to possess the Fleece either by negotiation or any means necessary; King Aietes was determined to keep the Fleece although he did not realize that his efforts were doomed from the beginning because the goddess Hera was using Jason to exact her revenge on Aietes’ for his neglect of her rites and honors.
Hera induced Aphrodite (goddess of Love) to persuade Eros (the primal god of Love) to shoot Medeia with one of his arrows of irresistible love; Medeia had no choice but to love Jason when he came to her father’s palace; after being inflicted with love for Jason, Medeia eagerly agreed to assist Jason.
King Aietes realized that he could not openly refuse Jason’s request for the Golden Fleece so he devised a test of strength which he assumed would be fatal to Jason; he told Jason that he would have to prove his manhood by harnessing some bronze-footed bulls and then sow the dragon’s teeth which he (Aietes) had inherited from Kadmos (Cadmus) of Thebes; he would then have to fight and defeat the fierce Earth-Born warriors who sprang from the dragon’s teeth; Medeia evoked the goddess Hekate to protect Jason and prepared a potion which Jason used to coat his skin and armor as a defense against the supernatural bulls and the Earth-Born warriors.
Aietes was furious when Jason harnessed the bulls and defeated the Earth-Born warriors but he was not aware that Medeia had helped Jason until Jason actually took the Golden Fleece from the Garden of Ares where it was kept; the Fleece was guarded by a serpent-dragon which never slept; Medeia enchanted the dragon with a soothing drug and called upon Hypnos (Sleep) to lull the dragon while Jason took the Fleece.
When it became clear that Medeia had helped Jason and they were leaving Kolchis with the Golden Fleece, Aietes called out his army to stop them; the goddess Hera gave the Argonauts a fair wind so that they could make their escape; Aietes sent his son Apsyrtos with a fleet of ships to bring back Medeia.
Apsyrtos finally overtook Jason and Medeia but before he could attack them, Medeia sent a message to her half-brother that saying she wanted to talk; the meeting was a ruse so that Jason and Medeia could get Apsyrtos alone and kill him; the trick worked; while Medeia was talking to Apsyrtos, Jason came from behind and killed him without mercy.
The men who were with Apsyrtos retreated without a fight but did not return to Kolchis because they were afraid to tell King Aietes that his son was dead; Jason and Medeia were free to return to Iolkos without being pursued by any mortal army but the murder of Apsyrtos enraged Zeus and he deemed that the Argonaut’s voyage home was not to be without trial and hardship; Zeus made his wishes known to his sister/wife Hera and she informed the Argonauts of Zeus’ wrath in a most dramatic and terrifying way; first, Hera raised a hurricane which turned the Argonauts from their homeward course; she then made her voice emanate from the keel of the ship to proclaim that there would be no end to their hardship until the goddess Kirke washed the guilt from Medeia and Jason for the shameless murder of Apsyrtos.
When Jason and Medeia reached the island of Kirke they found her at the shore trying to wash away the night-visions which had troubled her sleep; she had dreamt that the walls of her home were running with blood; when Kirke had finished bathing, Jason and Medeia followed her to her great hall and assumed the attitude of supplicants by kneeling at Kirke’s hearth; Medeia hid her face and Jason laid his sword on the floor; without confessing their crime, Kirke knew of their blood-guilt and why they had come to her island; she began the purification with a blood sacrifice and by calling on Zeus as the Avenger and the Purifier; Kirke recognized Medeia because all descendants of Helios had a radiance emitting from their eyes; she questioned Medeia but Medeia was careful not to mention the murder of Apsyrtos; Kirke finally ordered Medeia and Jason to leave and said that she had preformed the rituals of cleansing and that she knew of their crime but did not condone their disgraceful behavior.
