Heroes

Heroes 

in ancient Greek religion and mythology, legendary leaders or great warriors who were worshiped after their death for their semidivine attributes. Hero cults were maintained by communities or towns that considered such figures to have been their ancestors.

Many of the heroes worshiped in ancient Greece in the first millennium B.C. were originally ancient local deities who had lost their former significance with the spread of the Olympian religion (for example, Agamemnon and Helen). The Greeks also worshiped eponymic heroes—that is, persons for whom a tribe or city had been named (for example, Lacedaemon and Corinth). More often than not, these were imaginary personages. Outstanding individuals known to history might also be considered heroes after their deaths (for example, the tyrant-slayers Harmodius and Aristogiton in Athens and the poet Archilochus on the island of Paros). Analogous cults of semidivine heroes are known among many other peoples (for example, Gilgamesh in Mesopotamia, Tiki in Polynesia, and Siegfried among the Germans).