Peneleos is presented in the classical summary tradition as a Boeotian scion (son of Hippalcimus/Hippalmus and Asterope) whose career is tied to the pan‑Hellenic heroic narratives. Some sources report he sailed with the Argonauts; later traditions list him among the suitors of Helen, which by the Oath of Tyndareus obliges him to join the Achaean expedition to Troy. Genealogical notices in the summary tradition record his son Opheltes and grandson Damasichthon, the latter connected to later rulership in Thebes, showing how his biography functions to link local dynasties to epic memory. (Sources compile these attestations as surviving traditions rather than a single continuous life‑narrative.)
Surviving summaries and scholia that mention Peneleos record his deeds, lineage and commands but provide no physical description. Major primary and secondary notices (Homeric/catalogue traditions, Apollodorus summaries as preserved in modern reference works) focus on his genealogy, military role and fate; they do not specify his height, dress, weapons‑style, or other bodily marks in the passages preserved in the provided materials.
Peneleos is a mortal warrior and commander. Traditions attribute to him command of twelve Boeotian ships in the Trojan expedition, involvement among the Argonauts in some accounts, and specific martial actions on the Trojan plain: he is said to have killed the Trojans Ilioneus and Lycon, was wounded by Polydamas, and was slain by Eurypylus son of Telephus. He also appears in a ritual/social role in escorting Poemander to Chalcis for purification by Elephenor after an accidental homicide. These attestations present him as a human military leader and participant in ritual remediation rather than a supernatural actor.
Weaknesses
- conditionmortality — slain in battle by Eurypylus (son of Telephus)
Wards
None recorded.
Elephenor
Elephenor (Ancient Greek: Ἐλεφήνωρ) is a mortal king of the Abantes of Euboea in Greek mythic-historical tradition, known as a captain of a contingent to the Trojan War, a purifying figure in one homicide episode, and as the subject of variant local foundation or exile traditions after the war.
Argonauts
A band of human heroes in Greek myth who sailed aboard the ship Argo under Jason to Colchis to retrieve the Golden Fleece. Their identity is defined by membership in the celebrated voyage and by shared heroic lineages; membership lists and details vary by source.
Eurypylus
Eurypylus (Ancient Greek: Εὐρύπυλος, 'wide-gated') is an anthroponym in Greek myth borne by several distinct mortal or semi-divine figures — kings, princes, and warriors — attested across regional heroic-age narratives (Thessaly, Mysia, Cos, Thebes, Tiryns) and the Trojan War cycle. The name functions genealogically and narratively rather than as a single supernatural being.
*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]Peneleos — Wikipedia. Wikipedia contributors, 'Peneleos,' Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.wiki
- [2]Wikidata entry for Peneleus. Wikidata: Q254381 (Peneleus)other
- [3]LP0031 Intro to the Argonauts (archive). Archive recording: 'Intro to the Argonauts' (LP0031)other
- [4]LP0080 -VI ARGONAUTS- Jason & The Argonauts, from The Library of Apollodorus (archive). Archive recording: 'VI Argonauts - Jason & The Argonauts' (from The Library of Apollodorus)other