Percy Jackson's Companion Books – Percy Jackson's Greek Gods

If Apollo was hanging out in Greece and some guy in Spain muttered, “Apollo is stupid!”…BAM! One dead Spanish guy.

Whenever you’re in an incredibly boring lecture that seems to take forever, blame Kronos. Or when your weekend is way too short, that’s Kronos’s fault, too.

Dionysus’s last big adventure on earth, before he became a full-time god: he decided to invade India. Why? Why not?

IT WOULD BE FASTER to list the things Hermes wasn’t the god of, because that guy had a lot going on. He was the god of travel, so he was the patron of anyone who used the roads. That meant merchants, messengers, ambassadors, traveling performers, and herders bringing their livestock to market. It also meant bandits, thieves, drifters, and those annoying caravans of retired people in RVs heading south for the winter. Hermes was in charge of guiding dead souls to the Underworld. He was Zeus’s personal FedEx service, carrying his boss’s messages all around the globe with guaranteed overnight delivery. He was also the god of (take a deep breath) commerce, languages, thievery, cheeseburgers, trickery, eloquent speaking, feasts, cheeseburgers, hospitality, guard dogs, birds of omen, gymnastics, athletic competitions, cheeseburgers, cheeseburgers, and telling fortunes with dice. Okay, I just tossed in the cheeseburgers to see if you were paying attention. Also, I’m hungry.

“Aunt Artemis!” said Asklepios. “Good to see you!” Artemis laid the body of Hippolytos at his feet. “Asklepios, I need you to heal Hippolytos. Please! This is beyond even my powers.” “Hmm,” Asklepios said. “What’s wrong with him?” “He’s dead,” Artemis said. “That’s a serious condition. It’s almost always fatal. But I’ll see what I can do.”

This time Artemis made a constellation. She put Orion in the sky, with a scorpion nearby, so his story would live forever.

Zeus felt some remorse. He turned Kallisto into a constellation, Ursa Major, or the Big Bear—as if that could make up for ruining her life.

You threw me away,” Hephaestus reminded her. “I was ugly and crippled, so you tossed me off the mountain. I want you to suffer for that, dear mother. Think about all the things I could’ve made for you if you’d treated me well. Then maybe you’ll understand that you threw away something valuable. You should never judge a god by the way he looks.”

As for Ares’s other sacred grove, the one in Colchis, things were run a little differently over there. The king was a guy named Aeetes. (As near as I can figure, that’s pronounced “I Eat Tees.”) His big claim to fame was that the Golden Fleece—that magical sheepskin rug I’m related to—ended up in his kingdom, which made the place immune to disease, invasion, stock market crashes, visits from Justin Bieber, and pretty much any other natural disaster.

So what’s the moral of the story? The old preachy storytellers will claim: Don’t compare yourself to the gods, because you can’t be that good. But that’s not true. Arachne was that good. Maybe the lesson is: Know when to brag and when to keep your mouth shut. Or: Sometimes life isn’t fair, even if you are as gifted as Athena. Or maybe: Don’t give away free tapestries. I’ll let you decide.