Character List Metamorphoses 2

Ariadne

Daughter of King Minos, she falls in love with Theseus and helps him defeat the minotaur. They flee together, but he abandons her on the journey home.
Icarus

Son of Daedalus, he dies when he flies too close to the son and the wax in his wings melt.
Telus

Daedalus's nephew who was sent to him as an apprentice. Daedalus was jealous of his talent and killed him.

King Oeneus

After he forgets to sacrifice to Diana, she sends a wild boar to ravage his land.
Malaeger

King Oeneus's son, he kills the wild boar sent by Diana, but then kills his uncles in a fight over the spoils and is murdered by his mother.
Atalanta

A Greek athlete, Atalanta wishes to stay chaste like Diana. She determines that she will only marry the man who can beat her in a race, and those who lose must be willing to lose their life as well. She is happily conquered by Hippomenes thanks to Venus's help.
Achelous

A river god who shelters Theseus during a storm.
Triton

A god of the sea.
Baucis

A pious women; she and her husband are the only two to take in Jove and Mercury when they wander the earth disguised as lonely travelers.

Philemon

Baucis's husband.
Proteus

A sea god with the power to change his shape as well as the power of prophecy.
Mestra

Daughter of Erysichthon, she as the power to change her shape. Her father uses this ability to satisfy his insatiable hunger.
Famine

The personification of hunger.
Deianira

A woman that Achelous and Hercules fought over. Hercules won and married her.
Nessus

A centaur who is killed by Hercules when he tries to run off with his wife, Deianira.
Alcmena

Hercules' mother.
Iole

The woman Hercules marries to his son, Hyllus.
Hyllus

Hercules' son.
Lucina

The goddess of childbirth.
Galanthis

One of Alcmena's maidservants, she tricks Lucina and allows her mistress to give birth.
Dryope

Iole's half-sister; she is turned into a tree after accidentally picking flowers from a tree that was actually a nymph.
Iolaus

Hercules nephew, he is brought back to life by Hebe, Hercules' wife.
Hebe

The goddess of youth, she becomes Hercules' wife after he becomes a god.
Byblis

Caunus's twin sister, she feels an unnatural passion for her brother, and eventually she is turned into a fountain.
Caunus

Byblis's twin brother; he rejects her strange advances.
Ligdus

The man who tells his pregnant wife that is she has a daughter, she must put her to death.
Telethusa

Ligdus's wife

Iphis

Ligdus and Telethusa's daughter who is disguised as a son and eventually turns into a boy.
Ianthe

The woman Iphis loves and marries.
Orpheus

A skilled poet and singer, especially sacred to Bacchus, he becomes heartbroken after his wife is killed by a snakebite.
Eurydice

Orpheus's wife

Ganymede

June's cup-bearer, whom Jove steals away.
Hyacinthus

Apollo's lover, he is accidentally killed by a discus thrown by Apollo.
Pygmalion

A talented sculptor who became disgusted by women and spent all his time working on an ivory statue of a woman. During a festival to Venus, he prayed that the statue would come to life and it did.
Cinyras

Myrrha's father
Myrrha

Myrrha falls in love with her own father and tricks him into sleeping with her. When he discovers what happened, she flees, and eventually she is turned into a Myrrh tree. Her son, Adonis, is born from the tree.
Adonis

Myrrha's son by her father, grows up to be a beautiful youth. Venus falls in love with him, but he is killed by a wild boar.
Hippomenes

Hippomenes wins Atalanta with Venus's help and three golden apples.
Silenus

Bacchus's foster-father.
King Midas

He returns Silenus, accidentally taken hostage, to Bacchus and is rewarded with one wish. He asks that everything he touch turn into gold, but soon after he must beg to have the wish taken back.
King Tmolus

A mountain god, he judges who is the better musician, Apollo or Pan.
Laomedon

The dishonest king who founds Troy.
Hesione

Neptune demands her sacrifice but she is saved by Hercules, who marries her to his companion, Telamon.
Telamon

Hercules companion, he marries Hesione.
Peleus

Telamon's brother, he is married to Thetis.

Achilles

The son of the mortal Peleus and the Nereid Thetis, when he is born, Thetis uses fire to burn the humanity out of him, but she is prevented from finishing. Achilles heel is still vulnerable to wound. He is a Greek hero, and he fights valiantly in the Trojan war, before Paris kills him by shooting an arrow into his heel.
Ceyx

King of Thessaly, he perishes at sea, but his body is returned to his wife, and when she receives it they are both turned into birds.
Phocus

Phocus is killed by his brothers, Peleus and Telamon.
Daedalion

He is so sad when his daughter Chione is killed, he throws himself off a cliff; his death is prevented when Apollo changes him into an eagle.
Chione

Chione is seduced by both Apollo and Mercury, and she gives birth to twins, each child fathered by a different god. She is too proud and compares herself favorably to Diana, who kills her.
Onetor

One of Peleus's men.
Psamathe

Phocus's mother.
Alcyone

Ceyx's wife.
Morpheus

One of the gods of sleep.
Aesacus

one of Hector's brothers; he is turned into a bird.
Hector

The eldest son of Priam and Hecuba, he is the mightiest warrior on the side of the Trojans in the Trojan war.
Priam

King of Troy, father of Hector and Paris.

