Anticlea is presented in the Homeric genealogical framework as daughter of Autolycus and Amphithea, wife of Laërtes, and mother of Odysseus (though some later accounts give Sisyphus as Odysseus’ father in alternate genealogies). Her primary mythic appearance is posthumous: she is encountered as a shade when Odysseus journeys to the realm of the dead in the Odyssey (Book XI). Later and variant traditions recorded by subsequent authors and summaries attribute differing causes for her death — chiefly grief and longing for her son, and in some accounts suicide after hearing a false report from Nauplius — but these are variants on the Homeric core rather than separate origin narratives.
As a living figure she is named as queen of Ithaca, wife of Laërtes, and mother of Odysseus and Ctimene; classical summaries give no detailed physical portrait. In the Odyssey (Book XI) she appears as an incorporeal shade: Odysseus attempts to embrace her three times but his arms pass through her, and she explains that this intangibility is the condition of all ghosts.
Anticlea does not possess independent supernatural powers in the sources beyond those typical of Homeric shades: when Odysseus performs the necessary ritualized katabasis she is able to converse with him and report news of the household and the cause of her own death. She cannot be physically touched by the living (Odysseus’ embraces fail) and the provided sources do not attribute agency to her to affect the living outside spoken communication during the ritual encounter.
Weaknesses
- conditionincorporeality — cannot be physically embraced or affected by touch
- conditionappearance contingent on ritual/katabasis — she is encountered only when the living perform the prescribed journey and rites
- otherno independent agency to harm the living recorded in sources — treated as an informant rather than an afflicting spirit
Wards
None recorded.
*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]Anticlea — Wikipedia. Wikipedia entry summarizing classical and later accounts; cites Odyssey Book XI and later variantswiki
- [2]Anticlea — Wikidata. Wikidata item for Anticlea (identifier and linked data)other
- [3]The Odyssey - 1997 - Part 2 of 2 (archive synopsis). Archive synopsis of the 1997 television miniseries depicting Odysseus' sacrifice and meeting with Anticlea (modern dramatization)other
- [4]Odysseus, mora oa Laertes. (archive). Archived material referencing Odysseus and Laërtes (contextual/archival)other
- [5]Anticlea elegans — Wikipedia (modern taxonomic reuse). Modern botanical taxa using the name Anticlea; cited to note later homonymic uses of the mythic namewiki
- [6]Green Deathcamas, ANTICLEA {Zigadenus} VIRESCENS. Popular botanical page discussing species named Anticlea (modern usage of the mythic name)other
- [7]Southwest Colorado Wildflowers — Anticlea & Toxicoscordion. Regional wildflower resource referencing botanical name Anticleaother
- [8]Insects of Britain and Ireland — Anticlea Stephens. Entomological reference to moth genus Anticlea (modern reuse of the mythic name)other