Hipponous is not presented in the sources as originating as a single mythic entity; rather, the form Ἱππόνοος appears repeatedly as the personal name of several mortal figures woven into Greek heroic genealogies and epic episodes. The name occurs in lists and narratives that form part of the epic-age tableau: an Olenian father of Capaneus and Periboea (genealogical listing), one of the fifty sons of Priam associated with the Trojan War (epic roster), an Achaean warrior slain by Hector in battle (Iliadic context), a son of Triballus and father of Polyphonte (genealogy), a man who with his father—descended from Adrastus—threw themselves into fire in obedience to an oracle of Apollo (oracle-driven familial episode), and as the birth-name of the hero later famed as Bellerophon (name-change attestation). These attestations derive from modern summaries and compilations of the classical record (see sources).
The sources do not provide a consistent physical or iconographic description for 'Hipponous' because the name designates multiple mortal figures rather than a single creature. In context, bearers of the name are described by role—prince, warrior, father—so they appear in sources as ordinary heroic-age humans: combatants on the battlefield, genealogical ancestors, or petitioners obeying an oracle. No distinct supernatural or visual attributes are attributed to the name in the cited materials.
No supernatural abilities are ascribed to Hipponous in the provided materials. The actions recorded for individuals with the name are mortal and narrative: parenthood (e.g., father of Capaneus and Periboea; father of Polyphonte), participation in warfare (a Trojan prince among Priam's sons; an Achaean warrior killed by Hector), obedience to an Apollo oracle culminating in self-immolation with his father, and the status of being the birth-name of the hero later known as Bellerophon (the sources that identify Hipponous as Bellerophon's birth-name do not attribute Bellerophon's later legendary feats directly to the name-bearer in these excerpts).
Apollo
Olympian deity of ancient Greek religion associated with prophecy, healing, music, archery, purification, and civic order. Principal patron of the Delphic oracle, protector of youth and flocks, and ambivalently both healer and bringer of plague.
Adrastus
Adrastus (Ancient Greek: Ἄδραστος or Ἄδρηστος) is a legendary king of Argos in the Greek mythic-historical tradition, best known as the leader of the expedition of the Seven against Thebes and as a figure tied to oracular counsel, dynastic marriages, and local hero cults.
Achilles
A legendary Greek heroic figure of epic poetry, son of the sea‑nymph Thetis and the mortal Peleus, celebrated as the greatest of the Greek warriors at Troy whose anger and fate shape events in the Trojan War cycle.
Hector
Hector is a Trojan prince and the foremost warrior of Troy in the Homeric Iliad, celebrated as a devoted husband, father, son, and defender of his city. Portrayed as exemplary in duty and martial skill, his mortal fate is shaped by combat, family obligations, and the interventions of gods.
*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]Hipponous - Wikipedia. Wikipedia, entry 'Hipponous' (summary of multiple figures named Hipponous)wiki
- [2]Bellerophon - Wikidata. Wikidata entry for Bellerophon (notes Bellerophon rode Pegasus and killed the Chimera; supports identification of Hipponous as Bellerophon's birth-name in tradition)other
- [3]LP0062 Jocastas Children (Archive.org recording of classical library passages). Archive.org recording referencing Apollodorus and related mythic genealogies (background material cited in provided notes)other