Son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra of the house of Atreus, Orestes is raised outside Mycenae during the period of his father's absence and murder. Various sources place his upbringing in exile (e.g., in some traditions with Strophius at Phanote on Mount Parnassus). Prompted by Electra and aided by his cousin Pylades, he returns and avenges Agamemnon's death by killing Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, an act that precipitates divine and chthonic repercussions in the post-Trojan War mythic period.
The provided sources give no sustained physical description; Orestes is identified by genealogy and social role (son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, brother of Electra and Iphigenia) and later as king of Mycenae and, in some traditions, of parts of the Peloponnese. Classical authors portray him through actions and legal-religious circumstances rather than bodily detail.
Orestes possesses no innate supernatural powers in the cited materials; his significance derives from mortal actions (the revenge killings), obedience to divine commands in some versions (Apollo's instruction), endurance of supernatural pursuit (the Erinyes drive him to madness), and participation in ritual-legal processes (seeking sanctuary, being tried before Athena and twelve judges, and receiving ritual cleansing/propitiation). In Euripides' variant he undertakes a mission to Tauris to carry off a cult statue of Artemis and is involved in recognition scenes that secure escape.
Weaknesses
- conditionHaunted by the Erinyes (madness)
Wards
- ritualSanctuary and supplication at temples (e.g., Delphi)
- ritualFormal trial and adjudication before Athena and twelve judges (Acropolis)
- ritualPropitiation and cult foundation for the Erinyes (conversion to the Eumenides / Semnai Theai) and dedication of altars (e.g., altar to Athena Areia)
Erinyes
The three avenging Furies of Greek myth — Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone — who pursued and tormented those guilty of crimes against blood kin, especially murder of family members.
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.
Athena
Athena is a major ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, handicraft (notably weaving), and warfare; she serves as a tutelary protector of cities—most prominently Athens—and is central to myth, cult, and civic identity in the Greek world.
Artemis
Artemis is an ancient Greek goddess of hunting, the wilderness and wild animals, transitions (especially childbirth and puberty), vegetation, and chastity. Twin sister of Apollo and daughter of Zeus and Leto, she functions as a protector of young children and maidens while also capable of inflicting disease or punishment for transgressions against her sacred laws.
*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]Orestes - Wikipedia. Wikipedia: 'Orestes... was the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra' and summaries of matricide, pursuit by the Furies, refuge at Delphi, and the Aeschylus trial.wiki
- [2]Wikidata entry for Orestes. Wikidata: entry noting Orestes as a male given name and mythic figure.other
- [3]Summaries of Aeschylus' Eumenides and Euripides' Tauris episodes (compiled in research notes). Research summaries: Aeschylus' account of trial on the Acropolis (Athena's vote, conversion of Erinyes to Eumenides) and Euripides' Tauris episode (mission to carry off Artemis' statue, recognition with Iphigenia).literary