Idmon appears in classical catalogs of the Argonauts and in episodic accounts of the voyage to Colchis. The name Ἴδμων is interpreted in sources as 'having knowledge of' or 'the knowing', which marks him conceptually as associated with knowledge or seer-ability. Genealogical notices vary: some accounts identify him as a son of Apollo (an attested parentage in Hyginus' summary and later compilations), while other traditions attribute different parentage (variants such as Abas and Cyrene appear in later summaries). The extant passages do not harmonize these variants into a single authoritative origin, but they consistently place Idmon among the roster of Argonauts.
Surviving source material and catalogues that name Idmon do not preserve a distinctive physical description. Classical lists and the summarized episodes that mention him treat him as one member of the Argonaut crew without recording particular bodily traits, clothing, or iconographic markers in the provided excerpts.
Idmon is explicitly designated as a seer in some modern summaries of the tradition and in classical catalogues that interpret his name (e.g., 'an Argonaut seer, son of Apollo' in compiled entries). The etymology of his name ('having knowledge of'/'the knowing') supports this associative role. However, the supplied sources do not report specific prophetic acts or oracular pronouncements performed by him; instead they record his participation in the voyage and, in Hyginus' narrative summary, his mortal wound by a wild boar that leads to his death while the Argonauts are lodged with Lycus.
Weaknesses
- conditionmortality (vulnerability to mortal wounds)
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]Idmon. Wikipedia: 'Idmon (Ancient Greek: Ἴδμων means "having knowledge of" or "the knowing"; Idmon, an Argonaut seer and son of Apollo or Abas, and Princess Cyrene.)'wiki
- [2]The Fables of Hyginus — Argonauts (excerpt). Hyginus, Fables (as excerpted): 'While the Argonauts were staying with Lycus, and had gone out to gather straw, Idmon, son of Apollo, was wounded by a wild boar and died.' (archive excerpt)literary
- [3]Manoscritto - Fondo Principale P_MSS_0097 (Biblioteca Civica 'Joppi' Udine). Archive manuscript collection containing versions/excerpts of Hyginus material referenced in summaries of the Argonautsother
- [4]Wikidata: Idmon. Wikidata entry noting multiple mythic personages named Idmon and linking to modern catalogue dataother