A collection of thirteen narratives that profile the top female athletes in different sports, including Babe Didrickson Zaharias, Billie Jean King, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Sheryl Swoopes.

*Includes pictures *Includes ancient descriptions of Nike *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "To Nike (Victory), Fumigation from Manna. O powerful Nike, by men desired, with adverse breasts to dreadful fury fired, thee I invoke, whose might alone can quell contending rage and molestation fell. 'Tis thine in battle to confer the crown, the victor's prize, the mark of sweet renown; for thou rulest all things, Nike divine! And glorious strife, and joyful shouts are thine. Come, mighty goddess, and thy suppliant bless, with sparkling eyes, elated with success; may deeds illustrious thy protection claim, and find, led on by thee, immortal fame." - Orphic Hymn to Nike 33 It seems to be a normal, modern-day practice to reduce all the gods of the ancient pantheons to their most basic abstract concepts: Ares represents war; Demeter, agriculture; Aphrodite, love; and so on. In the process, these characters lose any personality with which they might have been imbued over millennia of stories. A part of most studies of these gods is usually reserved for the undoubtedly valuable etymology of a deity's name, but more often than not, this etymology reveals little more than the fact they had been associated with their abstract concepts since time immemorial. Still, most modern readers understand the ancient Greek deities had "personalities" more complex than the abstract concepts they represented. These "personalities" were elaborated upon to explain relationships between concepts, such as in the case of Ares's and Aphrodite's daughter Harmonia, who always followed in her father's destructive wake, explaining the brutal "cleansing" power of war within ancient Greece's complex political landscape. It is in this same line of thought that abstract characters, such as Harmonia and Nike (Victory), find their place in ancient Greek mythology, especially after the writings of Homer in the 8th century BCE. As renowned historian Walter Burkert put it, "as a result of this Homerization, the Archaic Greek personifications come to assume their distinctive character in that they mediate between the individual gods and the spheres of reality, they receive mythical and personal elements from the gods and in turn give the gods part in the conceptual order of things. The personifications appear first in poetry, move into the visual arts and finally find their way into the realm of cult." In the case of Nike, there is no ambiguity in the meaning of her name. "Nike" is used to refer to the abstract concept of victory in its many forms in the works of Homer, Sophocles, Plato, and Xenophon. Victories in wars and in athletic competitions are invariably Nike's most predominant manifestations in the historical record, and as such, her appearances in myth as a goddess whose actions took place within the society of the pantheon are numerous, though mostly silent. Yet it is how the ancients interacted with this goddess that is most fascinating. The sculpture and the songs, the bas-reliefs and coins, all pay homage to Nike the goddess more intimately than the mere use of her image as a placeholder for "a glorious memory." When viewed in the context of a conversation, the appearance of Nike in the historical and archaeological records give the modern reader a tantalizing view inside the psyche of the ancient Greeks. This is the gift from Nike's that continues to bear fruit. Nike: The Origins and History of the Greek Goddess of Victory looks at the story of the legendary deity and the various roles she played in Greek mythology. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about Nike like never before.

Seventeen-year-old Phoebe, unable to control the powers inherited from her ancestor Nike, must attend summer camp with a group of ten-year-olds, while coping with her boyfriend's apparent betrayal and mysterious messages about her deceased father.

When Phoebe's mom returns from Greece with a new husband and plans to move to an island in the Aegean Sea, Phoebe's well-plotted senior year becomes ancient history. Now, instead of enjoying a triumphant track season and planning for college with her best friends, Phoebe is trying to keep her head above water at the berexclusive Academy. If it isn't hard enough being the new kid in school, Phoebe's classmates are all descendents of the Greek gods! When you're running against teammates with superpowers, dealing with a stepsister from Hades, and nursing a crush on a boy who is quite literally a god, the drama takes on mythic proportions!

