Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998) was a Polish poet, essayist, playwright and one of the greatest, most famous and most translated Polish twentieth century authors. He was one of the main Polish opposition to communism poets. The experience of the war left an everlasting mark on his poetry. This thesis explores the mythical motives of Herbert’s poetry, as well as the ways in which the mentioned motives fulfill the different roles in the poet’s tradition. The aim of the thesis is to demonstrate how Herbert constructs the myth, to track how the myth changes throughout his poetry and to point out the contemporary context of the myths and events. The image of the ancient and Roman myth is one of the most relevant aspects of the vision of the world presented in Herbert’s work. The thesis also analyses some of the Herbert’s poems that bear a strong resemblance to the works, events and people we can find on the pages of the books on Roman and ancient history. Herbert is a poet who expressed the topics of rebellion and resistance in one of its cleanest forms and, at the same time, introduced the Greek and Roman classics into his revolt.