Hera watched the events as they unfolded; she called on various gods and goddesses to quiet the seas and allow the Argonauts safe passage to the island of the Phaiakians (Phaeacians); when Aietes learned that Medeia and Jason had taken refuge with the Phaiakians, he contacted King Alkinoos (Alcinous) and demanded Medeia’s return; King Alkinoos declared that if Medeia was unmarried she was still bound to her father’s will but if she was married, she was responsible only to her husband; Jason and Medeia were married and Aietes was left without recourse for his daughter’s betrayal; according to the historian Herodotus, the failure to return Medeia was one of a series of events which led to the justification of the kidnapping of Helen and thus, the Trojan War.
The Argonauts successfully sailed past Skylla (Scylla) and the whirlpools of Charybdis; when they reached the shores of the island of Crete they were desperate for water and supplies; as they neared the shore they encountered the giant guardian named Talos; Talos was descended from the ash trees and, with one slight imperfection, made entirely of bronze; he had been given to Europa by Zeus to guard Crete; Talos would walk around the island three times each day to keep strangers from making landfall; when Talos saw the Argonauts, he began to hurl large boulders at their ship; the Argonauts were forced to retreat from the shore and had given up all hope of securing supplies on Crete when Medeia announced that she could subdue Talos with her magic; she covered her face with her mantle and made three supplications and three prayers to Zeus; she hardened her heart and ground her teeth in fury as she called down the Death-Spirits to defeat Talos; the Death-Spirits live in the air and are always ready to devour the living when called upon; Medeia clouded the eyes of Talos with hallucinations and he tore the thin membrane covering his ankle on a jagged rock; the ichor began to pour from his body like liquid metal; he soon became motionless and finally crashed lifelessly to the sand; the Argonauts were able to gather their supplies and continue their voyage home.
After their successful return to Iolkos, Medeia and Jason became involved in more intrigue and murder; when Jason was told that his uncle Pelias had killed his father Aison, he and the Argonauts began to plot their revenge but they could not decide on a course of action; there were too few Argonauts to attack Pelias and it would take too much time to assemble a suitable army; Medeia offered a solution which would be immediate and fatal to Pelias; Medeia disguised herself as an old hag and pretended to be a messenger of the goddess Artemis; she convinced the people of Iolkos of her divine mission with a series of magic tricks and finally won the trust of Pelias’ daughters; she told the gullible girls that she could restore Pelias’ youthful vigor with one of her potions; using simple slight-of-hand magic, Medeia demonstrated the process on an old ram; the beast was chopped to pieces and then put in a caldron with her secret concoction; a young animal emerged from the caldron and Pelias’ daughters were convinced that Medeia had supernatural powers; Medeia then drank a harmless liquid and cleverly removed the hag disguise to further delude the girls; when they saw the youthful Medeia, they unwittingly agreed to cut their father into pieces and thus have his youth restored; Medeia drugged Pelias and his daughters hacked him to pieces but the lifeless fragments did not reanimate.
Jason and the Argonauts entered the city; he tried to be magnanimous to Pelias’ daughters and the people of Iolkos but Pelias’ son Akastos (Acastus) assumed the throne after his father’s death and forced Jason and Medeia into exile; when Jason and Medeia came to the city of Corinth as refugees, they were given sanctuary by King Kreon (Creon); while they lived in Corinth, Jason and Medeia had two sons; Jason eventually fell in love with the king’s daughter Glauke (Glauce) and abandoned Medeia; in her rage, Medeia plotted revenge against Glauke; she either made a poisoned cloak for Glauke or set fire to the palace; regardless, Glauke was severely burned; she ran from the palace and threw herself into a well to end her suffering; after killing her sons, Medeia fled to Athens and became the consort of the aged King Aegeus who was the father of the Athenian hero Theseus.
Medeia with King Aegeus of Athens
Aegeus had abandoned Theseus as a child and did not recognize his son when he came to Athens but Medeia, with her keen powers of observation, knew who Theseus was and feared that he might threaten her hold on Aegeus; she plotted the death of Theseus and persuaded Aegeus to send him to Marathon to capture a bull which was ravaging the countryside; Theseus successfully captured the bull and when he returned to Athens, Medeia tried to poison him but Aegeus finally recognized his son and saved Theseus’ life.
