Sources present Evander as an Arcadian culture-hero from Pallene who migrated to Italy and founded the settlement called Pallantium on the site later identified with the Palatine Hill. Classical literary tradition (for example, Virgil's Aeneid and the historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus as cited in modern summaries) places his foundation before the Trojan War (a summary dating places it sixty years prior) and treats him as a Greek precursor whose presence legitimates certain Roman institutions. A later or summary tradition records him as a son of Hermes in some accounts (noted in modern references). After his death he was said to have been deified and to have had an altar on the Aventine Hill in Rome.
The supplied sources do not preserve any consistent physical description or iconographic program for Evander. Literary and topographical summaries identify him by name, origin, genealogy, and civic role rather than by appearance; physical or artistic portrayals and specific iconographic attributes are not recorded in the provided material. His material commemorations in the tradition consist of place‑associations (Pallantium/Palatine) and an altar on the Aventine rather than described visual likenesses.
Evander's 'powers' in the tradition are cultural and institutional rather than supernatural feats of combat: summaries credit him with bringing the Greek pantheon, laws, and the alphabet to Italy and with instituting the festival of the Lupercalia in the local stories that link him to Roman practice. He functions as an ancestral founder and civilizer figure whose activity explains place-names and ritual origins. The tradition also records that he was honored after death with heroization or deification and an altar, indicating continued cultic recognition rather than narrative magical abilities.
*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.
Abandinus
Abandinus is a locally attested Romano‑Celtic theonym known from a single inscribed bronze feather (votive object) dedicated at Godmanchester (the Roman fort Durovigutum) in Cambridgeshire. Scholars interpret him as a local god or male spirit tied to a specific place and possibly associated with a nearby spring or stream; this association is tentative and based on etymological readings of the name.
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.
Abellio
Abellio is a theonym attested in Roman‑period inscriptions from the Comminges area of the Pyrenees and reported as worshipped in the Garonne Valley of ancient Gallia Aquitania. Surviving evidence is limited to a small number of inscriptions; scholars have variously hypothesized solar or arboreal associations and compared the name to forms of Apollo or to Celtic Belenus, but the deity's precise role in local cosmology remains uncertain.
Abnoba
Abnoba is a Gaulish theonym and toponym attested in Roman-era sources and inscriptions: a localized deity associated with woods, springs and the sources of rivers (notably the Danube) and simultaneously the name applied to a mountain or mountain range in the Black Forest/Baar/Odenwald region. Roman altars equate her with Diana, reflecting syncretic cult practice in frontier provinces.
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.
Aborigines (mythology)
A mytho-historical label used in Roman and general reference sources to denote the oldest inhabitants of a region (specifically central Italy in the cited Roman context). The term functions as an identity/category for original human populations rather than as a characterized supernatural being in the provided sources.
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.
Abundantia
Abundantia is the Roman divine personification of abundance and material plenty, used primarily in imperial propaganda and public iconography to signify secure grain supplies, wealth, and the promise of a 'Golden Age' under the emperor. She also appears in later medieval European folklore as Domina Abundia / Dame Habonde, a household benefactor in accounts condemned by ecclesiastical writers.
Community Record
- [1]Evander of Pallantium (Wikipedia). "In Roman mythology, Evander was a culture hero from Arcadia, Greece, who was said to have brought the pantheon, laws, and alphabet of Greece to ancient Italy, where he founded the city of Pallantium on the future site of Palatine Hill, Rome, sixty years before the Trojan War."wiki
- [2]Evander (crater) (Wikipedia). "It is named after the mythological Roman hero Evander of Pallene, son of Hermes."wiki
- [3]Pallantium / Palatine Hill summaries. Summaries note that Roman myth (Virgil's Aeneid) states the city was founded by Evander of Pallene prior to the Trojan War and that Dionysius of Halicarnassus also recounts relevant tradition.wiki
- [4]ToposText: Evander entry. ToposText index entry for Evander of Pallene (summary of literary attestations).other
- [5]Palatine Hill (museum / topography pages). Topographical summary linking Pallantium / Palatine Hill to the tradition that Evander founded a city there in accounts cited by classical authors.other