According to the genealogical summaries preserved in Greek mythographic tradition, Labdacus was the only son of Polydorus and Nycteïs (daughter of Nycteus) and the grandson of Cadmus, founder of Thebes. Polydorus' death left Labdacus a child; during his minority regents (including Lycus) exercised power in Thebes. Labdacus later briefly ruled Thebes in the sequence of Theban kings and fathered Laius. Ancient summaries preserve variant accounts of his death: one tradition (attested in summaries of Apollodorus) says he opposed the cult of Dionysus and was killed by the god's frenzied devotees (Maenads), paralleling the fate of Pentheus; another tradition reports that he died young after losing a border war with Pandion, king of Athens. After his death Lycus again became regent for Labdacus's son Laius, and Labdacus's descendants were called the Labdacids.
The provided sources do not supply a detailed physical description. The name is glossed in modern summaries as literally meaning 'lame' or 'defective in the legs' (Ancient Greek: Λάβδακος), but no ancient textual portrait, clothing, insignia, or iconography for Labdacus is described in the cited materials.
Sources treat Labdacus as a mortal king and dynastic ancestor rather than a supernatural agent. His roles/functions in the tradition are political and genealogical: briefly ruling Thebes, fathering Laius, and serving as the eponymous ancestor of the Labdacids. Some accounts characterize him behaviorally as opposing the cult of Dionysus, a stance that in certain traditions leads to his violent death at the hands of Dionysian devotees; no supernatural powers or abilities are attributed to him in the provided material.
Cadmus
Cadmus is a legendary Phoenician prince and culture-hero in Greek myth, credited with founding Thebes, slaying a local dragon/guardian, marrying Harmonia, and—by some ancient sources—bringing a Phoenician script to Greece.
Polydorus
Polydorus (Ancient Greek: Πολύδωρος, 'many-gifted') is a personal name borne by several distinct mortal figures in Greek myth and later cultural references, including Theban and Trojan princes, a warrior in the Trojan cycle, historical/legendary rulers, and a Roman-period sculptor. The name recurs across genealogies and narratives rather than denoting a single supernatural class or spirit.
Lycus
Lycus (Ancient Greek: Λύκος, lit. 'wolf') is not a single supernatural being but an ancient Greek personal name and toponym applied to multiple mythological human figures (notably regents and rulers in Theban cycles) and to several rivers across the classical world. The extant sources present Lycus primarily as mortal mythic actors or as geographic names rather than as an independent class of spirit or creature.
*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]Labdacus (Wikipedia). Wikipedia contributors, 'Labdacus', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopediawiki
- [2]Theban kings in Greek mythology (Wikipedia). Wikipedia contributors, 'Theban kings in Greek mythology', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopediawiki
- [3]Apollodorus (summary in modern repositories). Archived recordings/translations summarizing Apollodorus as cited in research notesother
- [4]Labdacus in Greek Mythology - Greek Legends and Myths. GreekLegendsAndMyths.com, 'Labdacus in Greek Mythology'other
- [5]Wikidata: Labdacus. Wikidata entry for Labdacuswiki