Greek mythology in popular culture
Elements of Greek mythology appear many times in culture, including pop culture. The Greek myths spread beyond the Hellenistic world when adopted (for example) into the culture of ancient Rome, and Western cultural movements have frequently incorporated them ever since, particularly since the Renaissance. Mythological elements feature in Renaissance art and in English poems, as well as in film and in other literature, and in songs and commercials. Along with the Bible and the classics-saturated works of Shakespeare, the myths of Greece and Rome have been the major "touchstone" in Western culture for the  past 500 years. Elements appropriated or incorporated include the gods of varying stature, humans, demigods, titans, giants, monsters, nymphs, and famed locations. Their use can range from a brief allusion to the use of an actual Greek character as a character in a work. Many types of creatures—such as centaurs and nymphs—are used as a generic type rather than individuated characters out of myth. Use by governments and public institutions. Roman conquerors of the Hellenic East allowed the incorporation of existing Greek mythological figures such as Zeus into their coinage in places like Phrygia, in order to "augment  the fame" of the locality, while "creating a stronger civil identity" without "advertising" the imposition of Roman culture. In the 21st century CE, the initial Greek 2-Euro coin featured the myth of Zeus and Europa, and sought to connect the new Europe to the ancient culture of Greece. the European Central Bank had plans to incorporate Greek mythological figures into the designs used on its bank notes. In 1795 the American colonial revolutionary Thomas Greenleaf titled his New York newspaper "The Argus" after the mythological watchman; Greenleaf adopted the slogan "We Guard the Rights of Man". The figure of  Pegasus appears frequently on stamps, particularly on those used for air mail. In 1906, Greece issued a series of stamps featuring stories from the life of Hercules. Australia commemorated the laying of an underwater cable linking the Australian mainland to the island of Tasmania with a stamp featuring an image of Amphitrite. The United States military has drawn on Greek mythology to name equipment such as the Nike missile project. The United States Navy has commissioned over a dozen ships named from Greek mythology. The ships include: Greek mythology has provided names for a number of ships in the British  navy. Such ships include: The Royal Australian Navy continued this tradition; it also has a training facility in Victoria called HMAS Cerebus. The Royal New Zealand Navy inherited Greek mythological names from the Royal Navy: it operated HMNZS "Achilles" and maintains the base HMNZS "Philomel". The Canadair CP-107 Argus of the Royal Canadian Air Force is named in honor both of the hundred-eyed Argus Panoptes (the "all seeing") and of Odysseus' dog Argus - the only one to identify Odysseus upon his return home. Governments and institutions worldwide make use of mythological abstractions such as Dike/Iustitia (Justice) in grand  public buildings. Museums, libraries and art galleries may feature sculptures and images referencing classical Muses. In science and technology. The elements tantalum and niobium are always found together in nature, and have been named after the King Tantalus and his daughter Niobe. The element promethium also draws its name from Greek mythology, as does titanium, which was named after the titans who in mythology were locked away far underground, which reflected the difficulty of extracting titanium from ore. Oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau named his research ship, a former British Royal Navy minesweeper, RV "Calypso" after the sea nymph Calypso. The  ship later inspired the John Denver song "Calypso". The Trojan Horse, a seemingly benign gift that allowed entrance by a malicious force, gave its name to the computer hacking methodology called Trojans. Biology and medicine. The medical profession is symbolized by the snake-entwined staff of the god of medicine, Asclepius. Today's medical professionals hold a similarly honored position as did the healer-priests of Asclepius. The Gaia hypothesis proposes that organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a self-regulating, complex system that contributes to maintaining the conditions for life on the planet. The hypothesis  was formulated by the scientist James Lovelock and co-developed by the microbiologist Lynn Margulis and was named after Gaia, the mother of the Greek gods. Astronomy and astrology. Many celestial bodies have been named after elements of Greek mythology. Social science. In psychoanalytic theory, the term "Oedipus complex", coined by Sigmund Freud, denotes the emotions and ideas that the mind keeps in the unconscious, via dynamic repression, that concentrate upon a child's desire to sexually possess his/her mother, and kill his/her father. In his later writings Freud postulated an equivalent Oedipus situation for infant girls, the  sexual fixation being on the father. Though not advocated by Freud himself, the term 'Electra complex' is sometimes used in this context. A "Medea