Medeia fled Athens and settled in Persia, the inhabitants of Persia were called Aryans but changed their name to Medes in honor of Medeia or, more likely, her son Medus whose father was King Aegeus of Athens.
Diodorus Siculus gives a different account of Medeia’s parents; he says that she was the daughter of King Aietes and Hekate who was the daughter of his brother Perses; Medeia and Kirke were both daughters of Aietes and Hekate; Kirke learned the art of concocting drugs and potions from her mother and became so adept in their use that she was banished to a desert island; Medeia also learned her mother’s arts but stayed with her father in Kolchis until the arrival of Jason and the Argonauts.
There are many contradictions regarding the exploits of Medeia and the above brief history of her extraordinary life is merely an attempt to reconcile the most reliable sources.
Text References

Medusa
One of the daughters of Phorkys (Phorcys) who were known collectively as the Gorgons.
Medusa has a page in the Immortals section of this site ... click on her photo to view that page.

Meleagros (Meleager)
The son of Oineus and Althaia; the husband of Kleopatra (Cleopatra).
There are several interesting stories that revolve around Meleagros:
1) When Jason was organizing the Quest for the Golden Fleece, Meleagros was very young but very strong; his father, Oineus, allowed Meleagros to go on the quest on the condition that his half-brother, Laokoon (Laocoon), go along to protect him; thus Laokoon and Meleagros were both Argonauts;
2) When he was a young man and had just married Kleopatra, he refused to help defend his city, Kalydon (Calydon), against an attack by the Kouretes; the elders of the city offered many gifts to Meleagros if he would help defend the city and King Oineus begged for his son to take up the sword and save the city from certain destruction but Meleagros refused to fight; finally, at the pleading of his wife, Kleopatra, Meleagros donned his armor and entered the battle at the last moment; the city was saved but the gifts that had been offered were not given because the people of Kalydon felt that Meleagros had not done his duty in a proper way;
3) Meleagros organized one of the most celebrated events in Greek prehistory, the Kalydonian (Calydonian) Hunt, and succeeded in killing the supernatural boar that Artemis had sent to ravage the countryside around the city of Kalydon; many notable heroes gathered in Kalydon to participate in the Hunt; the marauding boar was wounded by the huntress, Atalanta, and then killed by Meleagros; Meleagros awarded the hide of the boar to Atalanta but his uncle (or uncles) tried to take the boar hide away from Atalanta and Meleagros killed him (or them); Meleagros’ mother, Althaia, never forgave Meleagros for killing her brothers and her vengeance was fatal for Meleagros.
When he was born, Meleagros was destined to die when the wood in the fireplace burned away; as a loving mother, Althaia, had taken the wood from the fireplace and preserved it so that her son might have a long life; when Meleagros killed her brother(s), she took the wood she had hidden at Meleagros’ birth and burned it; Meleagros died.
His name may also be rendered as Meleagrus.
Argonautika, book 1, lines 190-201

Menelaos (Menelaus)
meh neh LAH os
Menelaos is generally remembered as the husband of Helen and one of the valiant warriors of the Trojan War; he was a prince of Mycenae before the Trojan War and later became king of Sparta; his name means Withstanding-Men.
Menelaos was the brother of Agamemnon and they are commonly referred to as the Atreides because they were the sons of King Atreus of Mycenae; their mother was Queen Aerope; Atreus and Aerope also had a daughter named Anaxibia.
Helen was the daughter of Zeus and Leda but she was raised by Leda and her husband, King Tyndareus of Sparta; Helen was the most desirable woman in Greece and when she was old enough to marry, Menelaos was one of the many suitors who wooed her; actually, Menelaos did not go to Sparta himself, his brother Agamemnon went to Sparta and gave many gifts to Helen’s father, King Tyndareus, and her brothers, Kastor (Castor) and Polydeukes (Polydeuces or Pollux); there were many powerful and rich young men who wooed Helen including Telamonian Aias, Odysseus, Idomeneus and Philoktetes (Philoctetes).
