Sources present variant genealogies and local legend around Cercyon. In some accounts he is a king of Eleusis; other traditions depict him as a powerful robber who preyed on travelers. Family-material in the tradition connects him to the episode of his daughter Alope, who bore a child (identified in some sources as Hippothoon) after an affair with Poseidon; the exposed child was reared and later associated with Eleusinian lineage. Classical authors and later summaries record these variants without a single harmonized origin.
Classical sources emphasize Cercyon's exceptional physical strength and cruelty rather than detailed physiognomy. He is repeatedly described as a very strong, formidable man noted for his prowess at wrestling and for violent behavior toward challengers and, in some accounts, cruel treatment of his daughter Alope. No sustained fine-detail description (clothing, height, coloration) is preserved in the cited material.
Cercyon's capacities are presented as exceptional mortal strength and mastery of brutal wrestling techniques; he habitually stood on the roads near Eleusis and challenged passers-by, killing those he could defeat. Some traditions frame him as a robber who attacked travelers. There is no indication in the cited sources of supernatural powers; his menace is primarily physical violence and the social danger of lawless coercion.
Weaknesses
- conditionmortal vulnerability to superior technique
- otherdefeat by superior wrestling skill (Theseus lifted and dashed him to the ground)
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]Cercyon of Eleusis — Wikipedia. Wikipedia entry 'Cercyon of Eleusis' (summarizes classical accounts regarding Cercyon's cruelty, wrestling challenges, Alope episode, and defeat by Theseus).wiki
- [2]Wikidata: Cercyon of Eleusis. Wikidata item Q1349772 (identifier and summary metadata for Cercyon of Eleusis).other
- [3]LP0008 Theseus (Archive.org). Archive LP0008 (summary and translations of classical passages—Diodorus and related accounts—reporting that Cercyon wrestled travelers and killed those he defeated).literary
- [4]LP0009 Labors of Theseus (Archive.org). Archive LP0009 (collections discussing Theseus' labors including encounter with Cercyon near Eleusis and the wrestling-school reference).literary
- [5]LP0014 Medea and Aegeus (Archive.org). Archive LP0014 (additional classical-material context cited in compilations on Theseus cycle and local genealogical variants such as the Alope/Hippothoon story).literary