The name Hippothous appears repeatedly in Greek mythic and literary genealogies and narratives rather than as a single origin myth. Different individuals named Hippothous are presented in independent contexts: one is listed among the sons of Aegyptus in the Danaid tradition and is killed on his wedding night; another is associated with Athenian/Eleusinian genealogy as a descendant of Poseidon who receives rule after Theseus slays Cercyon; one appears among the hunters of the Calydonian boar and later becomes king in Arcadia; Homeric epic names a Hippothous among allied leaders in the Trojan War; and Xenophon's Ephesian History (the Ephesiaca) uses the name for a novelistic character involved in scenes of recognition and lament. These attestations show the name's reuse across genealogical, epic, and novelistic registers rather than a single unified foundation story (sources: Wikipedia summary; Iliad Book XVII; Xenophon, Ephesiaca; Cercyon of Eleusis summary).
Across the attestations Hippothous is always presented as a human figure; the sources do not assign a consistent, exceptional physical appearance. In Homeric and epic passages Hippothous appears in battlefield lists and exhortations, implying the conventional accoutrements and bearing of an armed leader or warrior. In genealogical and dynastic narratives the figures bearing the name are portrayed as princes or kings by role rather than by physical description. In the Ephesiaca passages Hippothous manifests ordinary human affect—tears, addresses to parents and country—consistent with a literary human character. No supernatural or shared corporeal markers are recorded for the name in the supplied materials (sources: Iliad Book XVII; Xenophon, Ephesiaca; Wikipedia summary).
No supernatural powers are attributed to any Hippothous in the supplied materials; their 'abilities' are social and narrative roles typical of mortals in Greek myth. Individual Hippothous figures act as warriors or leaders in battle (Homeric catalogue/exhortation), as dynastic heirs or kings who inherit realms (the Hippothous who succeeds Cercyon or becomes king of Arcadia), as hunters participating in pan‑Hellenic expeditions (Calydonian boar hunt), and as literary characters capable of emotional expression and social speech in Hellenistic romance (Xenophon's Ephesiaca). They also appear as victims within tragic family cycle narratives (a son of Aegyptus slain by his Danaid bride) or as casualties of heroic violence (killed by Heracles or Telephus in variant traditions). These behaviors and roles are all grounded in human social, martial, and familial capacities rather than in magical or otherworldly faculties (sources: Wikipedia summary; Iliad Book XVII; Xenophon, Ephesiaca).
Weaknesses
- otherNone attested (not applicable)
Wards
- otherNone attested (not applicable)
Cerberus
The three-headed hound of Hades, guardian of the underworld's gates — welcoming the dead in but allowing no shade to leave and no living mortal to enter uninvited.
Theseus
Theseus is a legendary hero of Greek myth credited with clearing dangers from Attic roads, slaying the Minotaur, and performing foundational civic acts for Athens (including synoikismos and establishing cult practice). He is portrayed as of mixed mortal and divine parentage and functions as a culture-hero and exemplar in later authors' moralizing biographies.
*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]Hippothous (Wikipedia). Wikipedia, 'Hippothous' entrywiki
- [2]The Iliad, Book XVII. Homer, Iliad, Book XVII (online text)literary
- [3]The Iliad, Book XVII (MIT Classics Archive). Homer, Iliad, Book XVII (MIT Classics Archive)literary
- [4]Ephesian History (Ephesiaca), Book III (translation). Xenophon (Ephesiaca), Book III (Rooke translation, online)literary
- [5]Ephesian History (Ephesiaca), Book V (translation). Xenophon (Ephesiaca), Book V (Rooke translation, online)literary
- [6]Cercyon of Eleusis (Wikipedia). Wikipedia, 'Cercyon of Eleusis' entry (context for Hippothous who succeeds Cercyon)wiki