Tyndareus knew that his daughter had a profound influence on men and realized that unless a way could be found to control the proud men who had assembled at his palace, there would be endless bickering and bloodshed when Helen’s husband was finally chosen; Tyndareus made all the suitors swear a solemn oath that they would accept whichever husband he chose for Helen and furthermore, they would avenge anyone who tried to take her from her chosen husband; Helen was allowed to marry Menelaos (Menelaus); their marriage would eventually lead to the Trojan War.
Helen’s brothers Kastor and Polydeukes did not follow their father to the throne of Sparta because, a generation before the Trojan War, they became Argonauts and joined Jason in the Quest for the Golden Fleece; neither brother returned from the Quest as a mortal; Zeus made Kastor and Polydeukes immortal with the condition that while one of them lived on the surface of the earth, the other would reside in the Underworld; as the husband of Helen, Menelaos became the king of Sparta after King Tyndareus died; it was approximately at that time that Menelaos’ and Helen’s daughter Hermione was born.
The Trojan War had its roots in a dispute between the goddesses Hera, Athene (Athena) and Aphrodite; the goddess of Love, Aphrodite promised to give Helen to Prince Alexandros (Paris) of Troy if he would say that she was the most beautiful of the three goddesses; when Menelaos and Helen were entertaining Alexandros at their palace in Sparta, Aphrodite enchanted Helen so that she would secretly take her considerable dowry and go with Alexandros to Troy.
Agamemnon and Menelaos called on the princes and kings who had taken the oath to protect Helen and a vast armada of fighting men sailed to Troy; Agamemnon was the supreme commander of the army because, as king of Mycenae, he was lord over the most powerful city in Greece.
When the army arrived at Troy, Menelaos and Odysseus entered the city and tried to negotiate a peace agreement in order to avert an all-out war; the advisors of King Priam of Troy advised him not to surrender Helen; some of them were sincere in their beliefs but others had accepted bribes from Alexandros; regardless of the sincerity or duplicity of the advisors, the Trojan War was fated by the Immortals and there was nothing any mortal man could do to prevent the carnage and bloodshed; Menelaos and Odysseus were lucky to leave Troy alive because several of King Priam’s advisors wanted to kill them.
The war began and neither side seemed to be able to sustain the advantage so the fighting continued for over nine years; finally, Alexandros challenged Menelaos to one-on-one combat; both commanders, Agamemnon for the Greeks and Prince Hector for the Trojans, agreed that the winner of the one-on-one combat would decide the outcome of the war; solemn oaths were taken and the fight between Menelaos and Alexandros began.
As the fight between Menelaos and Alexandros progressed, it became clear that Menelaos was going to kill Alexandros; the Immortals on Mount Olympos (Olympus) were watching with keen interest; Aphrodite was on the side of the Trojans and wanted Alexandros to win but if he could not defeat Menelaos, she at least wanted him to stay alive; Athene was on the side of the Greeks and did not want Menelaos or Alexandros to win the one-on-one combat; Athene wanted the war to continue so that the walls of Troy could be toppled and the Trojans could either be killed or enslaved.
Aphrodite swooped down on the battlefield and saved Alexandros from certain death; to the spectators, it appeared that Alexandros had vanished into a cloud; Agamemnon declared that Menelaos was the victor but before the point could be argued, Athene persuaded a Trojan named Pandaros (Pandarus) to shoot an arrow at Menelaos; the arrow, with Athene’s interference, did not strike Menelaos but the peace was broken nonetheless; the soldiers of both armies sprang to their feet and the war was destined to be fought to its violent conclusion.
After the deaths of Prince Hector and Achilles, the war seemed to reach a stalemate; the Greeks devised a clever ploy that would breach the walls of Troy without continuing ineffectual the frontal assaults; a large Wooden Horse was constructed and left on the beach as a pseudo-peace offering to the Trojans; the Greek fleet sailed to a nearby island where they could not be seen from Troy and waited for the Trojans to take the Wooden Horse into the city.