Paris

The youngest son of Hecuba and Priam, he steals Helen and starts the Trojan war.

Helen

The daughter of Jove and Leda, when Helen was married to Menelaus, all her other suitors became his allies. When Paris stole Helen and took her to Troy, all these cities came together to fight and get her back.
Agamemnon

The brother of Menelaus, he agreed to sacrifice his daughter to Diana in order to gain a favorable wind to sail to Troy.
Iphigenia

Agamemnon's daughter who he is supposed to sacrifice, many versions of the myth state that at the last minute, Diana switched her with a calf.
Rmour

The personification of rumor or gossip.
Nestor

A wise Greek general in the Trojan war.
Caenis

A victim of Neptune's lust, he grants her a wish and she wishes to be made a man. He throws in invincibility, but Caenis is eventually killed or at least destroyed in a fight with a number of centaurs.
Tlepolemus

A Greek who fights in the Trojan war.
Ulysses

One of the Greek Generals, Ulysses is considered the wisest and wiliest of all the fighters. He is the hero of the Greek epic, the Odyssey.
Cassandra

A daughter of Hecuba and Priam, she has the gift of prophecy. She is taken by Agamemnon as a hostage after the war.
Polydorus

Priam and Hecuba's son, he was sent to Polymestor during the Trojan War, but Polymestor kills him.
Polymestor

Kills Polydorus for a cache of gold and is torn apart by Hecuba's women.
Polyxena

Hecuba and Priam's son, she is sacrificed by Agamemnon to Achilles.
Memnon

Aurora's son, he is killed during the Trojan war.

Aeneas

Son of Anchises and Venus, he survives the Trojan war and found the country of Italy after a long and dangerous journey.
Anchises

Aeneas's father
Helenus

A Trojan seer
Scylla

Once a beautiful girl, Circe turned her into a monster out of jealousy. Now she is an ocean obstacle that sailors must pass, including Ulysses and Aeneas.

Charybdis

A whirlpool near Scylla that makes that area of the ocean particularly dangerous.
Galatea

A Nereid who falls in love with the handsome Acis, but is tormented by the love of the Cyclops Polyphemus. He kills Acis, but she is able to turn him into a river-god.
Acis

A young man whom Galatea loves.
Polyphemus

A Cyclops who fights with Ulysses and loses an eye. He also falls in love with the nymph Galatea.
Glaucus

A fisherman who becomes a sea-god, falls in love with Scylla and inadvertently causes her to be turned into a monster.

Circe

A powerful sorceress who is most famous for turning men into animals. She has a love affair with Ulysses.
Queen Dido

Queen of Carthage, she falls in love with Aeneas and kills herself when he leaves her.
Acestes

Aeneas's half-brother
Sibyl at Cumae

One of Apollo's seers; when the Sibyl was young and beautiful, Apollo loved her and granted her a wish. She wished to live as long as their were grains of dust in a pile, but she forgot to wish for eternal youth.
Macareus

One of Ulysses companions, he settles at Cumae.
Achaemenides

A Greek whom Ulysses abandons to Polyphemus and who is rescued by Aeneas.
Aeolus

God of the winds.
Laestrygonians

man-eaters
Picus

A son of Saturn, he is turned into a woodpecker by Circe when he rejects her.
Canens

Picus's beloved wife; after he disappears, she cries until she melts into a puddle.
Lavinia

The woman that Aeneas marries when he finds the land for his new city.
Turnus

The man whom Lavinia was supposed to marry, he engages Aeneas in a long and bloody war.
Julus

Aeneas's son, he becomes the first king of Latium.

Pomona

A nymph who excels at gardening, she wishes to remain unmarried and locks herself away from men.
Vertumnus

A man who falls in love with Pomona and manages to woo her successfully.
Poor Iphis

A poor man who falls in love with the noble Anaxarete and kills himself when he can no longer take her rejection.
Anaxarete

A cold and noble woman who turns to stone, after she fails to feel any pity for Iphis, who kills himself for love of her.
Romulus

The founder of Rome, he is deified by Jove after Tatius's death.
Tatius

The Sabine leader who shares the throne with Romulus.
Hersilia

Romulus's wife.
Iris

Goddess of the rainbow and the messenger of the gods, especially Juno.
Numa

He becomes King of Rome after Romulus's death.
Myscelus

Founder of the city Crotona, on Hercules's orders.
Pythagoras

A Greek philosopher.
Egeria

Numa's wife
Hippolytus

Theseus's son, banished after his step-mother Phaedra attempts to seduce him and then accuses him of the same crime. He is then thrown from his chariot and killed. Even after Aesculapius restores his life, he is not able to return to civilization, for fear that too many would be jealous of his second chance.
Cipus

The praetor who sprouts horns from his head and convinces the Roman Senators to banish him from the city so he does not become a tyrant.
Julius Caesar

A great Roman leader who, before he can become emperor, is killed by his own Senate. Augustus, his adopted son, inherits the empery.
Tiberius

Augustus's son and Emperor after his death.