Ancient chronographers and mythographers record Aegialeus in multiple, sometimes conflicting traditions. In Sicyonian king-lists (as cited by Castor and preserved in later chronographies such as Eusebius' Chronicle) he is presented as the first king of Sicyon whose name gave rise to the older toponym Aegialeia (the Peloponnese was said to be called Aegialea after him) and whose reign is given a multi-decade length (e.g., 52 years). In the Argive tradition, attested in genealogical accounts of the Theban cycle and the Epigoni, Aegialeus appears as the elder son of Adrastus and is recorded as the only Argive hero who fell in that war. Later compilers and local historians (Pausanias, Apollodorus in related cycles; Castor and Eusebius in chronography) integrate these versions into king-lists and heroic genealogies, using Aegialeus as an etiological figure tying personal name to landscape and civic origin.
Ancient sources supply no sustained physical or iconographic description of Aegialeus. He is known through genealogies, king-lists and narrative notices (chronographers such as Castor and Eusebius; mythographers and local historians reflected in Apollodorus and Pausanias), which record his social role (king, eponym, son of Adrastus) and his fate (death among the Epigoni) rather than bodily features or costume.
Sources present Aegialeus as a mortal king and heroic-age prince; his distinguishing attributes are social and narrative: founder and eponym in Sicyon, and elder son of Adrastus who fought and fell in the Theban wars as one of the Epigoni. No supernatural powers, magic, or otherworldly capacities are attested in the provided materials — he functions as a legendary mortal whose life and death organize local histories and place-names.
Adrastus
Adrastus (Ancient Greek: Ἄδραστος or Ἄδρηστος) is a legendary king of Argos in the Greek mythic-historical tradition, best known as the leader of the expedition of the Seven against Thebes and as a figure tied to oracular counsel, dynastic marriages, and local hero cults.
Epigoni
A mythic generation in Greek tradition comprising the sons (progeny) of the Argive heroes who fought in the first war against Thebes; they mount a second expedition against Thebes ten years after their fathers and function in the Theban epic cycle as heirs who avenge and continue their fathers' deeds.
*Péh₂usōn (reconstructed)
Péh₂usōn is a hypothetical Proto‑Indo‑European pastoral guardian reconstructed by comparative scholars from parallels in Greek and Vedic traditions. Proposed as a Graeco‑Aryan ancestor‑figure, the reconstruction describes a protector of flocks, roads, and travellers rather than an attested historical cultic personality.
Aba (disambiguation / name-form)
Aba is a polyvalent name-form attested across many unrelated contexts (place names, personal names, animal names, and brief mythological listings). The provided sources do not support a single, coherent supernatural entity called "Aba" and offer no descriptive or ritual material for such a being.
Abarbarea
Abarbarea is a name attested in classical Greek and Roman sources for freshwater nymphs (naiads). The name appears for at least two individual mythic figures — a naiad wife of Bucolion and a naiad counted among ancestors of the Tyrians — and Hesychius records plural forms that may indicate the name was also used as a class-name (Abarbareai / Abarbalaiai).
Abas
Abas (Ancient Greek: Ἄβας, gen.: Ἄβαντος) is not a single mythic being but a recurring personal name borne by multiple mortals and minor mythic figures in Greek epic and genealogical traditions — kings, founders, seers, warriors, attendants, a centaur, and a youth transformed by a goddess. The name is glossed in the sources as 'guileless' or 'good-hearted' and appears across Argive, Theban, Trojan, Euboean, and other local cycles.
Abderus
Abderus (Ancient Greek: Ἄβδηρος, romanized Ábdēros) is a mortal heroic figure in Greek myth closely associated with Heracles, remembered as the youth left in charge of the Mares of Diomedes who was killed by them. He functions as an eponymous local/divine-hero ancestor for the city of Abdera and received funerary commemoration and athletic agones at his tomb.
