Welcome to the mythological world of the Cupid’s Fall series.

While my intention was to convey the story so every reader, regardless of prior knowledge of mythology, could access and enjoy the series, I’m thrilled to have aroused your curiosity about the original sources.

I’m ever grateful to the Ancient Greeks and Romans for inventing a cast of quirky immortals who so dramatically embody both the noblest and the most unscrupulous tendencies in all of us. Even better, Classical Mythology encompasses a diverse patchwork of tales in direct conflict with each other. No wonder centuries of poets, writers, artists, and musicians have engaged in retelling these stories, adding their own imagined details to the lore. I humbly join their ranks.

I approach this material as an intrigued amateur piqued many years ago by Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. I claim no expertise beyond what is widely available in the public domain (and thank goodness for that) on websites such as theoi.com and Wikimedia Commons. Hovering over any image in this document should bring up a link for attribution and further exploration. I hope you’ll slip down a rabbit hole or two and enjoy where you end up!

Important Note! Speaking of imagination, these constructs only exist inside the pages of the Cupid’s Fall series:

• The Great Syncretism – Zeus’s unification of Greek and Roman god-systems, which is how Cupid [Roman] and Zeus [Greek] are able to inhabit the same story.
• The Divine Council – the assembly of five gods (Themis, Athena, Dike, Ares, and Apollo) responsible for meting out punishment for the misdeeds of the gods through the ages
• The gaiascope – a magical window that allows the gods to see into the mortals’ world.

Timeline for the Cupid’s Fall Series

Quick Reference Chart of Gods & their Dominions

The name listed in UPPER CASE is consistent with the narrative of the “Great Syncretism.”
Refer to Author’s Notes above.

Partial* Family Tree of the Gods of Olympus

*For purposes of clarity and simplicity, many gods have been omitted from this illustration. If the lines appear confusing, blame the gods for messing around with close relatives! Shaded boxes indicate characters appearing in the Cupid’s Fall series. These names were chosen by the gods at the time of the Great Syncretism in 480, C.E.

The Story of Cupid & Psyche

Please feel free to enjoy this beautiful version of “The Story of Cupid & Psyche,” which serves as the source for the mythical references in book 4.

Translated from the Latin of Lucius Apuleius by Charles Stuttaford

(Lightly edited for clarity)

Cast of Divine Characters

ADONIS –Born of an incestuous relationship, Adonis was tucked into a casket by Aphrodite and given to Persephone, goddess of the underworld, for safekeeping. As Adonis grew older and more attractive, Persephone fell in love with him and refused to give him back to Aphrodite. Zeus settled the feud by ruling that Adonis spend four months with Persephone in the Underworld, four months with Aphrodite, then the last four months wherever he wished. Adonis was so taken with Aphrodite he spent his four free months with her.Out hunting one day, Adonis was mortally wounded by a wild boar. As his blood flowed into the soil, it mixed with Aphrodite’s tears. A red anemone flower sprang up, symbolizing Aphrodite’s everlasting grief for Adonis – beautiful, slender, and short-lived.

Venus and Adonis, Abrahama Bloemaert 1632

AION – God of Time.

APHRODITE (Venus) – Goddess of love, beauty, and fertility. Aphrodite rose fully formed out of the foam (aphros) floating around Uranus’s castrated genitals. Known for her ability to seduce men, Aphrodite is equally famous for her vanity, jealousy, and unfaithfulness. Married to Hephaestus, Aphrodite repeatedly seduces Ares, bearing four children by him: Fear, Panic, Harmony, and Love (Eros). To avenge Zeus for causing Hephaestus to discover her scandalous affair with Ares, Aphrodite causes Zeus to chase after countless nymphs and mortals. This drives a wedge between Zeus and his wife Hera, as well as creating an epic rivalry between Aphrodite and Hera, a rivalry that indirectly causes the Trojan War.

Gustave Moreau, Aphrodite, 1871

 APOLLO – God of light, music, prophecy, and medicine. Twin brother of Artemis

ARES (Mars) – God of war and battle-lust. Son of Zeus and Hera, brother of Hephaestus, “biological” father of Eros/Cupid (by the goddess Aphrodite), along with Deimos (Fear), Phobos (Terror), and Harmonia (Harmony).

Aside from being adored by Aphrodite for his good looks, Ares is universally despised by the other gods and feared by the ancient Greeks for his lust for conflict, savagery, and violence. It is said that Ares was so jealous of Aphrodite’s love for Adonis, it was he who transformed himself into the mighty boar who gored Adonis to his death.

