Aletes appears in the narrative world of Virgil's Aeneid as one of the seasoned members of Aeneas's company of Trojan survivors. He is listed among named companions on the ships in Book I during the storm scenes that scatter the fleet and reappears in Book IX in the context of the siege of the Trojan camp and the night-raid of Nisus and Euryalus. The sources present him as an elder veteran and counselor within the social group of Trojans, rather than as a divine or chthonic figure (Virgil, Aeneid I; Aeneid IX; see commentary and translations cited).
Virgil describes Aletes primarily through his age, using the epithet grandaevus to mark him as very old; no extensive physical portrait is given in the cited passages. In martial contexts (Book IX) he is associated with the accoutrements of a Trojan warrior—appearing in passages where he exchanges or bears a helmet—while in Book I he is named among the men aboard the ships struck by the storm. The evidence in the sources thus frames him as an elderly, veteran warrior-attired companion rather than providing detailed physical features.
The Aeneid attributes no supernatural powers to Aletes. His role is social and moral: he functions as an elder counselor and faithful companion within Aeneas's band. Passages and commentaries note him commending the courage of Nisus and Euryalus and participating in camp life and the distribution/exchange of martial gear. His 'abilities' are therefore those of veteran authority, counsel, and presence among the Trojans rather than feats of the supernatural (Aeneid IX; commentary and translations).
Weaknesses
- conditionadvanced age/human frailty
Wards
None recorded.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Acerbas
Acerbas (also recorded as Sychaeus, Sycharbas, Zacherbas) is a figure in classical Greco‑Roman accounts of Phoenician/Tyrian tradition: a wealthy priest of Melqart (the Tyrian Hercules) whose concealed riches and murder by King Pygmalion precipitate Elissa/Dido's flight from Tyre and the foundation of Carthage. He is presented as a human priestly figure of high social rank rather than as a supernatural being.
Acestes
Acestes is a Roman/Greek founder-hero associated with the Sicilian city Segesta (Aegesta/Acesta). Presented as son of a Trojan woman and, in one tradition, the Sicilian river-god Crinisus (in animal form), he hospitably receives Aeneas and the Trojans, participates in the funeral games in Virgil's Aeneid (Book V), and functions as an eponymous culture-founder and local ruler.
Achaemenides
Achaemenides is a literary mortal figure introduced into Virgil's Aeneid as a marooned member of Odysseus' crew whom Aeneas rescues on Sicily. In Roman epic he functions as a chance survivor and eyewitness who helps link the Homeric tradition to the Trojan refugees and to illustrate Aeneas' magnanimity.
Community Record
- [1]Aletes (Aeneid character) - Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 'Aletes (Aeneid character)'wiki
- [2]Aeneid, Book I (lines ~1-156) — The Classics Pages. Virgil, Aeneid, Book I (translation), lines including ship-list where Aletes is namedliterary
- [3]Vergil, Aeneid I 102-123 | Dickinson College Commentaries. Dickinson College Commentaries, notes on Aeneid I lines 102-123 (ship-list including Aletes)academic
- [4]Virgil, The Aeneid, Book Ninth (Mackail translation). Virgil, Aeneid, Book IX (Mackail translation) — passages referencing Aletes in the Trojan camp and exchange of helmet/commendation of Nisus and Euryalusliterary
- [5]Aeneid translation notes, Book I, Lines 102-156 | Vaguely Borgesian. Translation notes and commentary on Aeneid I ship-list including Aletesother