In the principal mythic account, Apollo and Poseidon punished King Laomedon of Troy for refusing wages promised for building Troy's walls by sending a plague and a sea‑monster; oracles declared that Troy could be saved only if Laomedon exposed his daughter Hesione to be devoured (in some versions the lot fell on her). She was fastened naked to the rocks by the sea to await the monster. Heracles (with Telamon and Oicles) arrived and promised to slay the beast in return for Laomedon's magnificent horses; Heracles killed the creature but Laomedon later refused payment, prompting Heracles' later sack of Troy. Variants in the tradition record differing secondary details (for example, variant accounts of which sons of Laomedon survived, differing genealogical attributions for children named in later traditions, and variant narrative emphases), but the core episode of exposure, rescue by Heracles, ransom of her brother, and later diplomatic attempted recovery is consistent in the sources provided.
The sources give no sustained physical description beyond the narrative circumstance that Hesione was exposed and fastened naked to the rocks near the sea as a sacrificial victim. Later tradition records her as subsequently marrying Telamon and bearing children in some accounts (sources record variants such as Teucros or alternative offspring in differing tellings), and that many years later she was an old woman when Priam sought her return; these later markers show the progression of her life but do not supply detailed contemporaneous appearance descriptors.
Hesione is a mortal human and is not attributed supernatural powers in the provided sources. Her recorded behaviors and narrative roles include: being the sacrificial/hostage figure whose exposure fulfills an oracular prescription; being rescued by Heracles and given in marriage to Telamon; ransoming her brother Podarces by surrendering her veil (after which he becomes known as Priam); and later functioning as a diplomatic object whose attempted recovery from Greece is narrated as a factor in the sequence that leads to Paris's abduction of Helen. No independent magical or superhuman agency is ascribed to her in the documents supplied.
Weaknesses
- conditionmortal vulnerability
Wards
None recorded.
*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]Hesione — Wikipedia. Wikipedia: Hesionewiki
- [2]Hésione (opera) — Wikipedia. Wikipedia: Hésione (opera)wiki
- [3]Hesione (Campra) — Archive (libretto). Hésione, libretto and opera by André Campra (archive entry)literary
- [4]Hero tales told in school (contains tale variants). Hero tales told in school (archive collection referencing myths)literary
- [5]Laomedon (Hercules foe) — marvunapp. Laomedon (narrative summary and variants)other
- [6]Monster of Poseidon — marvunapp. Monster of Poseidon (summary of the sea‑monster associated with the Hesione episode)other
- [7]NEOGERRIS HESIONE — Backyard Nature (name reuse). Example of the name Hesione reused in taxonomy (water strider species reference)other
- [8]Archive: GBR - YN 532 SS Empire Capulet Structural Plans (1942). Ship renamed Hesione (historical reuse of the name)other