Ironically, Ares is defeated again and again in battle. Once wounded by Diomedes, Ares “roared like nine or ten thousand other warriors together.” During the Trojan War, Athena threw him to the ground with a single stone. Hercules defeated Ares twice. And at one point, Ares was kidnapped and imprisoned in a bronze urn for a lunar year.

Mars (Ares) and Venus (Aphrodite). Engraving by D. Marchetti

ARTEMIS (Diana) – Goddess of the hunt, protector of new brides and young animals. Twin sister of Apollo.

ATHENA (Minerva), Virgin goddess of wisdom, war arts, law, and justice. Often shown wearing a helmet or crown and carrying a shield and spear, Athena was born fully grown and armed from Zeus’s head. She is credited with inventing weaving and pottery as well as the ship, chariot, plow, and rake.

CERBERUS – The vicious three-headed hound of Hades guards the gates of the Underworld to prevent the dead from leaving.

Hercules Dragging Cerberus from the Underworld, Hans Sebald Beham,1545

CUPID (Eros) – God of desire, erotic love, attraction, and affection. Cupid is most famous for causing uncontrollable desire in a person or deity shot by one of his love-tipped arrows. As such, Cupid often takes a backseat in the stories of the gods once he sets the stories in motion. Except, of course, for his own love story with his beloved Psyche.

By some accounts (Hesiod’s Theogony, for one), Eros was directly formed by CHAOS, along with Tartarus (the Underworld) and Gaia (Mother Earth). Another tradition puts forth that Eros, the power of passion, hatched from a primordial egg and preceded all beings in the universe. As the Olympian gods gained traction, Eros was seen as the son of Ares and Aphrodite, the masculine idea of love to mirror Aphrodite’s feminine. When the Romans assimilated the Greek myths, they emasculated Eros—now renamed Cupid—by introducing the chubby, winged infant who flies around creating mischief and mayhem with his bow and arrow.

Cupid Stringing His Bow, Lysippus, 2nd century, C.E.

DAEDALUS — Inventor, architect, and sculptor famous for building the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete to imprison the Minotaur. Tragically, Daedalus also crafted the wax wings for his son Icarus, who flew too near the sun and plummeted to his death.

DEMETER —  Goddess of grain, giver of good gifts, and bringer of seasons. Sister of Zeus, Hera, and Poseidon. The cold, dormant season of winter is said to be an expression of Demeter’s grief upon losing her daughter Persephone to Hades, God of the Underworld.

DIKE — Goddess of justice, fair judgements, and the rights established by custom and law. One of the three Horae (goddesses of the hours and seasons, and gatekeepers of heaven), along with Eunomia (Good Order) and Eirene (Peace).

DIONYSUS (Bacchus) – God of wine and ecstasy. Born from Zeus’s thigh and raised by mountain nymphs. His followers originated “bacchanalia,” wild revelries known for dance, song, and drink.

The DIVINE COUNCIL [a CF construct] includes Themis, Athena, Dike, Ares, and Apollo.

ECHO — Mountain nymph deprived of speech by HERA, except for the ability to repeat the last words of another.

ENDYMION – Handsome shepherd loved by the moon goddess Selene, who entreated Zeus to grant Endymion eternal sleep so he would never leave her.

The FATES – Three weaver-goddesses who assign destinies to mortal lives at birth. CLOTHO (“spinner”) spins the thread of life, LACHESIS (“allotter”) determines its length, and ATROPOS (“unturning”) chooses the manner of each person’s death, then cuts the thread with her shears.

Early accounts trace the Fates directly to Nyx (Night), giving them dominion over the gods. Only Zeus can alter what the Fates ordain.

“But the fair guerdon when we hope to find
And think to burst out into sudden blaze
Comes the blind Fury with th’abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.”

The Three Fates by Paul Thumann, 19th century

GAIA – Goddess of Earth. One of the primordial elemental deities born at the dawn of creation.

The GRACES – Three sister-nymphs who personify elegance and splendor (AGLAIA), youth and beauty (THALIA), and mirth (EUPHROSYNE). Daughters of Zeus, they are eternally young and lovely, usually depicted naked, holding attributes such as apples, roses, and sprigs of myrtle

The Three Graces Dancing, Antonio Canova, c. 1799

HADES (Pluto) – Ruler of the Underworld. Brother of Zeus and Poseidon.

HELIOS – God of the sun. Crowned with the aureole of the sun, he emerges each dawn driving a chariot drawn by four winged steeds and descends in the far West at each day’s end into a golden cup that bears him back to the East.

