Natalie Haynes is the nations muse Adam Rutherford The Greek myths are one of the most important cultural foundation-stones of the modern world. Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy from Homer to Virgil to from Aeschylus to Sophocles and Euripides. And still today a wealth of novels plays and films draw their inspiration from stories first told almost three thousand years ago. But modern tellers of Greek myth have usually been men and have routinely shown little interest in telling womens stories. Now in Pandoras Jar Natalie Haynes - broadcaster writer and passionate classicist - redresses this imbalance. Taking Greek creation myths as her starting point and then retelling the four great mythic sagas: the Trojan War the Royal House of Thebes Jason and the Argonauts Heracles she puts the female characters on equal footing with their menfolk. The result is a vivid and powerful account of the deeds - and misdeeds - of Hera Aphrodite Athene and Circe. And away from the goddesses of Mount Olympus it is Helen Clytemnestra Jocasta Antigone and Medea who sing from these pages not Paris Agamemnon Orestes or Jason.