Beginner’s Guide

Adapted from the pinned r/GreekMythology post "Want to learn about Greek mythology but don't know where to start?", with some notes of our own.

A Few Things to Know First

Myth has many contradictory versions and no single "correct answer" — that isn’t this site cutting corners, it’s a fact about Greek mythology itself. On the same story, Homer, Hesiod, Euripides, and Ovid often disagree on the details.
Ancient authors were mostly not the inventors of myth but reworkers of stories already in circulation. Tragedy and comedy drew almost entirely on myth, and much of the ancient Greek text we can read today is precisely the scripts that could be performed and were preserved in copies.
Myth is not a single timeline but more a web of mutual references. Figures and places recur and cross-reference across different stories. Remembering the important names is more useful than memorizing one chronology — which is why this site organizes content as "figure cards + a relationship graph" rather than a single chronicle.
Greek and Roman mythology are two tellings of one system: the Romans took over the Greek gods wholesale, changed the names, and added heroes of their own (Aeneas, Romulus). To grasp the whole picture, read both sides.

A Few Suggestions

Don’t trust unverified content online. Reliable originals and firsthand translations always beat "I heard that" — which is why every figure card on this site cites the specific ancient source it draws on.
Put in the effort to remember the important names. They won’t "stick" on their own the way novel characters do, but the myths cross-reference each other — remember the skeleton and the later stories connect.
Don’t give up too soon. The volume really is large, and feeling lost at first is normal. The genealogy graph and tiered cards exist to spread this web out and give you a first look at the whole.

How to Read

Read the epics twice

First a "fast read" to catch the storyline and get familiar with the names; then a "close read," line by line, to taste the real flavor. Lay a foundation with this site’s figure cards and timeline first, and the original text will go down much easier.

Learn about Greek theater before reading the tragedies

Look up what an ancient Greek theater looked like, the masks the actors wore, and how many actors each playwright typically used — with that background you can "see" the stage far more easily as you read.

Read several versions of the same myth

Reading them side by side shows which details are the shared core across all versions and which are one author’s personal invention. This site flags "version differences" on a few key figure cards as a demonstration of exactly this.

Go Deeper: Websites

Theoi Project (theoi.com)The Greek-mythology site the source community regards as most reliable: everything is cited to classical sources, with ancient vase paintings and sculptures, and downloadable original texts in several translations. In English.

Go Deeper: Reference Books

Edith Hamilton, MythologyThe top pick for beginners, not long, covering the major gods and hero stories, with a surprising final chapter on Norse myth.

Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (The Library)Author unknown, attributed to Apollodorus, compiled around the 1st–2nd century AD. Dense and matter-of-fact, practically an ancient encyclopedia of myth written by the ancients themselves — the source citations for many entries on this site come from this book.

Go Deeper: Modern Retellings

Stephen Fry — Mythos / Heroes / TroyThe British writer’s modern retellings — readable, funny, and popular introductory reading. The original poster’s caveat: these are "retellings," not "translations," so don’t take the details as an accurate record of the originals.

Primary Sources: Essential First Reads

Epic

Argonautica — Apollonius of Rhodes
Iliad — Homer
Odyssey — Homer

Drama

Electra — read the Sophocles / Euripides / Aeschylus versions side by side
Oedipus Rex — Sophocles
Hippolytus — Euripides
Iphigenia in Aulis — Euripides

Other

Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days

Primary Sources: Further Reading

Epic

Aeneid — Virgil

Drama

The Theban plays: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, plus Seven Against Thebes
The Oresteia trilogy — Aeschylus
Comedy is worth reading too, not just tragedy: Aristophanes’ The Frogs is unexpectedly funny

Other

Ovid, Metamorphoses — of the highest poetic art, though the original poster advises against it as a beginner’s first book
The Golden Ass — Apuleius
Daphnis and Chloe — Longus

Recommended English Translations

The Odyssey, tr. Emily WilsonTranslated in iambic pentameter, closer to the natural rhythm of English than the original’s hexameter — one of the most recommended recent English versions.

Peter Green translationsKnown for a close-to-the-original literal style; the community also has threads comparing the various Iliad translations for reference.

Major Ancient Authors

Greek

Homer (epic, hymns)
Hesiod (epic)
Aeschylus (tragedy)
Sophocles (tragedy)
Euripides (tragedy + one satyr play)
Aristophanes (comedy)
Menander (comedy)
Apollonius of Rhodes (epic)
Longus (the novel Daphnis and Chloe)
Apollodorus of Athens (attributed author of the Bibliotheca)

Roman

Plautus (drama)
Terence (drama)
Virgil (the Aeneid)
Ovid (the Metamorphoses)
Seneca (drama)
Apuleius (the novel The Golden Ass)

Source post:r/GreekMythology — Want to learn about Greek mythology but don't know where to start? (u/MedievalHobo, including community-added podcast recommendations such as Mythunderstood)