Famous Greek Women

The last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the last true pharaoh of Egypt, Cleopatra is described as an extremely beautiful woman who was also intelligent and educated with command over numerous languages. Her romance and military alliances with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony have inspired numerous art works.

One of the 3 monster-like creatures from Greek mythology, known as the Gorgons, Medusa was a winged woman with a head full of snakes instead of hair and could turn people into stone with her stare. Perseus could kill her, as she was the only mortal Gorgon.

Arianna Huffington is a Greek-American author, businesswoman, and syndicated columnist. She is credited with co-founding the popular news aggregator and blog, The Huffington Post. She is also the founder of Thrive Global, for which she also serves as the CEO. She has been featured on lists, such as Time magazine's 100 most influential people and Forbes magazine's Most Powerful Women.

Greek goddess Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, was abducted by Hades while collecting flowers in Nysa. She had eaten a pomegranate seed in the underworld, which meant she had to spend one-third of the year with Hades and couldn’t be freed completely. She thus became the queen of the underworld.

The daughter of Priam and Hecuba, Cassandra was the sister of Greek Trojan hero Hector. Described as stunningly beautiful in Homer’s Iliad, she was raped by Ajax the Lesser during the fall of Troy. Her rape by Ajax later became one of the most depicted scenes in Greek art and sculpture.

The ancient Greek goddess of victory, Nike was the daughter of the giant Pallas and the river Styx. While she is usually depicted as winged, she is wingless when she appears as an attendant of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and warfare, or Zeus. The Romans worshipped her as Victoria.

In Greek mythology, Styx is the river that borders the Earth and the Underworld. Charon ferried dead people’s souls across the Styx to the world of Hades. It is believed that Thetis dipped her son, Achilles, into the Styx, which made him invulnerable, except for his heels, which Thetis held while dipping him.

The daughter of Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, Christina Onassis had an unhappy life. She lost both her parents shortly after her brother’s accidental death. She married and divorced 4 times and had a long struggle with eating disorders. She tragically died of a heart attack at 37.

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman and was created by Hephaestus on Zeus’s orders. When Epimetheus married Pandora, she opened her jar, which contained all sorts of evils and miseries, and threw them upon the Earth, barring Hope, which couldn’t escape before the lid was shut.

Athina Onassis Roussel is a French-Greek heiress and equestrian. She is the granddaughter and the only surviving descendant of Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Her parents are Aristotle's daughter Christina Onassis and her fourth husband, Thierry Roussel. She began riding horses as a child and is now a competitive showjumper. Following Christina Onassis’s death, Athina became her sole heiress.  

The daughter of former WTA player Angelikí Kanellopoúlou, Sakkari was introduced to tennis at age six. Greek tennis sensation Maria Sakkari has had a career-high ranking of number 6 in singles. Known for her aggressive style, Sakkari was born and raised in Athens but moved to Barcelona at 18 to train.

Greek pop icon Nana Mouskouri soared to fame all over Europe with her track The White Rose of Athens. She has sung in a wide range of languages, including German, Italian, Chinese, and Dutch. Dubbed Europe’s Barbra Streisand, she also sang the theme song of the Oscar-nominated movie The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

Ariadne was the daughter of Cretan king Minos and Pasiphae. Her love for Theseus made her help him escape the Labyrinth with a string of jewels. It is believed, she was later rejected by Theseus and either killed herself or married Dionysus, the god of wine.

Artemisia I was the queen of Halicarnassus in the district of Caria and also ruled Kos, Kalymnos, and Nisyros. She joined hands with Xerxes I, the ruler of Persia, during his invasion of Greece. She commanded 5 ships of the invading navy but requested Xerxes to retreat after suffering heavy losses.

Olga Constantinovna of Russia was the oldest daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich and his wife, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg. She was married to King George I of Greece and was the queen consort of Greece as his wife. In this role, she became involved in social and charitable work and founded hospitals and schools. 

Olympias served as the queen of Macedonia from 357 to 316 BC. As the mother of Alexander the Great, Olympias played an important role in Alexander's life. An extremely influential figure during Alexander's reign, Olympias was regarded as the de facto leader of Macedon during her son's conquests. Not surprisingly, Olympias is often depicted in stories that narrate Alexander's life.

Irene Papas is a popular Greek actress and singer who has played powerful women in films and stage plays in an illustrious career spanning over five decades. Widely regarded as the quintessential Greek beauty, Papas has won many awards, including the Golden Arrow Lifetime Achievement Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival.

Lamia was, according to Greek mythology, a female demon who ate children. Some accounts state she was a queen of Libya and a lover of Zeus. When a jealous Hera kidnapped and killed Lamia’s children with Zeus, Lamia became a child-eating monster. She appears as a seductress in John Keats’s Lamia.

The aegis was a shield forged by the Cyclopes and carried by Athena and Zeus. It was sometimes depicted as a piece of animal skin worn by the gods to protect themselves. Legend has it that the shield was adorned by the head of a Gorgon and also roared during battles.

Thetis appears in Greek mythology as a sea nymph and one of the 50 daughters of Nereus, the sea god. The gods, fearful that she would bear a son who would be more powerful than his father, gave her away to the mortal king Peleus. She was the mother of Achilles.

The Maenads were the female followers of Dionysus, the god of wine. Since Dionysus was also known as Bacchus in Roman mythology, the Maenads were also called the Bacchantes. They often engaged in frenzied dances, and a group of Maenads even killed musician Orpheus when he refused to entertain them.

The only child of Spartan king Cleomenes I, Gorgo later married Cleomenes’s successor and half-brother, Leonidas, thus becoming the queen of Sparta. She was a child when she warned her father against Aristagoras, who tried his best to bribe Cleomenes to have him as an ally after the Ionian revolt.

The first wife of Heracles, Megara was also the eldest daughter of Theban king Creon. The king gave her away to Heracles for his help in winning back his kingdom, Thebes, from the Minyans. Hera, who hated Heracles, made him kill Megara and their children in a fit of rage.

The Greek goddess of memory, Mnemosyne gave birth to the 9 Muses after Zeus, her nephew, spent 9 nights with her in Pieria. The daughter of Uranus and Gaea, she was a titaness. An Orphic inscription asks dead souls to avoid drinking from Lethe and to drink from Mnemosyne, the pool of memory.

Marie-Chantal Claire is the wife of Pavlos, Crown Prince of Greece. Her parents-in-law are Constantine II of Greece and Anne-Marie of Denmark. Her husband is the heir apparent to the now-defunct throne of Greece. The daughter of a prominent businessman, she married Pavlos in 1995. She is the founder of Marie-Chantal, an international childrenswear brand. 

Maria Amalia Mercouri was a Greek actress, singer, politician, activist, and socialist. Mercouri had a profound acting career and is remembered for her portrayal of Ilya in the film Never on Sunday, which earned her a Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award. As a politician, Mercouri served as the Minister of Culture and Sports, the first female to do so.