Two distinct mythic personages named Coresus appear in the received tradition. In one strand Coresus is an autochthon credited (with Ephesus son of Cayster) as founder of the sanctuary of the Ephesian Artemis; this tradition is discussed by Pausanias in the context of competing foundation accounts that also invoke Amazons. In a separate narrative (also recorded by Pausanias and summarized in modern references) Coresus is a priest of Dionysus at Calydon who falls in love with Callirhoë; when she rejects him he prays to Dionysus and the god afflicts the city with a lethal, intoxication-like madness. The community consults the oracle at Dodona, which prescribes propitiation by human sacrifice (Callirhoë or a consenting substitute); tasked to perform the rite, Coresus cannot kill Callirhoë and instead kills himself, after which Callirhoë kills herself in remorse.
Ancient sources preserved in the provided material give no physical description of Coresus. Pausanias' summaries record only his social roles (autochthon / priest) and actions. Later artistic receptions (not primary evidence)—notably 18th-century paintings and drawings by Jean-Honoré Fragonard—depict the Calydonian priest in imagined sacerdotal garb at an altar during the moment of self-sacrifice; these are modern visual interpretations rather than ancient descriptive accounts.
As presented in the sources, Coresus possesses no supernatural powers of his own; he is a mortal actor whose petition to Dionysus precipitates a divine effect. In the Calydon episode his behaviors include passionate obsession (love for Callirhoë), invocation of Dionysus leading to a god-sent madness in the populace, and ultimately willingness to fulfil the oracle's demand through self-sacrifice when he cannot bring himself to slay the beloved. The narrative role foregrounds his function as intermediary between human emotion, ritual obligation, and divine retribution rather than as an independent supernatural agent.
Weaknesses
- conditionmortality / human vulnerability
- othercompassion and inability to slay the beloved (psychological limitation described in sources)
Wards
- ritualpropitiation of Dionysus (as prescribed by the oracle at Dodona)
*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]Coresus (Wikipedia). Wikipedia article 'Coresus' summarizing Pausanias on Coresus as founder and the Calydon priestwiki
- [2]Coresus Sacrificing Himself to Save Callirhoe (Wikipedia). Wikipedia page on Fragonard's painting and the Calydon episode, summarizing Pausaniaswiki
- [3]Coresus (Wikidata). Wikidata entry linked to modern summaries of ancient sourceswiki
- [4]Fragonard’s Coresus Sacrificing Himself to Save Callirhoe – Lines and Colors. Art-historical discussion of modern visual receptions; not a primary ancient sourceother
- [5]Fragonard’s drawing for The Sacrifice of Coresus – Lines and Colors. Art-historical commentary on Fragonard's preparatory drawings for the Coresus sceneother