HEPHAESTUS (Vulcan) – God of fire and forge. Accomplished blacksmith and divine craftsman, Hephaestus creates everything from the most delicate jewelry to the battle armor Achilles used to slay Ajax in the Trojan War. He is credited with crafting Mercury’s winged helmet and sandals, Aphrodite’s girdle, the sun god Helios’s chariot, Zeus’s thunderbolts, and Cupid’s bow and arrows.

Son of Zeus and Hera, Hephaestus was ejected twice from Mount Olympus—first, by his mother at birth because of his unsightly appearance, and again, when he criticized Zeus for hanging Hera off Mount Olympus by her wrists. As punishment, Zeus threw Hephaestus off Mount Olympus. Hephaestus broke both legs upon landing, leaving him lame for life. Zeus chose Hephaestus, the one ugly god among perfect immortals, to marry Aphrodite to prevent war among the gods fighting over her hand. She is unfaithful time and again—most cruelly, with her husband’s own brother Ares.

HERA (Juno) – Queen of the Gods. Sister and wife of Zeus. Protector of marriage, women, and childbirth, she is famous for her jealous rages most often directed at her unfaithful husband and his unfortunate conquests.

HYPNOS – God of sleep. Rises into the sky each night in the train of his mother NYX (Night). His son MORPHEUS is responsible for sending human shapes to mortals’ dreams.

ICARUS – Plummeted to his tragic death after flying too close to the sun with wax wings designed by his father DAEDALUS.

IRIS – Goddess of the rainbow.

LYSSA – The personification of mad rage and insanity.

MERCURY (Hermes) – Mercury is most famously known as the winged messenger of the gods, though he is also the god of trade, wealth, luck, language, and travel. As the only Olympian capable of crossing the border between the living and dead, he is tasked with carrying the souls of the dead to the Underworld. A divine trickster, he invented the lyre from a tortoise shell and stole Apollo’s cattle on the very first day of his life. Mercury is immediately recognizable by four attributes: his broad-brimmed hat (petasos), winged sandals (talaria), a satchel, and a herald’s wand (caduceus in Latin) entangled by two identical serpents—not to be confused with the Rod of Asclepius (the symbol of modern medicine). When his newborn son Pan was abandoned by his own mother, Mercury wrapped the baby satyr in hare-skin blankets to present him to Zeus.

MORPHEUS – God responsible for sending human shapes to mortals’ dreams. Son of HYPNOS.

PAN (Faunus) – Demi-god of the wild, protector of the herd, god of rustic music. Son of Mercury, Pan was born a satyr—with the hindquarters, horns, and tail of a goat—his appearance so frightening his own mother abandoned him at birth.

On Mount Olympus, Pan made his home in the mountainous forests of Arcadia, where he was known for his sexual prowess and his favorite pastime of chasing (usually unwilling) nymphs. Rather than succumb to Pan’s relentless advances, the nymph SYRINX begged the river nymphs to turn her into a marsh reed to escape his grasp. Pan’s sigh of disappointment shook the reeds to form a haunting melody that so enraptured Pan, he bundled together different-sized reeds to form his famous panpipes. When the nymph PITYS fled Pan’s pursuit, she was changed into a pine tree. Pan is reputed to have seduced the moon goddess SELENE down from the sky by wrapping himself in a sheepskin to hide his hairy black goat form. Pan is the only Greek god who is thought to have died.

Pan and Syrinx, after Rubens, 1620s

POSEIDON – God of the seas and earthquakes. Brother of Zeus and Hera.

SYRINX – Nymph who begged the river nymphs to turn her into a marsh reed to escape Pan’s unwanted advances.

THEMIS – Titan goddess “of good counsel,” personification of divine order, fairness, law, and justice. Responsible for convening the assembly of the gods.

ZEUS (Jupiter) – Ruler of the gods and mortals, controls thunder, lightning, rain, and wind. Married to Hera, yet father of many, by many—divines and mortals alike.

Clothing Worn by the Ancient Greeks and Romans

CHITON – A linen or wool tunic fastened with buttons over one or both shoulders and bloused at the waist with a belt. Typically worn by women at ankle length, men might wear a chiton anywhere from floor to knee, depending on the times and the wearer’s occupation. The color or pattern would indicate status of the wearer. A peplos is a similar, more typically Greek garment, fastened with broochlike pins at either shoulder to create a neckline and armholes, then folded along the topline into a deep cuff, creating an apoptygma, or cape-like overfold.

HIMATION – A mantle or cloak typically fashioned from a large woolen rectangular, can be worn alone but is usually worn over a chiton or peplos.

Renderings of Pan in Sculpture and Paint*

*These works are all discussed in detail in book 3, QUITE THE PAIR.