According to the genealogical and mythographic material cited, Erigone is the daughter of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra and thus belongs to the household central to the Agamemnon/Orestes cycle. Sources variously identify her as full‑sister to Aletes (and in one note to Helen) and as half‑sister to Orestes, Electra, Iphigenia, and Chrysothemis. Later mythographic summaries and scholiastic traditions record two main roles in her tradition: (1) an etiological connection in the Etymologicum Magnum (as quoted in Smith/LacusCurtius) that links her to the Athenian festival Aeora by reporting she came to Athens to bring the charge of matricide against Orestes; and (2) accounts in later summaries that Orestes later married Aegisthus's daughter Erigone. Some fragments and later authors conflate or preserve different Erigones (notably Erigone daughter of Icarius), and where those accounts differ the sources mark the identifications as variant or uncertain.
The extant excerpts and summaries used here provide no physical or iconographic description of Erigone (daughter of Aegisthus). Attestations are literary and genealogical rather than visual; no epithets, costume, or sculptural identifications are quoted in the provided materials. Because multiple mythic figures share the name Erigone in Greek tradition, the sources warn that descriptions from other Erigone‑cycles (for example the Icarius/ Maera tradition) should not be conflated with the daughter of Aegisthus unless a source explicitly equates them.
Erigone is not described as possessing supernatural powers in these sources; her role is social and juridical within the mythic narrative. The Etymologicum Magnum (as reported via Smith/LacusCurtius) portrays her as an accuser who 'came to Athens to bring the charge of matricide against Orestes,' situating her as a legal claimant in the post‑Trojan‑War adjudicative cycle. Other later summaries record that Orestes subsequently married Aegisthus's daughter Erigone, placing her in patterns of marriage and succession that resolve or continue household lines after vengeance. Variant traditions and later conflations exist, but the provided material contains no account of supernatural agency, magical abilities, or otherworldly functions for this Erigone.
Weaknesses
- otherNo supernatural vulnerabilities attested (treated as mortal and subject to human fate and legal/social constraints)
Wards
- otherNo apotropaic wards recorded in the provided sources (Erigone is not presented as a harmful spirit)
Orestes
Orestes (Ancient Greek: Ὀρέστης) is a mythic Greek prince and later king, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, whose avenging of his father's murder by killing Aegisthus and Clytemnestra leads to pursuit by the Erinyes and a landmark divine-legal resolution (the trial on the Athenian Acropolis). His narrative explores guilt, divine command, ritual purification, and the transition from private vengeance to civic justice.
Aegisthus
Aegisthus (Greek Αἴγισθος, Aigisthos) is a mortal member of the House of Atreus in Greek myth who, born of incestuous circumstances and raised by shepherds and a goat, participates in dynastic murder and usurpation — notably the slaying of Atreus in some accounts and the conspiracy (with Clytemnestra) that results in Agamemnon's death — and is later killed by Orestes, an episode that figures in narratives about inherited guilt, vengeance, and the transition from private retribution to public justice.
Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra is a mortal queen of Mycenae in Greek epic and tragic drama, best known for her role in the murder of her husband Agamemnon and for precipitating the cycle of familial vengeance that follows. She appears across Homer and the tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides) as a politically capable, scheming royal whose actions raise questions of justice, revenge, and social order.
Electra
Electra (Ancient Greek: Ἠλέκτρα, Ēléktrā) is a Mycenaean princess in Greek myth and drama, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, whose primary role across Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides is as an avenger of her father's murder and a focal figure for questions of filial duty, revenge, and ritual consequence.
*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]Erigone (daughter of Aegisthus) — Wikipedia. Wikipedia entry summarizing genealogical traditions identifying Erigone as daughter of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra and citing later summaries that Orestes married her.wiki
- [2]Erigone — Wikipedia (disambiguation). Wikipedia disambiguation noting multiple figures named Erigone including the daughter of Aegisthus.wiki
- [3]Aeora (Smith's Dictionary) — LacusCurtius. LacusCurtius quote of the Etymologicum Magnum via Smith's Dictionary: reports Aeora was celebrated in honour of Erigone who 'came to Athens to bring the charge of matricide against Orestes.'literary
- [4]Aegisthus — Wikipedia. Wikipedia entry providing context for Aegisthus's household and noting relationships that place Erigone as his daughter.wiki
- [5]Eclectic Light Company — Heroines 8: The Plight of Hermione. Discussion of variant genealogies and later retellings in the Agamemnon/Orestes cycle that reference familial permutations including mentions of Erigone in summaries; used here for notes on variant traditions and conflation.other
- [6]Works of Lucian of Samosata (volume reference). Fragmentary later material cited in research notes that discusses a different Erigone tradition (likely the Icarius Erigone) involving Maera the dog and celestial placements; included to note potential conflation though not ascribing it to the daughter of Aegisthus.literary