| Admetus | The king of Pherae in Thessaly whom Apollo served as shepherd in penance for having slain the Python at Delphi. According to a variant of the myth, Zeus forced Apollo to serve Admetus after the god had killed the Cyclops, who had created the thunderbolt Zeus used in slaying Apollo's son Asclepius.
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| Agave | [a-GAY-vee] Daughter of Harmonia and King Cadmus (founder of Thebes), she was the sister of Semele, Ino, and Autonoe and the mother of Pentheus.
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| Alcestis | Title character of Euripides' tragedy about a wife who volunteered to die in place of her husband, Admetus.
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| Amazons | A tribe of formidable female warriors who lived apart from men.
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| Atalanta | A virgin huntress who competed with the heroes in their athletic contests and heroic adventures, including the expedition of the Argonauts and the Calydonian Boar Hunt. She refused to marry unless a suitor could defeat her in a footrace at which losers would be killed. Either Hippomenes or Milanion distracted her by scattering three of Aphrodite's golden apples and won the race.
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| Callisto | A virgin follower of Artemis, raped by Zeus and turned into a bear. In one version of her myth, she was nearly shot by her son Arcas but was rescued by Zeus, who transformed her into the Great Bear constellation.
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| Cassandra | Daughter of Priam and Hecuba, she was Apollo's virgin prophet; part of Agamemnon's booty from Troy, she was brought to Argos (Mycenae), where Clytemnestra murdered her.
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| Clytemnestra | [klye-tem-NES-tra] The leading female character in the Oresteia, she was the daughter of Tyndareus (or Zeus) and Leda, sister of Helen, wife of Agamemnon, mistress of Aegisthus, and mother of Iphigenia, Electra, Chrysothemis, and Orestes. After murdering Agamemnon, she was slain by Orestes.
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| Electra | Daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, and sister of Orestes, she conspired with her brother to avenge their murdered father.
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| Iphigenia | [if-ih-je-NYE-a] Daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra whom her father sacrificed at Aulis to prevent the Greeks' expedition against Troy from being disbanded.
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| Nausicaa | [nah-SIK-ay-a] Daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete who found the shipwrecked Odysseus and befriended him at the Phaeacian court.
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| Neoptolemus | Son of Achilles and Deidamia, known as Pyrrhus (yellow haired). When Troy fell, he murdered Priam and took Andromache captive but later married Hermione and was killed by Orestes.
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| Penelope | Daughter of Icarius of Sparta and Periboea, a naiad, and wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus, she was a model of the loyal and prudent wife.
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| Psyche | (1) The Greek word for "soul," it refers to the mental, emotional, and psychological makeup of a human being. (2) Perhaps the last major myth created in classical antiquity: the story of a beautiful young woman named Psyche who, after many hardships and ordeals, at last married Love (Eros or Cupid) and ascended to join the gods on Olympus, a tale representing the human soul as being destined to achieve divine immortality. The myth is contained in the Roman writer Apuleius's novel the Golden Ass.
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| Semele | [SEM-uh-lee] Daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, sister of Agave, and mother (by Zeus) of Dionysus, she was consumed in Zeus's lightning when she demanded to see him in his true form. Dionysus later rescued her from Hades and escorted her to heaven.
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