Phaeocomes is not presented in the supplied sources as having an independent cosmogonic origin or a body of separate mythic tales; rather, he is introduced as one of the named centaur combatants in Ovid's catalogue of the battle between Centaurs and Lapiths in Book XII of the Metamorphoses. The supplied materials record him only within that narrative context and do not provide a separate genealogical or cultic origin.
In the poetic descriptions quoted in the sources Phaeocomes is depicted as a centaur whose human upper body and continuing covering over the equine part are protected by six lions' hides fastened or joined together as armor, and who carries an enormous wooden club. Translators emphasize the stitched or fastened assembly of multiple lion hides across his torso and back and compare the club's size to the pulling power of two yoked oxen.
All documented feats attributed to Phaeocomes in the provided sources are martial and physical: he is portrayed as a fierce combatant who uses brute force and trophy hides as both protection and display. The poem narrates him killing opponents in the Centauromachy — including a passage describing him crushing an opponent's skull — and highlights his prodigious strength via the oversized club. The supplied corpus contains no indication that he possesses supernatural powers beyond epic-scale physical prowess.
Weaknesses
- otherNo documented magical weaknesses
Wards
None recorded.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Acerbas
Acerbas (also recorded as Sychaeus, Sycharbas, Zacherbas) is a figure in classical Greco‑Roman accounts of Phoenician/Tyrian tradition: a wealthy priest of Melqart (the Tyrian Hercules) whose concealed riches and murder by King Pygmalion precipitate Elissa/Dido's flight from Tyre and the foundation of Carthage. He is presented as a human priestly figure of high social rank rather than as a supernatural being.
Acestes
Acestes is a Roman/Greek founder-hero associated with the Sicilian city Segesta (Aegesta/Acesta). Presented as son of a Trojan woman and, in one tradition, the Sicilian river-god Crinisus (in animal form), he hospitably receives Aeneas and the Trojans, participates in the funeral games in Virgil's Aeneid (Book V), and functions as an eponymous culture-founder and local ruler.
Achaemenides
Achaemenides is a literary mortal figure introduced into Virgil's Aeneid as a marooned member of Odysseus' crew whom Aeneas rescues on Sicily. In Roman epic he functions as a chance survivor and eyewitness who helps link the Homeric tradition to the Trojan refugees and to illustrate Aeneas' magnanimity.
Community Record
- [1]Metamorphoses Book XII: Battle of Centaurs and Lapiths (translation by David Drake). David Drake, Metamorphoses XII: Battle of Centaurs and Lapiths (online translation), passages on Phaeocomesliterary
- [2]Metamorphoses by Ovid, Book XII (Sandys translation). George Sandys translation of Ovid, Metamorphoses Book XII; descriptive lines on Phaeocomes' dress and armamentliterary
- [3]Metamorphoses, Book XII (Internet Classics Archive). Ovid, Metamorphoses Book XII (English translation), Centauromachy passages listing named centaur combatantsliterary
- [4]Pyrenophora / Pyrenophora phaeocomes (Dothideomycetes entry). Dothideomycetes database entry for Pyrenophora phaeocomes (taxonomic usage of the epithet)other
- [5]Pyrenophora phaeocomes (EPPO Q-bank overview). EPPO Q-bank overview entry for Pyrenophora phaeocomes (fungal taxon records)other
- [6]Pyrenophora phaeocomes strain record (EPPO Q-bank). EPPO Q-bank specimen/strain record for Pyrenophora phaeocomesother
- [7]Poetry in Translation: Metamorphoses Index. Index of names in Ovid's Metamorphoses indicating Phaeocomes among named centaursliterary
- [8]Wikipedia: Pyrenophora. Wikipedia entry for the fungal genus Pyrenophora (mentions species epithet phaeocomes)wiki