complex" is sometimes used to describe parents who murder or otherwise harm their children. In painting and sculpture. Particularly starting in the Renaissance, artists across Europe produced thousands of works of art depicting the Greek deities and their myths, for reasons ranging from the erudite to the political to the erotic. In particular, in certain periods it was permissible to depict pagan deities nude when it would have been scandalous to so depict a human model  or character. Romans would frequently keep statuary of the Greek god Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and pleasure, in their homes to use as a method of sanctioning relaxation without "any intellectual demands." Medusa's likeness has been featured by numerous artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Peter Paul Rubens, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin and Benvenuto Cellini. In literature. Some stories in the Arabian Nights, such as the story of Sinbad blinding a giant, are thought to have been inspired by Greek myths. In 1816, Percy Shelley had been working on a translation of Aeschylus' "Prometheus Bound" for Lord Byron . That summer, Shelley and his lover, Mary Godwin, as well as others, stayed with Lord Byron in Switzerland. As a contest, Byron suggested that they each write a ghost story. Mary, who would eventually adopt the name Mary Shelley, began writing her Gothic novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus", which was declared the winner of the contest. The fact that she overtly subtitled the novel emphasizes Shelley's inspiration from the story of Prometheus, drawing particular attention to the "metaphorical parallels." In Irish literature, writers such as Seamus Heaney have used the Greek myths to "intertextualize" the actions of the  British Government. Andrew Lang rewrote the tale of Perseus as the anonymous "The Terrible Head" in "The Blue Fairy Book". In C. S. Lewis's retelling of Cupid and Psyche, "Till We Have Faces", the narrator is Psyche's sister. Roberta Gellis's "Shimmering Splendor" is a retelling of Cupid and Psyche. In poetry. The Italian poet Dante Alighieri used characters from the legend of Troy in his "Divine Comedy", placing the Greek heroes in hell to show his contempt for their actions. Poets of the Renaissance began to widely write about Greek mythology, and "elicited as much praise for  borrowing or reworking" such material as they did for truly original work. The poet John Milton used figures from classical mythology to "further Christianity: to teach a Christian moral or illustrate a Christian virtue." Euphrosyne, Hymen and Hebe appear in his "L'Allegro". Works of Alexander Pope, such as "The Rape of the Lock", parody classical works, even as the income from his translations of Homer allowed him to become "the first English writer to earn a living solely through his literature." In "Ode to a Nightingale," John Keats rejects "charioted by Bacchus and his pards." In his poem "Endymion", the  song of the Indian Maid recounts how "Bacchus and his crew" interrupted the maid in her solitude. He titled an 1898 narrative poem "Lamia". Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Oenone" is her lament that Paris deserted her for Helen. When poets of the German Romantic tradition, such as Friedrich Schiller, wrote about the Greek gods, their works were frequently "erotically charged," as they were "openly sensual and hedonistic." In "The Waste Land", T. S. Eliot incorporates a range of elements and inspirations from Greek mythology to pop music to Elizabethan history to create a ""tour-de-force" exposition of Western culture , from the elite to the folk to the utterly primitive." The work of Indian poet Henry Louis Vivian Derozio was heavily influenced by Greek mythology. Nina Kosman published a book of poems inspired by Greek myths created by poets of the twentieth century from around the world which she intended to show not only the "durability" of the stories but how they are interpreted by "modern sensibility." Rejection of use. During the Middle Ages, writers disdained the use of "pagan" influences such as Greek mythology which were seen to be a "slight to Christianity." From a current cultural perspective, the  Greek Orthodox metropolitan Agustinos Kantiotis has denounced the use of Greek mythology such as the use of Hermes on a postage stamp and the incorporation of images from Greek mythology into universities' logos and buildings. Within the cultures of Latin America, beginning in the 19th Century, the inspiration for culture has been dominated by elements from the Native American cultural myths, rather than those of the Greco-Roman inspiration. Greek women poets of the modern era; such as Maria Polydouri, Pavlina Pamboudi, Myrtiotissa, Melissanthi and Rita Boumi-Pappa; rarely use mythological references, which Christopher Robinson attributes to the "problem of  gender roles, both inside and outside the myths." Martin Winter says that the idea that many commentaries about the widespread use of Greek myths throughout Western culture does not take into account the vast difference between what a modern viewer takes from the story and what it would have meant to an ancient Greek.