Every war ends with a list of the defeated. Most of them are chained, buried or forgotten. One of them was handed a job instead — and the job was the sky. In Greek myth, Atlas is the Titan who…

Every river on earth runs to the sea. One runs to the oath. The Styx is the river that winds around the land of the dead, nine times over in Virgil’s telling. It is the dark border between the living…

Most Greek heroes go into the dark with a sword. Orpheus goes with a lyre, and it gets him further than any sword ever did. He is the greatest musician the Greeks ever imagined — a singer whose voice bent…

Every war has a man who fights for a cause he did not choose and cannot walk away from. In the Iliad, that man is Hector — crown prince of Troy, its greatest warrior, and the one Trojan who never…

Before the Trojan War had a hero, it needed a name that could end it. The oracles were specific: Troy would not fall without Achilles. Not the largest army, not the cleverest strategist — one man, and the terrible speed…