Laomedon appears in the Trojan dynastic genealogy as son of Ilus and grandson of Tros. In the mythic sequences that precede the Trojan War he rules the city later called Troy (Ilium). During his reign the gods Poseidon and Apollo, disguised as workmen, build the walls of Troy at his command on the condition of receiving wages; after they finish he refuses to pay them. In retribution the gods afflict Troy with pestilence and a sea-monster. Later an oracle commands that Laomedon expose his daughter Hesione to the monster; Heracles rescues her in exchange for the divine horses that had been given to Tros, but Laomedon reneges on that promise. Heracles then sacks Troy, kills Laomedon and most of his sons, and Podarces (later Priam) survives after being ransomed by Hesione.
Ancient narrative sources do not provide a sustained physical description of Laomedon. Later artistic depictions (engraving and print traditions) portray him conventionally as an adult male king within scenes such as Poseidon and Apollo building Troy's walls or the sack of the city, but the mythic texts themselves record no distinctive bodily traits. Thus descriptions of his appearance rest on later visual motifs of regal dress and iconography associated with Trojan kings rather than on explicit ancient textual detail.
Laomedon is a mortal ruler whose capacities are political and military rather than supernatural. He commands armies (he musters forces against Heracles' expedition and 'marched against the ships with a multitude'), presides over dynastic arrangements (father of Hesione and Podarces/Priam), and makes or breaks agreements with powerful beings. Notable behaviors in the sources include refusing to pay Poseidon and Apollo for labor, exposing his daughter Hesione at the oracle's prescription, and promising then withholding the divine horses from Heracles — acts that invite divine punishment (pestilence and a sea-monster) and heroic vengeance culminating in his death and the sacking of Troy.
Weaknesses
- conditionMortal — vulnerable to armed assault and to consequences of broken oaths
- otherLoss of divine favor — failure to honor agreements with gods (leads to pestilence and sea-monster)
Wards
None recorded.
Heracles
Heracles is the greatest hero of Greek myth whose career bridges mortal hero-cult and full divinization. Celebrated for his Twelve Labours, martial prowess, and travels between the mortal world, the underworld, and Olympus, he functioned as a civic patron, ancestor of royal lines (the Heracleidae), and object of cult that treated him both as chthonic hero and as god.
Poseidon
Poseidon is a principal deity of the ancient Greek pantheon, counted among the Twelve Olympians; he presides over the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses and functions as protector of seafarers and guardian of cities and colonies.
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.
Hesione
Hesione is a mortal Trojan princess in Greek myth who was exposed to a sea‑monster as an oracularly required sacrifice for her father Laomedon’s offense against the gods; rescued by Heracles, she is given in marriage to Telamon, ransoms her brother with her veil (after which he is called Priam), and in later tradition becomes a diplomatic pawn whose non‑return is cited among factors leading to Paris's taking of Helen.
*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]Laomedon. Wikipedia: Laomedonwiki
- [2]Laomedon (mythology). Wikipedia: Laomedon (mythology)wiki
- [3]Laomedon: Hercules foe (appendix). Marvunapp: Laomedon (Hercules foe)other
- [4]Laomedon's magical horses (appendix). Marvunapp: Laomedon's magical horsesother
- [5]Sir Robert Strange - Laomedon King of Troy Detected by Neptune and Apollo (art description). Artoftheprint: engraving depiction of Laomedonother
- [6]Laomedon's Corpse, Laomedon's Tomb (GRBS article). Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies: Laomedon's Corpse, Laomedon's Tomb (article)academic