Creon of Corinth appears within the post-Argonautic sequence of Greek heroic tradition as the dynastic king of Corinth encountered by Jason and Medea after their return from Colchis and the events at Iolchus. In the surviving summaries of Diodorus, Hyginus, Ovid and later compendia, Creon functions as the local monarch who offers his daughter (named variously in traditions as Creusa or Glauce) in marriage to Jason, a plot element that triggers Medea's hostile response. The sources treat him as a terrestrial political figure (son of Lycaethus in some summaries) rather than a supernatural originator; traditions vary in naming his daughter and in details of subsequent events, but consistently place him as the Corinthian king whose dynastic decision catalyses the Medea–Jason crisis.
Ancient summaries provide no physical description of Creon of Corinth. The sources characterize him by office and social role—king of Corinth, father, and household head—rather than by corporeal features, dress, or distinctive visage. Surviving accounts therefore present Creon through his political actions (betrothal of his daughter) and familial relations rather than through any recorded bodily attributes.
The texts attribute to Creon ordinary royal and political capacities: he governs Corinth, presides in a royal residence, and can arrange dynastic marriages for his children. The sources do not ascribe any magical, prophetic, or supernatural abilities to him; his narrative ‘power’ is social and institutional rather than occult. In the stories he is able to propose or arrange marriage for his daughter to Jason, an action that functions as the proximate cause of Medea's magical retaliation.
Weaknesses
- conditionvulnerability to extraordinary magic and personal vengeance
- otherpolitical exposure—his dynastic decision triggers retaliation beyond his control
Wards
None recorded.
Jason
Jason (Ancient Greek: Ἰάσων, Iásōn) is a mortal hero of Greek myth, leader of the Argonauts whose quest for the Golden Fleece establishes his place in the heroic age. He is depicted as a prince of Iolcos, son of Aeson, and husband of the sorceress Medea.
Medea
Medea is a mythic Greek woman of royal lineage associated with practiced pharmakeía (drugcraft) and ritual knowledge; in epic she functions as the helper who enables Jason's success, and in tragedy she becomes a transgressive avenger whose actions include murder. Sources present her variably as mortal with divine ancestry (granddaughter of Helios) and as a skilled worker in magical substances and rites often linked in literature to Hecate.
*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]Creon (king of Corinth) — Wikipedia summary. "Creon, son of Lycaethus, was a king of Corinth and father of Hippotes and Creusa or Glauce, whom Jason would marry if not for the intervention of Medea." — Wikipedia summarywiki
- [2]LP0099 - XXV ARGO - The End of the Argo (Diodorus summary). Diodorus summary: Jason and Medea "live happily in Corinth, but Jason sets aside his wife to marry the daughter of Creon, so Medea sneaks into the palace with a magic root that burns the palace to ash."literary
- [3]LP0032 Fables of the Argonauts (Hyginus summary). Hyginus summary: "Creon wants to marry his own daughter to Jason."literary
- [4]LP0036 Medea's Letter to Jason (Ovid summaries/related material). Ovid-related summary materials reporting the Corinthian episode in which Creon's offer of his daughter to Jason precipitates Medea's actions.literary