At the center of the earth towered Mount Olympus, where the gods lived and held court. Sometimes Olympus was thought of as the actual mountain in Greece, but more often it was a lofty region in the heavens.
Around the earth ran a limitless river called Ocean. On the northern shores of this river lived the Hyperboreans, a fortunate race of men who never knew care, toil, illness, or old age. This community was isolated from the rest of the world, being unapproachable by land or sea. It enjoyed perpetual light and warmth.
To the West lay Hesperia, the land of the evening star, where the golden apples of Hera were guarded by the dragon Ladon and by seven immortal maidens, the Hesperides. The western lands and seas were populated with monstrous beings: the one-eyed Cyclopes, the cannibalistic Laestrygonians, Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens, and the Titan Atlas. But also to the far west lay the Elysian Fields, or Isles of the Blessed, where certain favored mortals went when they died.
In the far south were the Ethiopians, a lucky, virtuous people with whom the gods banqueted. And in the East were the barbarians, or non-Greek-speaking races to whom the blessings of civilization were unknown.
Beneath the disk of the earth was Tartarus, where the Titans were confined, a vast, nebulous realm of darkness. Between earth and Tartarus was the underworld kingdom of Hades, the ruler of the dead. The entrance to this realm was guarded by Cerberus, the three-headed dog. And once the departed spirits passed they had to be ferried across the River Styx by Charon, the foul-tempered boatman. The place was thought of as cavernous and dim, a joyless abode in which the dead gradually faded into nothingness.
