Mythology Timeline
From the yawning of the void to the founding of Rome, six eras thread together every story. Tap a figure’s badge to jump to its card.
Ⅰ · Creation From Chaos
It all begins with Chaos: no creator god, only Earth, Abyss, and Night emerging of their own accord from the void. Gaia bore the sky Uranus and lay with him to bring forth the Titans — the age of the first divine dynasty, which ends with a single sickle.
All Things Emerge
Chaos yawns open, and Gaia (Earth), Tartarus (Abyss), and Nyx (Night) come into being one after another. Gaia bears the sky Uranus alone, and the cosmos has its frame.
The Titans Are Born
Gaia and Uranus bring forth the twelve Titans — Cronus, Rhea, Oceanus, Hyperion, Themis, and the rest. Uranus, loathing the giant children born after them, stuffs them back into the depths of the earth.
The Sickle Coup
Gaia, unable to bear the pain, forges a flint sickle, and her youngest son Cronus castrates his father Uranus and seizes the throne. From the foam of the blood fallen into the sea, Aphrodite is born; the dying sky leaves a curse: you too will be overthrown by your own children.
Ⅱ · The Reign of the Titans and the War of the Gods
Behind the "Golden Age" of Cronus’s reign were his five children swallowed one by one. Zeus, saved by a stone in their place, grew and returned; the ten-year war of the Titans shook heaven and earth, and the old dynasty fell into Tartarus.
Cronus Swallows His Children
Fearing the prophecy, Cronus swallows Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon one by one. Rhea swaps a swaddled stone and hides the sixth child, Zeus, in a cave on Crete.
The Ten-Year War of the Titans
The grown Zeus frees his five siblings with an emetic and releases the Cyclopes in exchange for the thunderbolt, the trident, and the helm of invisibility. The Titan host under Atlas battles the Olympians for ten years; the Titans lose and are locked in Tartarus, while Atlas alone bears the sentence of holding up the sky.
Ⅲ · The Olympian Age
The twelve gods take their places on Mount Olympus, and the story of humankind begins in step: Prometheus makes people and steals fire, Pandora opens the jar, the seasons are born from a single abduction — the household affairs of the gods are, every one, a weather forecast for mortals.
The Making of Man and the Theft of Fire
Prometheus shapes humans from clay and cheats Zeus in the division of the sacrifice. Zeus cuts off humanity’s fire; Prometheus steals it back hidden in a fennel stalk and is nailed to a cliff in the Caucasus, an eagle eating his liver as it regrows each day.
The Jar of Pandora
As a punishment for humanity, the gods together fashion Pandora and give her to Epimetheus. She opens the jar of her dowry, and sickness and calamity scatter across the world, leaving only hope at the bottom.
The Origin of the Seasons
Hades carries off Persephone, and Demeter makes the earth barren to force Zeus to mediate. Because of six pomegranate seeds, the maiden must spend half the year in the underworld and half above — and the seasons have turned ever since.
The Contest for Athens
Poseidon strikes out a saltwater spring, Athena plants an olive tree, and the citizens choose the olive. The city is named Athens, and the defeated sea god floods the plains in spite.
Mortal Overreach and Eternal Punishment
This age also sets the boundaries of the rules: Tantalus cooks his son to test the gods and is trapped at an unreachable feast; Sisyphus cheats death twice and pushes the boulder forever; Arachne out-weaves the goddess and is turned into a spider.
Ⅳ · The Age of Heroes
The children of gods and mortals come of age and the monsters fall one by one: Perseus beheads Medusa, Heracles completes the Twelve Labors, Theseus walks out of the labyrinth, the Argo sails east. For the first time humanity believes fate can be rewritten by their own hands — though myth always corrects them on the last page.
Perseus Beheads Medusa
With Athena’s shield, Hermes’s sandals, and Hades’s helm of invisibility, Perseus watches the reflection in his shield to strike off the Gorgon’s head, and on the way home petrifies Atlas and rescues a princess.
The Twelve Labors of Heracles
Driven mad by Hera into killing his own wife and children, Heracles atones through twelve "impossible tasks": the lion, the Hydra, the golden apples, the three-headed hound of the underworld — and along the way shoots the eagle to free Prometheus.
