Temple of Aphaea Agamemnon against Priam. According to the standard myths, Zeus raped the nymph "Aigina", who bore the first king of the island, Aiakos. This king had the sons Telamon (father of the Homeric hero Ajax) and Peleus (father of the Homeric hero Achilles). The Greek idolize heroes who fallen at war, to die on the battleground was a great honor it depicted courage and strength. When a hero died it was though that they become immortal because they prove themselves to the Gods. The sculptures preserve extensive traces of a complex paint scheme, and are crucial for the study of painting
Greek hero cult Greek hero cult Hero cults were one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion. In Homeric Greek, "hero" (, ) refers to a man who fought (on either side) during the Trojan War. By the historical period, however, the word came to mean specifically a "dead" man, venerated and propitiated at his tomb or at a designated shrine, because his fame during life or his unusual manner of death gave him power to support and protect the living. A hero was more than human but less than a god, and various kinds of supernatural figures came to be