Antinous is presented in the Homeric / Ithacan narrative as the son of Eupeithes and a principal member of the group of suitors who occupy Odysseus's household during the hero's long absence after the Trojan War. Within the narrative he rises to a leadership position among the suitors, driving initiatives against Odysseus's family — most notably plotting against Odysseus's son Telemachus and pressuring Penelope to remarry — and thereby functions as a central human antagonist whose actions justify Odysseus's violent retribution when he returns.
The primary sources supplied give no detailed physical description of Antinous's features, dress, or stature. He is characterized through actions and social bearing: over‑confident, violent, and dominant among the suitors. Narrative highlights that he publicly strikes a beggar (Odysseus in disguise) with a chair and presumes authority in the great hall, comporting himself as a leader of the palace occupiers rather than being depicted by specific bodily traits.
Antinous possesses no supernatural powers in the Homeric material; his 'abilities' are social and practical: influence by virtue of noble birth and rank among the suitors, capacity to organize other men (he sends a band to ambush Telemachus), and readiness to use physical violence (assaulting the beggar). His prominence makes him a focal target for Odysseus's retribution, and he is the first suitor killed — struck by an arrow through the throat while drinking in the great hall.
Weaknesses
- conditionvulnerable to gods' will/intervention (e.g., Athena's protection of Telemachus)
- conditionmortal vulnerability to armed retribution (killed by Odysseus)
Wards
- othernone (no ritual wards or charms against Antinous are attested; responses are social or martial and include divine intervention)
*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
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- [2]Wikidata: Antinous son of Eupeithes. Wikidata entry Q579000other
- [3]The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Odyssey, by Homer. Homer, The Odyssey (Project Gutenberg edition)literary
- [4]The Odyssey, Book IV (online text). Homer, Odyssey Book IV (online translation)literary
- [5]The Odyssey, Book XXI (online text). Homer, Odyssey Book XXI (online translation)literary
- [6]The Homecoming of Odysseus | Storynory. Storynory summary 'The Homecoming of Odysseus'other
- [7]Archive: Odyssey (audio/visual editions). Archive recordings/editions of the Odysseyother