Greek
Aegis
Aegis (Αἰγίς)
Shaken, it raises storms and sends enemy armies fleeing in terror.
ArmorFirst recorded c. 750 BCE
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Photograph: An Attic red-figure water jar (hydria) of the early fourth century BCE. Against the black ground, figures in red stand around a tree wound with a white snake.
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ArchiveGreek · Elixir
Golden Apples of the Hesperides
Golden Apples of the Hesperides
The fruit of the gods, said to give immortality.
- Owner
- Hera; guarded by the Hesperides
- Maker
- Gaia gave them as a wedding gift
- First record
- Hesiod, Theogonyc. 700 BCE
- Gallery
- Greek
Notes on the photograph 3
Story
To celebrate the marriage of Zeus and Hera, Gaia gave them a tree bearing golden apples. Hera planted it in a garden at the western end of the world and set the evening nymphs, the Hesperides, and the sleepless dragon Ladon to guard it.
Heracles had to bring back these apples as his eleventh labor. He asked the giant Atlas, who held up the sky, to pick them for him, and carried the sky on his own shoulders meanwhile.
A golden apple also sowed the seed of the Trojan War. When Eris, goddess of discord, tossed one inscribed "to the fairest," the quarrel of three goddesses began.
The object in the photo
The photograph shows Terracotta hydria (water jar)(Greek, Attic, early 4th century BCE), a real museum object that evokes the legendary artifact.
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