From the beautiful apsaras of Hindu myth to the swan maidens of European fairy tales, stories of flying women-some carried by wings, others by clouds, rainbows, floating scarves, and flying horses-reveal the perennial fascination with and ambivalence about female power and sexuality. In Women Who Fly, Serinity Young examines the motif of the flying woman as it appears in a wide variety of cultures and historical periods, in legends, myths, rituals, sacred narratives, and artistic productions. She considers supernatural women like the Valkyries of Norse legend, who transport men to immortality; winged deities like the Greek goddesses Iris and Nike; figures of terror like the Furies, witches, and succubi; airborne Christian mystics; and wayward, dangerous women like Lilith and Morgan le Fay. Looking beyond the supernatural, Young examines the modern mythology surrounding twentieth-century female aviators like Amelia Earhart and Hanna Reitsch. Throughout, Young demonstrates that female power has always been inextricably linked with female sexuality and that the desire to control it is a pervasive theme in these stories. This is vividly depicted, for example, in the twelfth-century Niebelungenlied, in which the proud warrior-queen Brünnhilde loses her great physical strength when she is tricked into surrendering her virginity. Even in the twentieth-century the same idea is reflected in the exploits of the comic book and film character Wonder Woman who, Young suggests, retains her physical strength only because her love for fellow aviator Steve Trevor goes unrequited. The first book to systematically chronicle the figure of the flying woman in myth, literature, art, and pop culture, Women Who Fly offers a fresh look at the ways in which women have both influenced and been understood by society and religious traditions throughout the ages and around the world.

Nike of Samothrace is different. Not only did she grow up among the matriarchal warrior tribe of the Amazons, she has a pair of huge, snow-white wings, something seen only on gods and monsters. Already an outcast among her people, Nike finds herself even more alone when a slave uprising claim the lives of her adopted parents. Feeling lost, without an identity and unable to earn the trust of her Amazon sisters, Nike requests permission to travel to Delphi and consult the famous Oracle for guidance. Her queen agrees, but on one condition: Nike must first escort a runaway princess named Syna back to her home in Crete. Desperate for answers, Nike sets off with her unexpected human baggage. When the most direct route to Crete ends in disaster, Nike is forced to take spoiled Syna on a journey through mainland Greece, following a highway the Amazons have named "The Demon Road." Nike must protect the princess-and in doing so, all of Samothrace-before she can reach Delphi and find her truth.

*Includes pictures *Includes ancient descriptions of Nike *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "To Nike (Victory), Fumigation from Manna. O powerful Nike, by men desired, with adverse breasts to dreadful fury fired, thee I invoke, whose might alone can quell contending rage and molestation fell. 'Tis thine in battle to confer the crown, the victor's prize, the mark of sweet renown; for thou rulest all things, Nike divine! And glorious strife, and joyful shouts are thine. Come, mighty goddess, and thy suppliant bless, with sparkling eyes, elated with success; may deeds illustrious thy protection claim, and find, led on by thee, immortal fame." - Orphic Hymn to Nike 33 It seems to be a normal, modern-day practice to reduce all the gods of the ancient pantheons to their most basic abstract concepts: Ares represents war; Demeter, agriculture; Aphrodite, love; and so on. In the process, these characters lose any personality with which they might have been imbued over millennia of stories. A part of most studies of these gods is usually reserved for the undoubtedly valuable etymology of a deity's name, but more often than not, this etymology reveals little more than the fact they had been associated with their abstract concepts since time immemorial. Still, most modern readers understand the ancient Greek deities had "personalities" more complex than the abstract concepts they represented. These "personalities" were elaborated upon to explain relationships between concepts, such as in the case of Ares's and Aphrodite's daughter Harmonia, who always followed in her father's destructive wake, explaining the brutal "cleansing" power of war within ancient Greece's complex political landscape. It is in this same line of thought that abstract characters, such as Harmonia and Nike (Victory), find their place in ancient Greek mythology, especially after the writings of Homer in the 8th century BCE. As renowned historian Walter Burkert put it, "as a result of this Homerization, the Archaic Greek personifications come to assume their distinctive character in that they mediate between the individual gods and the spheres of reality, they receive mythical and personal elements from the gods and in turn give the gods part in the conceptual order of things. The personifications appear first in poetry, move into the visual arts and finally find their way into the realm of cult." In the case of Nike, there is no ambiguity in the meaning of her name. "Nike" is used to refer to the abstract concept of victory in its many forms in the works of Homer, Sophocles, Plato, and Xenophon. Victories in wars and in athletic competitions are invariably Nike's most predominant manifestations in the historical record, and as such, her appearances in myth as a goddess whose actions took place within the society of the pantheon are numerous, though mostly silent. Yet it is how the ancients interacted with this goddess that is most fascinating. The sculpture and the songs, the bas-reliefs and coins, all pay homage to Nike the goddess more intimately than the mere use of her image as a placeholder for "a glorious memory." When viewed in the context of a conversation, the appearance of Nike in the historical and archaeological records give the modern reader a tantalizing view inside the psyche of the ancient Greeks. This is the gift from Nike's that continues to bear fruit. Nike: The Origins and History of the Greek Goddess of Victory looks at the story of the legendary deity and the various roles she played in Greek mythology. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about Nike like never before.