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The Cabiri were certain deities originally worshiped with mystical rites by the Pelasgians in Lemnos and Samothrace and afterwards throughout Greece. They were also called the sons of Hephaestus, being masters of the art of working metals.
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In Roman mythology, Cacus was a famous thief. He had three heads and vomited flames. Cacus was strangled by Hercules.
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In Greek mythology, Cadmus was the son of Agenor, king of Phoenicia, and the brother of Europa. He settled in Thrace and then in Boeotia where he founded the ancient city of Cadmeia. He gave the Greeks an alphabet.
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Caduceus is the winged and serpent twisted staff or wand of Hermes. It was originally said to be a herald's staff of olive wood, but was afterwards fabled to have two serpents coiled about it, and two wings at the top.
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Calliope was the muse of eloquence and heroic poems. She was the chief of the muses, and was said to have been the mother of Orpheus by Apollo.
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Callisto was a daughter of Lycaon. She was one of Artemis' huntresses. She bore Arcas to Zeus. To conceal their affair, Zeus turned her into a bear.
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In Greek mythology, Calypso was a sea nymph who inhabited the island of Ogygia. She waylaid the homeward-bound Odysseus and promised him immortality if he would marry her. After seven years she was ordered by the gods to let him depart.
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In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of Priam, King of Troy. Her prophecies were never believed, because she had rejected the love of the god Apollo. She was murdered with Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra, having been awarded as a prize to the Greek hero on his sacking of Troy.
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Castalia is a spring on Mount Parnassus, near Delphi, frequented by Apollo and the Muses and thus a fount of poetical inspiration.
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Castor was the twin brother of Polydeuces. He was a son of Zeus and Leda. He, like his brother was born from an egg after Zeus visited Leda disguised as a swan.
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Celaeno was one of the harpies.
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In Greek mythology, Celeus was King of Eleusis and the husband of Metaneira.
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A centaur was a beast half horse, and with the head, torso and arms of a man.
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Cepheus was the king of Aethiopia. He displeased Poseidon by having a beautiful daughter, Andromeda. Poseidon then sent floods and a sea monster to terrorise the area until Cepheus gave his daughter as a sacrifice to the sea monster.
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Cerberus was a huge and savage dog with three heads which guarded the entrance to Hades. He was the offspring of Echidne and Typhon.
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In Greek mythology, the Cercopes were a pair of mischievous dwarfs, sons of Oceanus and Theia. They were caught trying to steal Hercules armour, for which he hung them upside from a pole he held across his shoulders like a yoke, before, amused by them he set them free. Zeus, however, was not so amused by their antics and turned them either into monkeys or stone.
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Cercyon was a son of Hephaestus. He was king of Eleusis. He challenged all travellers and wrestled them to death until he challenged and was killed by Theseus, who subsequently acquired the kingdom.
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Ceres was the Roman goddess of agriculture, equivalent to the Greek Demeter.
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In Greek mythology, the Cestus was a girdle worn by Aphrodite and which was endowered with the power of exciting love towards the wearer.
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In Roman mythology, the Chalybes were mythical inhabitants of Mount Ida in north Asia Minor who invented iron working.
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In Greek mythology, Chaos was the infinite space before Ge (the earth) was created.
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The Charites were the Greek goddesses of gracefulness and the charms of beauty. They were commonly mentioned as three sisters; namely, Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia.
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In Greek mythology, Charon was the son of Erebus and Nyx. He was the ferryman who transported the dead across the river Styx to the Underworld of Hades. Charon was depicted as a squalid, mean, sprightly, bad tempered old man. Charon demanded a fee of an Obol for the journey across the river Styx, and to this end the Greeks buried their dead with an Obol coin in their mouth with which to pay Charon. Hercules forced Charon to ferry him into the Underworld, and Hades punished Charon by binding him in chains for a year.
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In Greek mythology, the Charybdis was a whirlpool formed by a monster of the same name on one side of the narrow straits of Messina, Sicily, opposite the monster Scylla.
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Cheiron was a centaur. He was a son of Cronos and Philyra. He learnt hunting and medicine from Apollo and Artemis.
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The Chimaera was a monster composed of the head of a lion, the body of a goat and a serpent for a tail. Bellerophon was sent to slay it.
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In Greek mythology, Chryse was a warlike goddess of the metal gold, in its refinement and all that is regarded as having great value.
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In Greek mythology, Circe was an enchantress living on the island of Aeaea. In Homer's Odyssey, she turned the followers of Odysseus into pigs. Odysseus, bearing the herb moly provided by Hermes to protect him from the same fate, forced her to release his men.
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Clio was originally the muse of epic poetry, later she commonly became known as the muse of history. She is generally represented holding a roll of papyrus.
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In Greek mythology, Clotho was one of the three Fates, and was represented as holding the distaff.
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In Greek mythology, Clytemnestra was the wife of Agamemnon. With the help of her lover Aegisthus, she murdered her husband and his paramour Cassandra on his return from the Trojan War, and was in turn killed by her son Orestes.
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In Greek mythology cocytus (river of lamentation) was one of the five rivers of hell. The unburied were doomed to wander about its banks for 100 years.
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In later Greek mythology, Comus was a god of revelry, banquets and nocturnal entertainments. He was generally depicted as a drunken youth. The depiction by Milton of Comus as a son of Bacchus and Circe was an idea thought of by Milton, and not the Greeks or Romans.
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Corbenic was the castle in the Arthurian legend in which the Holy Grail was kept.
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In Greek mythology, the cornucopia was one of the horns of the goat Amaltheia, which was caused by Zeus to refill itself indefinitely with food and drink.
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In Greek mythology, Cottus was a son of Uranus and Gaea. He was one of the Hekatoncheires, a giant with a hundred hands and fifty heads.
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Cratos was a son of Uranus and Gaea. He was very strong.
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In Greek mythology, Creusa was the daughter of Erechtheus and wife of Xuthus. She was also loved by Apollo.
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In Greek mythology, Cronos (Crunus) was a son of Uranus and Gaea. He succeeded to the throne of the gods when he castrated - with a flint sickle given him by his mother - and deposed Uranus at his mother's request. He married his sister Rhea.
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In Roman mythology, Cuba was the god who protected sleeping infants and helped them to sleep.
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Cupid (Cupido) was a Roman name for the god Amor in his form as 'love' as a variant of the Greek god Eros.
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Cupido is an alternative spelling for the Roman god Cupid.
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In Greek mythology the Curetes were attendants of Rhea. They were supposed to have saved the infant Zeus from his father Cronos and then to have become a sort of bodyguard of the god.
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Cybele was the Great Mother and fertility goddess of the Phrygians and later the Greeks and Romans. Cybele lived in the wild and dangerous regions of the earth and ruled the fiercest of animals. She was said to enable her followers to be reborn after death into a new life. A black stone was sacred to Cybele. At annual celebrations to Cybele a chariot drawn by lions was driven through the streets of Rome, and at her rites the priests would beat and castrate themselves with whips decorated with knuckle bones in frenzies of passion. The rites were accompanied by the sacrifice of a bull or ram, its blood pouring from above over the priest.
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In Greek mythology, the Cyclops were one of a race of Sicilian giants, who had one eye in the middle of the forehead and lived as shepherds. Odysseus blinded the Cyclops Polyphemus in Homer's Odyssey.
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Abbreviations
Mythology
