Answers to Your Questions About Ancient Greece

Useful Maps of Ancient Greece

Famous Places in Greek History and Mythology

At right is an interactive Google Map I've marked with archaeological sites I visited on my trip; you can click the markers for more information. Below, I've pointed you so some excellent maps from other websites devoted to ancient Greece.

We know a lot about the geography of ancient Greece because of writing: coins, art and inscriptions identify places whose names have changed in the last 2500 years (in many cases, they haven't changed a bit). But a lot of places in mythology can't be pinpointed with certainty, either because they're made up and never existed, or they disappeared long ago.

Timeless Myths Website's Ancient Greece Map

Click names on the map to get short blurbs about what myths are connected to those places.

Greeklandscapes.com Ancient Greece Map

Clean, easy-to-read, somewhat simplified map of Greece and the eastern Mediterranean, including Ionia. Lots and lots of sites marked.

AncientGreece.org's Greece Maps

Great maps of ancient Greece, with a main large map plus some maps for particular historical periods and a few floorplans of important buildings like the Parthenon.

History Link 101's Collection of Maps

A lot of historical maps designed for students. Several different time periods, especially Hellenistic.

The Wanderings of Odysseus

Maps of Place Names in Homer's Odyssey

Where did Odysseus go? Where did Circe live? Where was the island of the Cyclops? We don't know for sure, but readers of Homer have been arguing about it for thousands of years!

Interactive Map of Odysseus' Wanderings

Fun presentation from the UPenn Classics Department.

Map of Odysseus' Journey

Not as good a map, but it has pictures of famous characters in the Odyssey.

Wikipedia: Geography of the Odyssey

Wikipedia entries can be written, edited and changed by anybody, but right now -- Feb 2008 -- this article looks very helpful and informative.

Family Trees of Greek Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes

Mythological Genealogy

Whew! I'd love to design my own well-researched mythological family trees for this website, but I've got a lot on the To Do List. So for the moment, I'm going to give you links to others I've found.

Like so much in ancient mythology, there are a lot of variant myths about who's related to whom and how, so these aren't set in stone.

Timeless Myth's Family Trees of the Greek Pantheon

Easy-to-read chart. Also has a chart of the Orphic cult's version of Greek mythology, which differs from the mainstream version.

Theoi Project: Family Trees of the Greek Gods and Goddesses

Wow. These charts are complex but thorough. They give separate charts for family trees according to Homer, Hesiod, and a detailed chart of the gods' family trees combining many classical sources.
 

Timeless Myths' Family Trees of Greek Houses

Greek mythology is so huge, trying to put all the figures from Greek myth on one chart is a nightmare. So this website has different tables for different "houses" -- like Hogwarts houses, except houses in Greek mythology are based on family ties. That means that if you're looking up somebody, you have to know what house he's in. Here's a few important mythological figures by house:

• Agammemnon, Menelaus: House of Atreus (Sparta)
  
• Jason: House of Aeolids, Thessaly
  
• Perseus: House of Argolis
  
• Oedipus: House of Thebes

Clicking on purple links in a family tree hops to another related family tree; click on yellow names to see the entry on that person/god. You can also look up an individual person here and find out which family tree he/she belongs to.

Other Useful Links for Students on Ancient Greece

Culture24's resources on Ancient Greece Studies

A lot of good resources, mostly from places like the British Museum, put together for students to explore the history, art, and myths of ancient Greece.