Aeacus panicked. He went to his palace garden, where he could see the blue sky. He fell on his knees and prayed to Zeus, “Hey, Dad, I’m about to get invaded here, and your wife just pretty much killed every man in my army and most of the civilians.”
Zeus’s voice rumbled from the heavens: “Bummer. How can I help?”
Aeacus thought about that. He looked down at his flowerbeds and saw ants marching around, thousands of the little dudes, tireless and industrious like…like an army.
“You know what would be cool?” Aeacus asked. “If you could turn these ants into an army for me.”
“Done!” Zeus thundered.
Immediately the entire colony of ants grew into men—thousands of hardened warriors in gleaming red-and-black armor, already drilled to march in rows and fight with perfect discipline. They feared no enemy. They were incredibly strong and tough. They were called the Myrmidones, and they became the most famous elite fighting unit in Greece, like the Navy SEALs or the Green Berets of the ancient world. Later on, they would have a famous commander named Achilles. Maybe you’ve heard of him, or at least his heel.
The last thing about Hera—and I really don’t get this—is how quickly she could change from being somebody’s enemy to his friend, or vice versa. Take Poseidon, for instance.
At first, they didn’t get along. In fact, they both had their eye on the same Greek kingdom, called Argos. See, it was a big deal back then to be the patron god of this city or that city. Like, it was a huge honor if you could claim to be the god of New York City. If you were the god of Scranton, Pennsylvania…not so much. (Okay, sorry, everybody in Scranton. But you get the idea.)
I guess Argos was a nice place, because both Hera and Poseidon wanted to be its patron. The king decided to go for Hera. Probably he didn’t want his population dying off from snake poison.
Hera was delighted. Poseidon wasn’t. He flooded the entire kingdom, and when Hera complained, Poseidon said, “Fine. I’ll take back the water. I’ll take back all of it.” The sea receded, and all the springs and rivers in the whole country went dry.
Hera complained again. The two of them were on the verge of an epic smackdown. Finally Poseidon relented and let some of the water come back, but Argos is still a very dry place. Many of the rivers have no water unless it rains. Hera became the patron of Argos, which was helpful later on for a dude named Jason, who led a crew of heroes called the Argonauts. But that’s another story.
My point is that Hera changed her tune shortly afterward. She and Poseidon had a sit-down and decided that Zeus was getting out of control as a leader. They plotted the first-ever Olympian rebellion.
But we’ll get to that when we talk about Poseidon.
Now we have to visit the Underworld and see how it’s going with our favorite creepy stalker death god, Hades.
HADES DOES HOME
IMPROVEMENT
I FEEL FOR THE GUY.
No, seriously.
Hades might be a creep, but there’s no doubt he got the short end of the universe. Despite being Rhea’s oldest son, he was always counted as the youngest, since the gods went by the order they got barfed from Kronos’s gut.
If that wasn’t bad enough, when the gods rolled dice to divide up the world, Hades got the least desirable part—the Underworld.
Of course, Hades was kind of a gloomy dude to begin with, so you could argue that he was destined to hang out underground. He was always brooding and dressed in black. His dark hair covered his eyes like one of those emo dudes from Japanese manga. Once he became lord of the Underworld, all the color drained out of his complexion, because he was leaving the mortal world behind.
Even if the other gods wanted to keep in touch with him (which they didn’t), the Underworld had really bad phone service and zero Wi-Fi. When Hades was down there, he had no idea what was going on in the world above. His only news came from the spirits of the recently dead, who would fill him in on the latest gossip.
In fact, in Ancient Greek times, whenever you invoked the name of Hades, you had to bang your fist against the ground, because that was the only way to get his attention. Kind of like, Hey, I’m talking to you!
Why would you want to get Hades’s attention? I’m not sure.
Eventually