Ecbasus is attested in classical Greek genealogical traditions as a son of Argus, the eponymous king of Argos (himself a son of Zeus and Niobe). In Apollodorus he is named the son of Argus and Evadne (daughter of the river-god Strymon) and is listed as brother to Criasus, Epidaurus, and Piras. A scholion on Euripides records a variant maternal attribution, naming the Oceanid Peitho as his mother. In filial lines he is most commonly given as the father of Agenor, who in turn is father of Argus Panoptes in some accounts; an alternate tradition cited from the historian Charax makes Ecbasus father of Arestor, whose son Pelasgus is said to have settled Arcadia (formerly Pelasgia). These variants reflect competing local or literary genealogies rather than a narrative origin tale.
No physical description of Ecbasus survives in the cited sources. He is treated in the extant material not as a vividly portrayed individual but as a named link in genealogical lists and foundation myths. The absence of iconographic or descriptive detail suggests his role in the tradition is primarily onomastic and documentary: a recorded personal name serving to connect better-attested figures and place-eponyms rather than to provide an individualized portrait.
The surviving sources do not attribute any supernatural powers, particular behaviors, or heroic exploits to Ecbasus himself. His functional "ability" within the mythic corpus is genealogical and onomastic: he connects generations and eponyms (Argus, Agenor, Argus Panoptes, Arestor, Pelasgus), thereby helping to explain descent, territorial claims, and local identities in the Argive and adjoining Peloponnesian traditions. Notable capacities or feats mentioned for descendants (for example Argus Panoptes's many eyes) are expressly properties of those descendants and are not ascribed to Ecbasus.
Argus Panoptes
Argus Panoptes is a many‑eyed giant of Greek myth famed for perpetual vigilance in the service of the goddess Hera. Described as an unwearied guardian of sacred charge (notably Io), he is famed for his all‑seeing eyes and eventual death at Hermes' hands.
Pelasgus
Pelasgus (Πελασγός) is a mythic ancestral and eponymous founder figure in ancient Greek tradition credited in various local accounts with founding cities, teaching agriculture, receiving Demeter, and giving his name to the Pelasgians and regions such as Pelasgiotis. He appears across competing regional genealogies (Argive, Arcadian, Thessalian) rather than as a standardized supernatural being.
*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]Apollodorus, The Library (summary attestations). Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (as summarized in modern reference collections): Ecbasus named son of Argus and Evadne; brother of Criasus, Epidaurus, and Piras; father of Agenor.literary
- [2]Scholion on Euripides (variant maternal attribution). Scholion on Euripides (as cited in modern summaries): gives Peitho the Oceanid as Ecbasus's mother (variant tradition).literary
- [3]Charax (as cited in secondary summaries). Charax (historian), cited in summaries: reports an alternate descent in which Ecbasus fathers Arestor, whose son Pelasgus settled Arcadia (Pelagia/Pelasgia).other
- [4]Reference summaries and compilations. Modern summaries and reference works (Wikipedia, Pantheon, ToposText, myths.uvic.ca) that collate the variant genealogical attestations for Ecbasus.wiki
- [5]Hera – Mythoi Koinoi (on Argus Panoptes). Discussion of Argus Panoptes (noting his many-eyed description) used here to contextualize descendants linked to Ecbasus; the eyes and guard of Io are properties of Argus Panoptes and not Ecbasus.literary