Theseus and the Labyrinth
Theseus joins the tribute ship to Crete and, with Ariadne’s thread, kills the Minotaur and escapes the labyrinth built by Daedalus. On the way home he abandons the princess on a desert island (the wine god weds her) and forgets to change to a white sail; his father leaps into the sea, and the Aegean takes its name.
The Flight of Daedalus and Son
Imprisoned in the labyrinth, Daedalus makes wings of wax and feathers to escape with his son. Icarus ignores the warning and flies toward the sun; the wax melts and he falls into the sea — humanity’s first flight ends in a funeral.
The Voyage of the Argo
Jason leads fifty heroes east for the Golden Fleece, Heracles and Orpheus among them. For love, the witch Medea helps him pass three deadly trials and flees with the ship; years later, cast aside, her revenge shakes all of Greece.
Orpheus in the Underworld
The lyre-player Orpheus enters the underworld for his dead wife, and his music makes Hades grant an exception: do not look back before leaving. In the final few steps he turns, and loses his love forever.
Ⅴ · The Trojan War
Eris’s golden apple, the judgment of Paris, the flight of Helen — a thousand ships besiege the city for ten years. This is the reckoning of the age of heroes: Homer’s Iliad covers just fifty-one days of it, and that alone was enough to lay the foundation of Western literature.
The Judgment of Paris
At a wedding feast, a golden apple inscribed "for the fairest" sparks a quarrel among three goddesses. Paris awards the apple to Aphrodite in exchange for "the most beautiful woman on earth" — Helen, Queen of Sparta. Hera and Athena take the side against Troy from then on.
The Sacrifice at Aulis
A thousand ships gather but there is no wind to sail. To appease the wrath of Artemis, the commander Agamemnon lures his eldest daughter Iphigenia under the pretext of marriage and sacrifices her — the fleet sets sail, and the revenge at home begins its countdown.
The Wrath of Achilles
Agamemnon seizes Achilles’ war-prize, the greatest warrior withdraws, and the Greeks are driven back. His dear friend Patroclus fights in his stead and is killed by Hector; Achilles returns, slays Hector and drags the body around the city; late at night the old king of Troy ransoms the corpse, and enemies weep face to face.
The Hero’s Heel
Guided by Apollo, Paris looses one arrow into Achilles’ single weakness — the heel never touched by the waters of the Styx. The greatest hero falls, and the war enters its final act.
The Horse That Took the City
Odysseus offers the ruse of the wooden horse: the Greeks feign retreat, leaving behind a giant horse packed with elite troops. Cassandra’s warning goes unheeded, the horse enters, and Troy falls in a night. Menelaus reclaims Helen, and in the end the sword does not fall.
Ⅵ · Homecomings and the Founding of Rome
Winning the war was one thing; getting home was harder: Agamemnon dies in his bath, Odysseus drifts for ten years. And from the losing side, Aeneas carries his father out of the flames and sails ever westward — his descendants will plow a city boundary on the banks of the Tiber. Here Greek myth hands the baton to Rome.
The Death of the Commander
Agamemnon returns in triumph with the captive Cassandra. Queen Clytemnestra greets him with a red carpet; in the bath the robe comes down and the blades fall — the blood-debt of the sacrificed daughter is settled ten years on, and the family curse moves to its next link.
The Ten-Year Wandering of Odysseus
After blinding the Cyclops, resisting the Sirens’ song, and losing all his companions, Odysseus comes home disguised as a beggar, shoots an arrow through twelve axe-heads, cuts down a hundred and eight suitors, and proves himself to Penelope with a bed that cannot be moved.
Aeneas Sails West
Venus’s son Aeneas carries his father and leads his son out of the flames, takes leave of Queen Dido of Carthage (who burns herself and leaves a curse of eternal enmity), previews the heroes of Rome in the underworld, and at last takes root in Italy — the bloodline of Troy rerouted into the source of Rome.
The She-Wolf and the Founding
The descendant of Aeneas and son of the war god, Romulus, and his twin Remus, are cast into the Tiber and raised by a she-wolf. The brothers fall out over the boundary; Romulus kills his brother, founds the city, and names it for himself — Roma. In 753 BC the age of myth connects to the reckoning of history.