Cymelus is attested as one of the Lapiths who attended the wedding of their king Pirithous to Hippodamia. He is presented in the epic/mythographic tradition as a mortal member of the Lapithae rather than as a divine or monstrous figure. His brief narrative role is preserved in Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book XII) and repeated in later mythographic indexes and summaries: during the celebrated brawl between Lapiths and Centaurs at the wedding-feast, Cymelus is struck and killed by a hunting-spear hurled by the centaur Nessus. No origin involving divine parentage or special birth is provided in the sources cited.
The primary sources give no extended individual description of Cymelus's physical appearance, clothing, or heraldry beyond his role as an armed participant in the wedding fight. He is implied to be a Lapith warrior—an armed mortal combatant at a feast-turned-battle—and the only consistent embodied detail preserved across accounts is the wound: a hunting spear thrown by Nessus that was driven into Cymelus's groin. No other consistent iconographic or physical attributes are recorded in the provided texts.
Sources attribute no supernatural abilities or special skills to Cymelus. He functions as a named mortal combatant in the epic roster of Lapith fighters; by his inclusion he is implicitly a capable warrior in the martial context of the narrative, but nothing in the cited tradition grants him powers beyond ordinary human martial competence. His notable action in the surviving tradition is participation in the Lapith–Centaur conflict; his death by Nessus's spear is the principal behavioral event recorded.
Weaknesses
- conditionordinary human vulnerability to mortal wounds (exemplified by fatal spear wound to the groin)
Wards
None recorded.
Nessus
Nessus is primarily recorded in the supplied sources as a name from Greek myth — most prominently a centaur identified in modern reference works as the figure who caused the death of Heracles — and as a widely reused name in modern literature, gaming, and technical products. The provided materials constitute a disambiguation-style set rather than a single coherent supernatural tradition.
Lapiths
The Lapiths (Greek: Λαπίθαι, Lapithai) are a legendary Thessalian human people in Greek myth, best known for their role in the Centauromachy at the wedding of King Pirithous. Portrayed as skilled horsemen and warriors, they function in myth and art as exemplars of civilized restraint against the bestial behavior of the centaurs.
*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]Cymelus. Wikipedia, entry 'Cymelus'wiki
- [2]Wikidata: Cymelus. Wikidata item Q59210373other
- [3]LAPITHS - Greek Mythology Link. Greek Mythology Link, 'Lapiths' (mythographic index)other
- [4]Metamorphoses XII: The Battle of Centaurs and Lapiths. Translation/summary of Ovid Metamorphoses Book XII (battle passage)literary
- [5]Sandys' Ovid Book XII text. Sandys translation of Ovid, Metamorphoses Book XIIliterary
- [6]Ovid, Metamorphoses Book 12 (poetryintranslation.com). Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 12 (English translation)literary
- [7]NESSUS (Nessos) - Centaur of Greek Mythology. Theoi.com entry for Nessus (context for the centaur who kills Cymelus)other
- [8]Ovid, Metamorphoses 12 - Theoi Classical Texts Library. Theoi Classical Texts Library, Ovid Metamorphoses Book XIIliterary