According to the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite and Hesiod's account referred to in the sources, Aphrodite united with the mortal Anchises on Mount Ida and bore Aeneas. The Homeric Hymn provides the narrative framing for Aphrodite's liaison and names the child Aineías, giving a mythic etymology connected to the adjective αὶνóν ('terrible') because of the 'terrible grief' his mortality causes the goddess. Later Roman writers develop Aeneas' role as a divinely sanctioned founder-ancestor whose survival links the fallen Troy to the eventual lineage of Rome (ancestor of Romulus and Remus), and sources note uncertainty about the precise etymology of his name.
The supplied sources do not offer a consistent, systematic physical description of Aeneas. They record his parentage (son of Aphrodite and Anchises) and relate episodes in which he bears and assists his father (Anchises is reported in some sources to be struck in the foot by a thunderbolt from Zeus, a condition later accounts associate with his being carried from Troy). Homeric and Virgilian epithets (e.g., heros, magnus, pater) describe social and moral stature rather than bodily features.
In Homeric passages Aeneas is depicted as a warrior and leader—commander of the Dardanian contingent and a principal lieutenant to Hector—who is twice saved from death by the gods (Aphrodite and Apollo in one episode; Poseidon intervenes elsewhere in Homeric tradition). Hyginus, as summarized in the sources, credits him with slaying twenty-eight enemies in the Trojan War. Roman tradition (notably Virgil's Aeneid) reframes his principal capacities as pietas and dutiful agency: he is shown as divinely protected and instrumental in carrying out a providential destiny that culminates in Rome's sacred genealogy.
Weaknesses
- conditionmortal vulnerability despite divine parentage
- conditionfamily dependence (responsibility for aged Anchises)
Wards
None recorded.
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is a major ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and related social and cosmic forces. She is counted among the principal Olympian deities with major cult-centers (Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, Athens), celebrated annually at the Aphrodisia, and syncretized with the Roman Venus.
Anchises
Anchises is a mortal Trojan noble of myth, famed as the father of Aeneas and as a lover of the goddess Aphrodite/Venus; he appears in Greek and Roman epic traditions as a living elder rescued from Troy and later as an advising shade in the Roman underworld vision.
*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.
Abandinus
Abandinus is a locally attested Romano‑Celtic theonym known from a single inscribed bronze feather (votive object) dedicated at Godmanchester (the Roman fort Durovigutum) in Cambridgeshire. Scholars interpret him as a local god or male spirit tied to a specific place and possibly associated with a nearby spring or stream; this association is tentative and based on etymological readings of the name.
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.
Abellio
Abellio is a theonym attested in Roman‑period inscriptions from the Comminges area of the Pyrenees and reported as worshipped in the Garonne Valley of ancient Gallia Aquitania. Surviving evidence is limited to a small number of inscriptions; scholars have variously hypothesized solar or arboreal associations and compared the name to forms of Apollo or to Celtic Belenus, but the deity's precise role in local cosmology remains uncertain.
Abnoba
Abnoba is a Gaulish theonym and toponym attested in Roman-era sources and inscriptions: a localized deity associated with woods, springs and the sources of rivers (notably the Danube) and simultaneously the name applied to a mountain or mountain range in the Black Forest/Baar/Odenwald region. Roman altars equate her with Diana, reflecting syncretic cult practice in frontier provinces.
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.
Aborigines (mythology)
A mytho-historical label used in Roman and general reference sources to denote the oldest inhabitants of a region (specifically central Italy in the cited Roman context). The term functions as an identity/category for original human populations rather than as a characterized supernatural being in the provided sources.
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.
Abundantia
Abundantia is the Roman divine personification of abundance and material plenty, used primarily in imperial propaganda and public iconography to signify secure grain supplies, wealth, and the promise of a 'Golden Age' under the emperor. She also appears in later medieval European folklore as Domina Abundia / Dame Habonde, a household benefactor in accounts condemned by ecclesiastical writers.
Community Record
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- [2]Wikidata entry for Aeneas. Wikidata entry Q20000656 (referenced in source list).other
- [3]The International library of famous literature (selection volume). Archive: The International library of famous literature: selections (catalog entry cited in source notes).other
- [4]Aeneas to Augustus; a beginning Latin reader for college students. Archive reader 'Aeneas to Augustus' (catalog entry cited in source notes).other