Abomination of Desolation
An apocalyptic prophetic phrase originating in the Book of Daniel designating a profaning thing or act that renders the Jerusalem Temple cult desolate; later reused in the Synoptic Gospels as an eschatological sign prompting urgent flight. The term denotes ritual/cultic impurity (Hebrew shiqquts) and is variously interpreted as pagan offerings or altar, a foreign cult statue, or (in some New Testament readings) an acting agent.
Absyrtus
Absyrtus (Ancient Greek: Ἄψυρτος) is a Colchian prince in the Greek Argonautic cycle, son of King Aeëtes and brother or half-brother of Medea. He appears in variant traditions either as a companion taken by Medea during her flight with Jason and murdered/dismembered to delay pursuit, or as a pursuer sent by Aeëtes who is overtaken and slain by Jason; his death functions as a key narrative device in the escape from Colchis.
Acacallis
Acacallis (Ancient Greek: Ἀκακαλλίς; also Acalle) is a mythological princess of Crete in Greek tradition, daughter of King Minos and Pasiphae. She functions primarily as a dynastic and etiological figure: in varying accounts she is mother, by gods such as Hermes (Mercury) or Apollo, of eponymous or founder-figures like Cydon (founder of Cydonia), Miletus, or Lydon/ Lydus.
Acacus
Acacus (Ancient Greek: Ἄκακος) is, in Arcadian Greek tradition, a mortal eponymous founder-king of Acacesium and is remembered as the foster-father who reared the infant Hermes (Mercury) in that local tradition. He is presented in genealogies as a son of Lycaon and functions as a local ancestral/onomastic figure rather than a supernatural spirit.
Academus
Academus (Greek: Akádemos / Hekádemos) is an Attic hero-eponym tied to a sacred grove (Akademeia) on the Cephissus near Athens. In myth he revealed where Helen was hidden to the Dioskouroi, an act said to have saved the city, and the place bearing his name became a long-lived sacred precinct, later the site of Plato's Academy.
Acamas
Acamas (Ancient Greek: Ἀκάμας) is a personal name recurrent in ancient Greek narrative traditions applied to multiple human characters (warriors, princes, suitors), once to a Cyclops, and once as a hound's name. Rather than a single supernatural entity, bearers of the name appear episodically across the Trojan War, Theseid, and Theban cycles as mortal actors whose deeds intersect with gods and fate.
Acantha
Acantha (Ancient Greek: Ἀκάνθα, 'thorn') is a late or secondary mythological figure known from modern retellings as a nymph transformed into the acanthus plant. The tale that she scratched Apollo and was changed into a spiny-leaved plant is not attested in surviving classical corpora and appears to be a modern compilation or invention rather than a firmly documented ancient myth.
Community Record
- [1]Aegialeus (Wikipedia). Wikipedia contributors, 'Aegialeus,' Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.wiki
- [2]Aegialeus (king of Argos) (Wikipedia). Wikipedia contributors, 'Aegialeus (king of Argos),' Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.wiki
- [3]Aegialeus (King of Sicyon) (Wikipedia). Wikipedia contributors, 'Aegialeus (King of Sicyon),' Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.wiki
- [4]Eusebius, Chronicle (Castor cited). Eusebius, Chronicle (Castor's Sicyon king-list preserved in chronographic tradition).literary
- [5]Thebes: Mythical History (archive LP0061). Archive collection on Theban mythic traditions (context for Epigoni and Argive material).other
- [6]Apollodorus / Argonautica-related material (archive LP0077). Archive item including material from Apollodorus and introductions to related cycles (used for genealogical context).other
- [7]Pausanias, Description of Greece (Protidian Gate material) (archive LP0067). Pausanias-related archive material providing local-historical and topographical context.other
- [8]Eusebius' Chronicle, Book 1 (translation, Bedrosian). Eusebius, Chronicle, Book 1 (translated; contains chronographic synchronisms and king-lists referencing figures such as Aegialeus).literary
- [9]Greek Mythology Names Index A – MYTH INDEX. MythIndex: index entry noting multiple bearers of the name Aegialeus in Greek tradition.other