Menelaos was one of the soldiers hidden inside the Wooden Horse; still under Aphrodite’s enchantment, Helen was suspicious and walked around the Wooden Horse three times and called to the men she suspected to be inside; she imitated the voices of the men’s wives in order to tempt them to answer but all the men inside the Wooden Horse kept silent; after the Trojans were exhausted from the celebration of their presumed victory, Menelaos and the other soldiers emerged from the Wooden Horse and the real slaughter began.
Menelaos and Helen were reunited amidst the ruins Troy; compared to the fate of some of the Greek survivors of the Trojan War, the homecoming of Helen and Menelaos was relatively uneventful; their ships were blown off course by contrary winds and they made landfall in Egypt before reaching Sparta; they were entertained as the guests of King Polybos (Polybus) and Queen Alkandre (Alcandre) of Thebes; when it came time to leave Egypt, Queen Alkandre presented Helen with a golden distaff and a gold trimmed silver basket on wheels; King Polybos gave Menelaos two silver bathtubs, a pair of tripods and ten talents of gold (570 pounds or 258.5 kilograms).
Ten years after arriving back at Sparta, Helen and Menelaos were visited by Telemachos (Telemachus) who was seeking news of his father, Odysseus, who was last seen at Troy and had not returned to his home on the island of Ithaka (Ithaca); Telemachos was traveling with one of King Nestor’s sons named Peisistratos (Peisistratus); both young men were welcomed by Helen and Menelaos because Nestor and Odysseus had been loyal comrades of Menelaos during the Trojan War and had fought hard for Helen’s freedom.
As Menelaos recounted the stories of the war and the death of Peisistratos’ brother Antilochos (Antilochus), the men began to weep; Helen discretely mixed a calming drug she had acquired in Egypt into the wine the men were drinking; the drug worked as prescribed; Menelaos and his two guests resumed their composure and were able to cope with their grief without tears.
There is some dispute as to the children fathered by Menelaos; according to The Iliad, Menelaos and Helen had only one child, a daughter named Hermione; in The Odyssey we learn that Menelaos had a son with an unnamed slave woman, his name was Megapenthes; it was also recorded in The Catalogues of Women and Eoiae that Menelaos and Helen had another son named Nikostratos (Nicostratus); after Menelaos’ death, Megapenthes drove Helen from Sparta and assumed the throne.
The Trojan War took place circa 1250 BCE; one thousand years after the war, the historian Herodotus recorded a drastically different story of about the exploits of Menelaos and Helen.
Herodotus relates that after fleeing Sparta, Alexandros and Helen did not sail directly to Troy; contrary winds forced them to Egypt and into the Nile River; there was a shrine to Herakles (Hercules) in that part of Egypt where slaves could seek sanctuary; Alexandros’ slaves deserted their master and with the protection afforded by the shrine of Herakles, denounced Alexandros and told the local governor the circumstances under which Helen had been taken from her home.
When King Proteus of Egypt heard the story, he had Alexandros and Helen brought before him for judgment; as Proteus questioned Alexandros as to how he and Helen came to be in Egypt, Alexandros lied but the slaves revealed the truth to the king.
Proteus declared that Helen would be given asylum in Egypt but Alexandros would be required to leave Egypt within three days; Alexandros left Egypt and returned to Troy alone; when the Greeks besieged Troy, the Trojans truthfully informed them that Helen was not there but the Greeks did not believe them until after they had sacked the city and saw the truth for themselves; Menelaos then went to Egypt and retrieved Helen; when Menelaos and Helen tried to sail from Egypt, they were forced back by northerly winds; Menelaos took two Egyptian children and sacrificed them in order to appease the Winds; the Egyptians were outraged and chased Menelaos to Libya but he was able to elude them and secretly return to Sparta.
