Autonoe is attested in Greek genealogical tradition as one of the daughters of Cadmus, founder of Thebes, and Harmonia. In that role she appears in the Theban family-cycle as the wife of Aristaeus and mother of Actaeon (with some sources adding Macris as a possible daughter). Separately, the name Autonoe occurs in extant catalogues of the fifty Nereids, where she is listed as a daughter of the sea-god Nereus and the Oceanid Doris. The sources provided do not present an origin narrative that unifies the Theban Autonoe with the Nereid Autonoe; they are best treated as distinct namesakes or variant local traditions.
No ancient sources in the provided material give a descriptive portrait of Autonoe in either the Theban or Nereid context. Ancient attestations record her by genealogical placement and name only; therefore no details of dress, features, or iconography are preserved in the cited sources.
Ancient sources cited here do not attribute individual supernatural powers, specialized domains, or cultic offices to Autonoe beyond her genealogical and narrative roles. As mother and daughter within the Cadmean family she functions narratively (producing Actaeon, relating to other daughters like Semele, Ino, and Agave). As a Nereid-name in lists, Autonoe would belong generically to the class of sea-nymphs, though no specific acts, interventions, or deeds are recorded for her in the provided materials.
Weaknesses
- otherNo weaknesses attested in the provided sources
Wards
- otherNo warding practices specifically directed at Autonoe are recorded in the provided sources
Aristaeus
Aristaeus (Ancient Greek: Ἀρισταῖος) is a mythic culture-hero and minor godlike figure in Greek tradition, honored as the patron and transmitter of rural arts (notably beekeeping, dairying, olive cultivation, and viticulture). He functions as a liminal figure between mortal heroes and divinities, appearing in local cults across the Greek world and in literary narratives that explain the origin and restoration of pastoral practices.
Actaeon
A mortal hunter of Greek myth who, in multiple traditions, is transformed into a stag and torn apart by his own hounds after transgressing the goddess Artemis. He functions as a mythic exemplar about proper deference to divine boundaries and, in some locales, became the focus of cultic rites and memorials.
Cadmus
Cadmus is a legendary Phoenician prince and culture-hero in Greek myth, credited with founding Thebes, slaying a local dragon/guardian, marrying Harmonia, and—by some ancient sources—bringing a Phoenician script to Greece.
*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]Autonoe (daughter of Cadmus) — Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 'Autonoë (daughter of Cadmus)'wiki
- [2]Autonoe (mythology) — Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 'Autonoe (mythology)'wiki
- [3]Apollodorus summary (archive audio) — 'The Daughters of Thebe'. Archive item summarizing Apollodorus; cited for listing Cadmus's daughters including Autonoeliterary
- [4]Archive: github.com-blobject-autonoe. Archived page listing Autonoe among Nereids and giving name glossother
- [5]Name gloss and Nereid listing (compilation). Archived compilation noting that Autonoe is glossed 'think for oneself' and appears among the Nereidsother
- [6]Myth Index — Names A: Autonoe entry. MythIndex entry listing Autonoe among Cadmus's daughters and as a Nereid nameother