#Leto

Titaness; mother of Apollo and Artemis by Zeus.

An Attic red-figure pelike, the whole black-glazed vessel standing against a plain grey ground, its belly panel bordered by a band of tongues above and running dot-chains at the sides. In the scene the Titaness Rhea, at left in a long pleated chiton and mantle with her hair bound in a fillet, steps forward and holds out in both hands the stone wrapped in swaddling clothes; facing her at right the bearded Kronos, in a himation that leaves one shoulder bare and a soft cap, grips a long sceptre in his trailing hand and raises his other hand to receive the bundle he believes is his newborn son — the swaddled-stone deception that founds the ruling family.

The Twelve Olympians: The Ruling Family

There is no ancient list of the Twelve. What the oldest poets give us instead is a household with a throne room, a swallowed generation, and a family quarrel that never quite ends.

7 minHesiod

Diana the huntress striding through a dark wood, a gold mantle slipping from her shoulders, reaching back to draw a white-fletched arrow from the quiver at her side while a red recurve bow hangs in her lowered hand. A lean white hound courses at her feet, and a lake glimmers through the trees behind her.

Greek

Artemis, the Huntress

The small child who climbed onto her father's knee and asked for a bow, eternal maidenhood and all the mountains in the world, then took them.

5 minHomeric Hymn 27

The young Apollo, unbearded and golden-curled, a soft halo of light behind his head, a rose mantle slipping from one shoulder. He holds a laurel branch in his right hand; a lyre rests at his left side and the white-fletched arrows of his quiver show above his shoulder.

Greek

Apollo, God of Light and Prophecy

The newborn who burst his swaddling bands to claim the lyre, the bow and the truth of Zeus, then killed a dragon to found the oracle that spoke for him.

5 minHomeric Hymn 3