Histories, book 2.118; book 2.119; book 7.169; book 7.171
Catalogues of Women and Eoiae, fragment 67, section 5; fragment 68a, lines 15, 24 and 104; fragment 70
The Kypria, fragment 1, line 18; fragment 13
The Little Iliad, fragment 1, line 11; fragment 13
The Sack of Ilium, fragment 1, line 20
The Returns, fragment 1, lines 3 and 8

Metope
The square spaces between the triglyphs of a Doric frieze, either plain or adorned with carved work; from the Greek word Metope, i.e. Meta means Between and Ope means Opening.

Minotaur
The name literally means Minos’ Bull.
When King Minos asked Poseidon (lord of the Sea) for a sacrificial animal, Poseidon sent him a perfect bull from the sea; Minos was so taken by the beauty of the bull that he refused to sacrifice it as he had promised; Poseidon punished him by causing Minos’ wife, Pasiphae, to have a child that was half-bull and half-man, i.e. the Minotaur.
According to the popular story, Minos placed the Minotaur in a complex maze, known as the labyrinth, and would place Athenian youths in the maze to be hunted down and killed by the Minotaur; on the third consecutive year of the sacrifice of the youths, the beast was finally killed by the Athenian hero, Theseus.
The essayist, Plutarch (46-120 CE), disputed the existence of the Minotaur and attributes the story to the eloquent and unforgiving Athenians who were seeking revenge on King Minos for his invasion of Athens; Plutarch suggests that the story of the Minotaur was a distortion of events revolving around a man named Taurus who was a renowned and egotistical athlete; the undefeated Taurus was finally humbled by the Athenian hero, Theseus, and the story was concocted that Theseus had defeated a bull-man instead of a man named bull, i.e. Taurus.
Plutarch’s Lives, Theseus

Molpe
One of the Sirens; Molpe’s name means Song.
The Sirens are part woman and part bird; they inhabit the island of Anthemoessa; they are children of the Muse, Terpsichore and the river, Achelous; her sisters are Thelxiope (or Thelxinoe) and Aglaophonus; their names also reflect their vocally seductive prowess: Thelxiope means Charming-With-Her-Voice (Thelxinoe means Charming-The-Mind) and Aglaophonus means Lovely-Sounding.
The Sirens lure mariners with their seductive singing to the rocky shore and the memorized sailors die in their wrecked ships; the Dread-Goddess Kirke (Circe) warned Odysseus about the irresistible lure of the Sirens so that when he came near their island, he had his sailors put wax in their ears so that they could not hear the enchanted singing but he had himself lashed to the mast so he could hear the Siren’s song without flinging himself into the sea and swimming to his doom.
The Argonauts passed the island of the Sirens several generations before Odysseus; the master musician, Orpheus, played his lyre for the sailors and all but one was able to resist the Siren’s song; the Argonaut, Boutes, jumped into the water and swam towards Anthemoessa but before he could reach the deadly shore he was plucked from the water by Aphrodite (goddess of Love) and deposited safely in the Libyan desert.
Odyssey (Lattimore and Loeb), book 12, lines 39+
Odyssey (Fagles), book 12, lines 44+
Odyssey (Fitzgerald), book 12, lines 46+
Argonautika, book 4, lines 885-921
Catalogues of Women, fragment 47

Mount Athos
A mountain in the district of Chalkidike (Chalcidice) in northern Greece on the Akte (Acte) peninsula.
There are three finger-like peninsulas jutting south into the Aegean Sea from Macedonia and Akte is the eastern-most peninsula; Akte is approximately thirty miles long and varies from less than two miles to over six miles in width; the spine of the peninsula rises as it goes south and culminates at Mount Athos which rises to a height of 6,670 feet (2,033 meters).
Approximate East Longitude 24º 19' 38'' and North Latitude 40º 09' 28''

Mount Helikon (Mount Helicon)
The home of the Muses and favored by Apollon; located in western Boeotia; 5,738 feet (1,749 meters) in height; the name literally means Willow-Mountain.

Muses
The nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne; the goddesses of the creative arts.
The Muses have a page in the Immortals section of this site ... click on the above image to view that page.

Mycenae
A city in ancient Greece in Argolis on the Peloponnesian Peninsula; founded as early as 1600 BCE.