Further Reading

The tales present the finished myth. These are the sources underneath it, gathered from every tale.

Ancient sources

  • Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (Hymn 6) — the west wind carries her to Cyprus and the Seasons clothe her. 2
  • Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, lines 21–32 — Hestia's refusal of her suitors and Zeus's gift of the hearth. 15
  • Homeric Hymn to Demeter — Demeter at Eleusis and her gift to its princes. 11
  • Homeric Hymn to Demeter — the taking of Persephone, the pomegranate seed, and the bargain of one third of the year below. 14
  • Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Hymn 2) — the abduction, Demeter's search and grief at Eleusis, the barren year, and the settlement. 26
  • Homeric Hymn to Hermes (Hymn 4) — the birth, the lyre, the theft of the cattle, and the bargain with Apollo. 30
  • Homeric Hymn to Hestia (Hymn 29) — the first and last offering. 15
  • Aeschylus (attributed), Prometheus Bound — Hephaestus's reluctant chaining of the Titan, and the eagle foretold. 22
  • Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound — Prometheus lists the arts that came from fire. 5
  • Aesop, "The Oak and the Reeds" (Perry 70). 16
  • Apollodorus, Library, 1.5.2 — Triptolemus and the chariot of winged serpents. 11
  • Apollodorus, Library, 1.6.3 — a fuller, later version of the battle. 25
  • Apollodorus, Library, 1.7.1 and 2.5.11 — the Caucasus, the eagle, and Heracles' arrow. 22
  • Apollodorus, Library, 1.9 — Phrixus, Helle and the golden ram. 7
  • Apollodorus, Library, 1.9.26 — Talos's circuit of Crete and the nail. 19
  • Apollodorus, Library, 3.4.3 — Semele and the birth of Dionysus. 20
  • Apollodorus, Library, Book 1 — Ouranos casts the Cyclopes into the depths; Zeus frees them in the war against the Titans. 4
  • Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica — the voyage for the Golden Fleece. 7
  • Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, Book 4 — Talos, Medea and the fall. 19
  • Aristophanes, Wealth (Ploutos), 388 BC — Chremylos, the blind god, and the starving gods. 9
  • Aristotle, Politics, Book 1 — interest as tokos, money born of money. 13
  • Callimachus, Hymn to Demeter (Hymn 6) — the grove, the goddess disguised as her priestess, and the insatiable hunger. 27
  • Herodotus, Histories, 8.55 — Athena's olive on the Acropolis puts out a new shoot the day after the Persians burn it. 13
  • Hesiod, Theogony — Kronos swallowing his children, Rhea's stone, and the stone set up at Delphi. 24
  • Hesiod, Theogony — Ploutos born to Demeter and Iasion in a thrice-ploughed field. 9
  • Hesiod, Theogony — Prometheus's theft, the eagle, and his release by Heracles. 22
  • Hesiod, Theogony — the birth of Ouranos from Gaia, the buried children, and the sickle of Kronos. 1
  • Hesiod, Theogony — the birth of the Cyclopes, their imprisonment by Ouranos, and their gift of the thunderbolt to Zeus. 4
  • Hesiod, Theogony — the birth of Typhoeus from Gaia and his defeat by Zeus's thunderbolts. 25
  • Hesiod, Theogony — the division at Mekone, and why mortals burn the bones and fat for the gods. 6
  • Hesiod, Theogony — the first woman sent in return for the fire. 23
  • Hesiod, Theogony — the Furies from the Sky's blood, and Aphrodite from the foam. 2
  • Hesiod, Theogony — Themis among the children of Ouranos and Gaia; her marriage to Zeus and the birth of the Horai. 18
  • Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days — the division at Mekone, the hiding of fire, and its theft in a fennel stalk. 5
  • Hesiod, Theogony, lines 453–500 — Kronos swallows his children and returns them. 15
  • Hesiod, Works and Days — Prometheus, Epimetheus, and the gift taken without forethought. 8
  • Hesiod, Works and Days — the making of Pandora, the jar, and Hope left under its rim. 23
  • Hesiod, Works and Days — the passage on seafaring: his father's voyage, his own crossing to Euboea, and the warning against hollow ships. 16
  • Homer, Iliad, Book 1 — Chryses reminds Apollo of the offerings he has burned and asks for favour in return. 6
  • Homer, Iliad, Book 1 — the quarrel that sends Achilles to his tent. 10
  • Homer, Iliad, Book 1 (the quarrel and the withdrawal), Book 9 (the embassy refused), Book 16 (Patroclus), Book 24 (Priam in the tent). 28
  • Homer, Iliad, Book 18 — Hephaestus's self-moving tripods and golden handmaidens. 19
  • Homer, Iliad, Book 5 — Greek Ares wounded and fleeing, the god the Roman Mars is not. 8
  • Homer, Iliad, Book 5 — the Horai who keep the cloud-gates of heaven. 18
  • Homer, Iliad, Book 9 — Achilles tells the envoys of his two fates, lines 410–416. 10
  • Homer, Odyssey, Book 8 — the song of Ares and Aphrodite. 3
  • Hyginus, Astronomica 2.3, after Pherecydes — Earth's golden-apple branches, which Hera asked to have planted in her garden near Atlas; Apollodorus, Library 2.5.11, gives them as Earth's wedding gift to Zeus. 13
  • Livy, History of Rome, Book 3, 26–29 — Cincinnatus called from the plough, the relief of the consul's army, and the sixteen-day dictatorship. 17
  • Macrobius, Saturnalia, Book 1 — Saturn in Italy and the treasury in his temple. 12
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 3 — Echo and Narcissus, the prophecy of Tiresias, and the prayer answered by Nemesis. 29
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 3, lines 253–315 — Hera's disguise and Semele's request. 20
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 5 — the later telling, in which she spends half the year below. 14
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 5 — Triptolemus sent out to sow the world. 11
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 8 — Erysichthon, the bleeding oak, Famine, and his shape-changing daughter (named Mestra in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women). 27
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses, end of Book 1 and Book 2 — the fullest telling of Phaethon's ride and fall. 21
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book 10 — the stone still honoured at Delphi in his day. 24
  • Pindar, Isthmian 8 — Themis's warning about the son of Thetis. 18
  • Pindar, Pythian 1 — Typhon pinned beneath Etna. 25
  • Plato, Protagoras — the myth of Prometheus and Epimetheus distributing gifts to living things. 5
  • Plato, Symposium, the speech of Pausanias — the Heavenly Aphrodite, the motherless daughter of Ouranos. 2
  • Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, Book 1 — the planetary rulerships, Venus in Taurus. 2
  • Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, Book 1 — the traditional planetary rulerships. 3
  • Strabo, Geography, Book 11 — the Colchian practice of catching gold dust in fleeces. 7
  • Tertullian, Apology 33.4; Pliny, Natural History 33.11; Juvenal, Satires 10.41–42; Zonaras 7.21 — the triumph's reminder of mortality, a custom attested from later Roman writers. 17
  • Virgil, Aeneid, Book 8 — Evander tells of Saturn's exile in Latium and the Golden Age. 12
  • Virgil, Georgics, Book 1, lines 121–146 — Jupiter ends the easy age; "labor omnia vicit / improbus". 12

