In the tradition summarized by later compilers, Cecrops II is presented as a scion of the Athenian royal house, variously described as son of Pandion I (possibly by the naiad Zeuxippe) and thus brother of Erechtheus, Butes, Procne, Philomela and Teuthras, while alternative accounts place him in different filial relationships (sources preserve variant genealogies). He succeeds to the throne in the sequence of Athenian kings (traditionally seventh) after dynastic conflicts associated with the preceding generation; ancient and medieval chronicle traditions use his regnal placement as a synchronistic anchor when aligning Greek legendary history with other ancient timelines.
The surviving sources provide no physical description of Cecrops II. He is treated as a human dynastic figure within genealogies and regnal lists rather than as a described individual with distinctive bodily traits or supernatural form.
No supernatural powers or magical abilities are attributed to Cecrops II in the cited materials. Recorded actions are political and dynastic: he is said to have succeeded after the death of Erechtheus (in compendia of Athenian kings), to have been chosen or confirmed by adjudication (an appointment associated in summaries with the judge Xuthus), to have reigned for a specified period (traditions give differing lengths—commonly 40 years in some accounts, 50 years in certain chronicle entries), to have been ousted by Metion and Pandorus, and to have fled to Aegilia/Aegialea where he died. Sources thus present him as a legendary king whose primary role is succession, exile, and placement within chronological schemes.
Weaknesses
- othernone attested in sources
Wards
- othernone attested in sources
Cecrops I
Cecrops I is a legendary autochthonous founder‑king of Attica and the first king of Athens, portrayed as a culture‑hero who instituted marriage, burial rites, civic divisions, and cult practices. He appears in Greek tradition as human above and serpentine or fish‑tailed below, and as the mortal witness/arbitrator in the mythic contest between Athena and Poseidon over patronage of the city.
Erechtheus
Erechtheus is a mythic-heroic foundational figure of ancient Athens whose identity blends an autochthonous, earth-born ancestor-king with a localized cultic name often syncretized with Poseidon; he functions as eponymous progenitor of the Erechtheidai and as the focus of ritual memory on the Acropolis (the Erechtheion).
Theseus
Theseus is a legendary hero of Greek myth credited with clearing dangers from Attic roads, slaying the Minotaur, and performing foundational civic acts for Athens (including synoikismos and establishing cult practice). He is portrayed as of mixed mortal and divine parentage and functions as a culture-hero and exemplar in later authors' moralizing biographies.
*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]Cecrops II — Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 'Cecrops II' (summary of ancient traditions and variant genealogies)wiki
- [2]The Bridal Chamber of Herse (tapestry archive). Archive.org item describing a tapestry set relating to the Cecrops household in Ovid's Metamorphoses (context for the Cecrops name in artistic/literary tradition)literary
- [3]Eusebius' Chronicle and related chronicle materials (attalus.org). Eusebius' Chronicle (Greek Chronicle) as preserved and cited in later chronographic traditions; contains synchronistic regnal entries (e.g., 'Cecrops Diphyes, 50 years')other
- [4]St. Jerome, Chronicle (prefaces and material). St. Jerome's Chronicle material used in medieval synchronisms and chronography referencing legendary Greek regnal listsother
- [5]Cecrops I — Wikipedia. Wikipedia entry for Cecrops I (used to distinguish the earlier, eponymous Cecrops appearing elsewhere in Athenian mythic narratives)wiki