How many oracles were there and where were they located... How many
greek heros were there?

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Clarification of Question by mgrowsom1-ga on 19 Jan 2004 17:54 PST

Really looking for the most famous oracles (maybe 6 most notable if
that is possible) as for the Heros, it would be only the sons of a
deity.

These two questions are too broad to be answered.

There were several major oracles -- Delphi, Dodona, Ammon, Praeneste
are a few -- and many minor oracular sites.

The number of Heroes in Greek and Roman mythology/legend are also too
numerous to list, and the definition of Hero affects the count. Is it
only the son of a deity and a mortal? Achilles was a Hero, a son of a
deity and a mortal, but his son is also sometimes numbered among the
heroes. Then there are local heroes, not widely accepted. And does one
count such figures as Gilgamesh?

hlabadie-ga

As for heroes from deities, I can only recall Hercules, Achilles, and Perseus.

I should think that being a hero is nothing to do with the parents
being deities; if we take our most notable source on heroes - that is
to say Homer - we can see that a hero is someone who strives for glory
on the battle field, to win Kudos and Kleos (forms of honour).  If you
are talking about heroes your best bet would be to go to the Iliad and
look at them, but the most important heroes are going to be Achilles,
who doubts the heroic code, Hector, Paris, Agamemnon, Patrocles and so
on, also the heroes of other epics such as Jason.

However what about when there is no war to make heroes? first of all
there are the olympic games in which men win glory, for they are a
substitute for war.  However, we get also characters such as Odysseus,
who is heroic through his cunning and wiles ([polu]metis in Greek), we
can see that he is a hero through the way that he is set aside from
the rest of his companions throughout the epic tale.

Hope this is informative

Classics Geek