What is a hero? What key qualities make someone a hero? There are many examples of heroes from ancient Greece. Classic examples of heroes include Heracles and Perseus, which little kids and even adults may know from watching Disney movies. Heroes have common criteria that label them as heroes, but also some unique features. The focus of this essay is Atalanta, the great virgin huntress. In Greek mythology, heroes have four important characteristics that qualify them as a hero. A hero is someone who is born in an unusual/unnatural fashion, often with a divine connection, seeks adventure and embarks on quests upon reaching adulthood, demonstrates great powers in confrontations against a combination of other heroes, monsters or divine powers, and remains mortal, but is considered to be divine as well. …show more content…
Atalanta’s birth and childhood was quite unusual. According to legend, “Atalanta's father, whoever he was, for there is no agreement about that matter, desired a son, and being disappointed when Atalanta was born, he exposed her to die somewhere in Arcadia” (www.maicar.com). Atalanta’s early history is fairly unknown. Most sources state that Atalanta’s parents were never discovered; however some sites and books credit Iasus as being the father, and Clymene as the mother. Atalanta’s father was furious with his failure to not get a male child, which led him to expose Atalanta on a mountain side. Atalanta was first saved by a she-bear, and then later on, as Atalanta grew older, was rescued by hunters, which led to her divine connection with hunting and