Helm of Darkness- Greek ArtifactArtifact"The Helm of Invisibility"

Gift of the Cyclopes

During the Titanomachy, the Cyclopes forged three great weapons for the sons of Kronos: Zeus received his thunderbolts, Poseidon his trident, and Hades the Helm of Darkness. The Cyclopes had been imprisoned in Tartarus by Kronos and freed by Zeus and his brothers, and they crafted these weapons in gratitude. The helm rendered its wearer invisible not only to mortals but to other gods. In the war against the Titans, Hades wore it to slip past enemy lines unseen and strike where none expected.

Perseus and the Gorgons

When Perseus set out to slay Medusa, Athena arranged for him to obtain the helm from the nymphs, along with winged sandals and the kibisis, a bag that could safely contain the Gorgon's head. Wearing the helm, Perseus crept among the sleeping Gorgons invisible. He cut off Medusa's head with the harpe, and from her severed neck sprang Pegasus and the warrior Chrysaor. Before her immortal sisters Stheno and Euryale could wake and see their sister's killer, Perseus was gone — invisible, airborne on the winged sandals. After his quest, he returned the helm to its divine owner.

Athena Against Ares

In the Iliad, Athena herself donned the Helm of Darkness so that Ares could not see her as she guided Diomedes's spear into the war god's flank on the battlefield at Troy. The helm's power worked even among the Olympians — Ares, wounded by a mortal's hand with a goddess's invisible aid, did not know who had helped strike him until too late. He roared with the voice of nine or ten thousand warriors and fled to Olympus to show Zeus the wound. Zeus had no sympathy — he called Ares the most hateful of all the gods on Olympus, a lover of nothing but strife and battle, and sent him away to be healed by the physician Paeeon.