Poeas is presented in Greek narrative tradition as a son of King Thaumacus of Thaumacia and as a member of the generation of heroes associated with the Argonauts. Sources vary on local details: he is described in some traditions as king of Meliboea or of Malis (Maleae). Variant accounts also shift certain roles between Poeas and his son Philoctetes (for example, who served as Argonaut or who lit Heracles' pyre), reflecting the fluid genealogies and episodic attributions common in the mythic corpus.
Ancient sources and the provided summaries do not record a detailed physical description of Poeas. He is characterized by role and attributes rather than bodily particulars: narrators identify him as an archer and as the recipient of Heracles' bow and poisoned arrows, so typical iconographic attributes in later imaginings would center on bow and arrows rather than described bodily features. No specific clothing, stature, coloration, or portrait-type is attested in the cited material.
The consolidated trait recorded in the sources is martial skill in archery: Poeas is described in some accounts as the greatest archer among the Argonauts. Narratives attribute to him the act of accepting Heracles' request to have his funeral pyre lit, for which Heracles rewarded him with his bow and poisoned arrows. In variant traditions Poeas (or his son Philoctetes) is credited with delivering the arrow that causes the death of the bronze giant Talos, often in tandem with Medea's role in disabling Talos. These accounts present Poeas as a skilled mortal archer and participant in heroic reciprocity rather than as a supernatural agent with magical powers.
Weaknesses
- otherno traditional weaknesses/wards recorded in sources
Wards
- otherno traditional weaknesses/wards recorded in sources
Philoctetes
A mortal Greek hero and famed archer, son of Poeas, who inherits Heracles’ bow and arrows; abandoned because of a festering, foul-smelling wound and later recalled because possession of Heracles’ weapons is prophesied as necessary for Greek victory at Troy. His story appears across epic and tragic traditions (Homeric cycle references; Sophocles’ Philoctetes) and explores themes of suffering, divine causation, healing, and communal obligation.
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.
*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]Poeas — Wikipedia. Wikipedia entry 'Poeas'wiki
- [2]Poeas (Wikidata). Wikidata item for Poeasother
- [3]LP0031 Intro to the Argonauts (archive recording/transcript). Archive recording/transcript: Intro to the Argonautsother
- [4]LP0031 Intro to the Argonauts (alternate archive link). Archive recording/transcript: Intro to the Argonauts (alternate link)other
- [5]Poeas in Greek Mythology — Greek Legends and Myths. Popular summary of classical traditions concerning Poeasfolk