The Most Brutal Stories In Greek Mythology

Medea, the Sorceress of Colchis, is a princess at Colchis when Jason (of Jason and the Argonauts) comes to town. Smitten, she betrays her family to help him, eliminating her brothers. When Medea and Jason flee to Thebes, however, Jason wastes no time arranging to marry Glauce, the princess there. So how does Medea, the sorceress who offed her family members, react? Not well.

Madea sends Glauce a dress coated in poison, which ends her and her father, the king Creon. She then slays the two children she had with Jason. She leaves Jason alive and taunts him as he weeps for everything he's lost.
 

The story of Erysichthon has interesting resonance in this era of climate change. It's the tale of an arrogant and greedy king, Erysichthon, whose men chop down trees all over the kingdom. They refuse, however, to cut down one tree covered with offerings to Demeter. So Erysichthon grabs the ax and does it himself.

What he doesn't know is that the tree is a wood nymph. With her last breath, she curses Erysichthon to a life of eternal hunger. The more he eats, the hungrier he becomes. He eats through all the kingdom's resources, eventually selling his daughter. In some versions of the story, she can change shape, so he sells her again and again. 

Finally, with nothing left to eat, he begins to devour his flesh.

Pentheus does not like all the drinking and sleeping around taking place in his city. A leading authority, he is determined to suppress these bacchanals by force. In retaliation, Dionysus, the god of wine, lures Pentheus's female family members to an enormous party.

Pentheus tries to confine Dionysus, but the chains fall off the god. From there, Dionysus brings Pentheus to the bacchanal, where the frenzied celebrants mistake him for a wild boar and tear off his limbs. In some sources, his mother is the first to strike him, cutting off his head and placing it on a stick.

If there was one rule for survival in ancient Greece, it was this: don't mess with Zeus. The king of the gods was petty, vicious, and had no sense of proportion when it came to punishment. Take the story of Prometheus, a Titan who was a member of a powerful group of beings Zeus had forced underground. Humankind was cold and hungry, clinging to the earth. Pitying them, Prometheus steals fire from Zeus and gives it to the humans so they can warm themselves and cook their food.

In response, Zeus chains Prometheus to a rock on a tall mountain and sends an eagle to eat his liver. That's bad enough, but then Zeus makes his liver regrow every night to be consumed each day again. In some mythological sources, Heracles eventually comes along and slays the eagle. In others, Prometheus is still up there.

In The Trojan Women, Euripides's anti-conflict play, the women of the Trojan court have just been captured by the Greeks. They are treated terribly as they wait to see which Greek captain will be their master as they begin their new lives as enslaved people.

The cruelest blow, however, comes when the Greek herald Talthybius arrives to inform the women that Odysseus has convinced the council that Hector's son, Astyanax, must be done away with. Hecuba, the leader of the women and Astyanax's grandmother, watches as the Greeks throw her grandson from the tallest tower in Troy. 

Sometimes, people break the law because they're driven to do so. Other times, they're just awful people. In the case of Tantalus, there's no rhyme nor reason for his horrible action. Tantalus is a friend of the gods and one of the few mortals allowed to dine with them. One day, he decides to test the gods' perception, to see if they recognize an unclean meal if he serves it to them. He slays his son, Pelops, roasts his body, and tries to offer him up to the gods.

The gods aren't fooled. Furious, Zeus restores Pelops to life, and ensures Tantalus an eternity of hunger and thirst, always reaching for food, but never quite able to grasp it.