Ancient biographical and philosophical sources present Hippasus chiefly as a Pythagorean of Magna Graecia (often associated with Metapontum and variously placed in chronological relation to Pythagoras). Later accounts and exegetical traditions attach to him the role of the member who divulged secret numerical or geometric knowledge (accounts vary between the disclosure of irrational magnitudes and methods for constructing a dodecahedron), and these traditions narrate that such divulging led to expulsion or legendary drowning as divine or communal punishment. Separately, the name Ἵππασος occurs several times in mythic catalogues as distinct, ordinary characters (a centaur slain at Pirithous's wedding; a son of Priam; a Thessalian warrior; a son of Ceyx), without forming a single unified origin myth.
The sources provide no sustained physical or supernatural description for Hippasus the philosopher; he is treated as a mortal historical figure. The mythic name-bearers listed in epic catalogues are recorded only by role and fate (for example, a centaur killed by Theseus) and lack distinctive physical description in the cited materials beyond their conventional mythic types.
Attributions in the sources are intellectual and social rather than supernatural. A scholium on Plato's Phaedo attributes early musical experimentation to Hippasus — the use of bronze disks to determine musical ratios (4:3, 3:2, 2:1). Later biographical traditions associate him (variably and inconsistently) with the discovery or disclosure of incommensurable magnitudes (irrational numbers) or with techniques for inscribing a regular dodecahedron in a sphere. Ancient testimonies disagree about exact authorship, and some sources describe the act of disclosure as an impious breach of Pythagorean secrecy, bringing legendary punishment (expulsion or drowning).
Weaknesses
- conditionsocial sanction and legendary divine retribution (expulsion, drowning)
Wards
None recorded.
Pishacha
Flesh-eating spirits of Hindu mythology that haunt cremation grounds and are associated with disease, madness, and possession. The lowest class of demon in the Vedic hierarchy.
Anansi
The spider trickster god of Akan folklore — cunning, mischievous, and wise. Keeper of stories and teacher of human beings, brought through the slave trade into Caribbean and African-American tradition.
*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]Hippasus (Wikipedia). Wikipedia, article 'Hippasus' (summary of ancient sources including Iamblichus, Pappus, scholia)wiki
- [2]Hippasus (mythology) (Wikipedia). Wikipedia, article 'Hippasus (mythology)' listing mythic name-bearerswiki
- [3]Scholium on Plato's Phaedo (as cited). Scholium on Plato's Phaedo: attribution that Hippasus 'made use of bronze disks to discover the fundamental musical ratios, 4:3, 3:2, and 2:1.' (quoted in research notes)literary
- [4]Iamblichus (biographical tradition as cited). Iamblichus: account relating that Hippasus was said to have published/described the sphere from twelve pentagons and 'perished at sea' for impiety; used in later tradition to connect Hippasus with punitive drowning (quoted in research notes).literary
- [5]Pappus (summary as cited). Pappus (as summarized in later tradition): report that the Pythagorean who first divulged the secret 'perished by drowning.' (not always naming Hippasus explicitly) (quoted in research notes).literary
- [6]Secondary and modern discussions (collected notes). Modern summaries and discussions collecting variant traditions about Hippasus of Metapontum and issues of attribution (as listed in research notes).other