Myth, psyche and religion

  • Adrienne Mayor, Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology (2018). 19
  • C. G. Jung and Karl Kerényi, Essays on a Science of Mythology — the essays on the Kore and Demeter. 26
  • C. G. Jung and Karl Kerényi, Essays on a Science of Mythology — the Kore essays. 14
  • Colin Renfrew, The Emergence of Civilisation (1972) — the "Mediterranean triad" of grain, olive and vine. 11
  • Dora and Erwin Panofsky, Pandora's Box: The Changing Aspects of a Mythical Symbol (1956) — how the jar became a "box". 23
  • Erich Neumann, The Great Mother — the earth that both nourishes and withholds. 26
  • Gregory Nagy, The Best of the Achaeans — kleos and the hero's choice. 10
  • Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (1994). 28
  • Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion — the sky god who withdraws from the world he made. 1
  • Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion — the sky god who withdraws from the world. 4
  • Norman O. Brown, Hermes the Thief: The Evolution of a Myth (1947). 30
  • Raymond Klibansky, Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy (1964) — Saturn's dark side. 24
  • Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche (2006) — archetypal astrology. 3
  • Richard Tarnas, Prometheus the Awakener (1993) — the planet Uranus read through the figure of Prometheus. 3
  • Walter Burkert, Greek Religion — sacrifice and the reciprocity between mortals and gods. 6

Paintings

  • Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son (c. 1819–1823), Museo del Prado, Madrid. 24
  • Gustave Moreau, Jupiter and Semele (1895), Musée Gustave Moreau, Paris. 20
  • Gustave Moreau, Phaethon (1878), watercolour, Musée du Louvre (Département des Arts graphiques), Paris. 21
  • Gustave Moreau, Prometheus (1868), Musée Gustave Moreau, Paris. 5 · 22
  • Kephisodotos, Eirene and Ploutos, c. 370s BC — Peace holding the infant Wealth; a Roman copy is in the Glyptothek, Munich. 9
  • Posidippus, Greek Anthology 16.275, and Callistratus, Descriptions 6 — Lysippos's bronze Kairos at Sicyon, the god seized by the forelock; later reliefs at Trogir and Torcello. 8

Markets and risk

  • André F. Perold, "The Implementation Shortfall: Paper versus Reality," Journal of Portfolio Management (1988). 30
  • Brad M. Barber and Terrance Odean, "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance (2000). 27
  • David H. Bailey, Jonathan M. Borwein, Marcos López de Prado and Qiji Jim Zhu, "Pseudo-Mathematics and Financial Charlatanism: The Effects of Backtest Overfitting on Out-of-Sample Performance," Notices of the American Mathematical Society (2014). 29
  • Harry Markowitz, "Portfolio Selection", Journal of Finance (1952) — the founding statement of modern portfolio theory: diversification made mathematical. 11
  • Marcos López de Prado, Advances in Financial Machine Learning (2018). 29
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile — convexity and small, bounded exposures. 6
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile — optionality: only those exposed to an outcome can benefit from it. 8
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile — the barbell. 1 · 10 · 16 · 25
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile — the Lindy effect. 12
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan — rare, unpredictable events with outsized consequences. 4
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan and Antifragile — convexity and positive Black Swans. 7
  • Richard H. Thaler and Eric J. Johnson, "Gambling with the House Money and Trying to Break Even," Management Science (1990) — the pull to win back a loss. 28