In the surviving classical and topographical accounts, Pallas is presented as an Arcadian founder-ancestor associated with the ancient town Pallantion/Pallantium in the Maenalia district of Arcadia. Some sources identify him as a son of Lycaon, placing him in the Lycaonid genealogical tradition of Arcadian heroes. Later Roman literary tradition (notably Virgil via the Evander material) links the Arcadian Pallantium and its name to Evander's founding or naming of an Italian Pallantium in honor of his Arcadian ancestry.
Classical and place-name sources provide no consistent physical or iconographic description of Pallas. References focus on his role as eponymous founder and ancestor; literary mentions (for example a 'shrine of Pallas' in Euripides' Trojan Women) indicate his name could be attached to local sanctuaries, but the available texts do not record bodily attributes, dress, or standard iconography for him.
The cited sources do not ascribe explicit supernatural powers to Pallas beyond the usual functions of a mythic founder and ancestor: giving his name to Pallantion/Pallantium and occupying a place in genealogies that legitimate later claims (for example Evander's link to Pallantium). A local tradition cited in summaries characterizes him as a teacher of Athena in certain Arcadian variants, presenting an occasional pedagogic role in local myth; this is attested in summary sources rather than as a pan-Hellenic attribute. Other modern or polemical works recast Pallas in divine or sea-lord terms, but those claims are not corroborated by the classical and topographical references assembled here.
Evander of Pallantium
Evander of Pallantium (Greek Εὔανδρος) is a mythic Arcadian culture-hero and founder-figure credited in Roman and Greek traditions with bringing Greek laws, religious observances, and the alphabet to early Italy, founding a settlement called Pallantium on the site of Rome's Palatine Hill and instituting cultic practices later visible in Roman life.
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.
*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.
Abandinus
Abandinus is a locally attested Romano‑Celtic theonym known from a single inscribed bronze feather (votive object) dedicated at Godmanchester (the Roman fort Durovigutum) in Cambridgeshire. Scholars interpret him as a local god or male spirit tied to a specific place and possibly associated with a nearby spring or stream; this association is tentative and based on etymological readings of the name.
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.
Abellio
Abellio is a theonym attested in Roman‑period inscriptions from the Comminges area of the Pyrenees and reported as worshipped in the Garonne Valley of ancient Gallia Aquitania. Surviving evidence is limited to a small number of inscriptions; scholars have variously hypothesized solar or arboreal associations and compared the name to forms of Apollo or to Celtic Belenus, but the deity's precise role in local cosmology remains uncertain.
Abnoba
Abnoba is a Gaulish theonym and toponym attested in Roman-era sources and inscriptions: a localized deity associated with woods, springs and the sources of rivers (notably the Danube) and simultaneously the name applied to a mountain or mountain range in the Black Forest/Baar/Odenwald region. Roman altars equate her with Diana, reflecting syncretic cult practice in frontier provinces.
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.
Aborigines (mythology)
A mytho-historical label used in Roman and general reference sources to denote the oldest inhabitants of a region (specifically central Italy in the cited Roman context). The term functions as an identity/category for original human populations rather than as a characterized supernatural being in the provided sources.
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.
Abundantia
Abundantia is the Roman divine personification of abundance and material plenty, used primarily in imperial propaganda and public iconography to signify secure grain supplies, wealth, and the promise of a 'Golden Age' under the emperor. She also appears in later medieval European folklore as Domina Abundia / Dame Habonde, a household benefactor in accounts condemned by ecclesiastical writers.
Community Record
- [1]Pallas (son of Lycaon) — Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 'Pallas (son of Lycaon)'wiki
- [2]Pallantium (Arcadia) — Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 'Pallantium (Arcadia)'wiki
- [3]Evander of Pallantium — Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 'Evander of Pallantium' (discussing Virgil, Pausanias, Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus traditions)wiki
- [4]The Trojan Women — Euripides (translation). Euripides, Trojan Women (reference to 'shrine of Pallas')literary
- [5]Virgil — Aeneid (Evander/Pallantium tradition cited in commentary). Virgil (Evander naming/narrative) — commentary/resourceliterary
- [6]SaturnianCosmology — Athena / Pallas reference. SaturnianCosmology (reference to Pallas/Athena name-association)other
- [7]The False Gospel in the Stars / Capricornus (modern polemical claim). Barbara Aho, 'THE FALSE GOSPEL IN THE STARS: PREPARING THE WAY OF THE ANTICHRIST - CAPRICORN' (modern polemical source asserting sea-lord/king Pallas claim) — marked as modern/unconfirmed against classical sourcesother