Tlepolemus is presented in classical sources as a scion of the Heraclean line: a son of Heracles by Astyoche (or in alternate accounts Astydameia). After he killed Licymnius—accounts vary as to culpability, with Apollodorus describing the death as an accident during an assault on a servant and Pindar attributing it to intentional anger—Tlepolemus fled Argos and made passage to Rhodes. On Rhodes he and his company divided the island into three parts and founded the cities Cameirus, Ialysus, and Lindus. As a member of the generation bound by the oath of Tyndareus (Hyginus lists him among the suitors of Helen), he later joined the Greek expedition against Troy and was killed there in single combat with Sarpedon as recounted in the Iliad.
Ancient sources provide no detailed physical description of Tlepolemus (no height, facial features, or unique garments are recorded in the provided materials). He is attested contextually as a martial aristocrat and leader—described as commander of the Rhodian forces at Troy and as a founder of Rhodian cities—which implies conventional epic iconography of a heroic warrior-leader in arms. No vase-painting or specific ancient visual depiction is cited in the provided notes; the textual record limits our evidence to his social and martial role rather than personal physical attributes.
Tlepolemus is a mortal heroic figure whose 'abilities' derive from lineage, leadership, and fighting skill rather than supernatural power. He is a son of Heracles, which confers heroic status in genealogical terms. He leads the Rhodian contingent in the Trojan War, wounds the Trojan hero Sarpedon during the first day's fighting recounted in the Iliad, and is slain by Sarpedon. His notable behaviors in the tradition include the fatal encounter with Licymnius (accidental per Apollodorus; intentional per Pindar), exile to Rhodes, the division and founding of three cities (Cameirus, Ialysus, Lindus), and his participation in pan‑Hellenic obligations (as one of Helen's suitors per Hyginus).
Weaknesses
- conditionmortality (vulnerability in battle)
Wards
None recorded.
Heracles
Heracles is the greatest hero of Greek myth whose career bridges mortal hero-cult and full divinization. Celebrated for his Twelve Labours, martial prowess, and travels between the mortal world, the underworld, and Olympus, he functioned as a civic patron, ancestor of royal lines (the Heracleidae), and object of cult that treated him both as chthonic hero and as god.
Polyxo
Polyxo (Greek Πολυξώ) is a recurring personal name in ancient Greek mythic genealogies and narratives. Rather than a single consistent supernatural being, multiple distinct figures bearing this name appear as Oceanid or Naiad water-nymphs, a Lemnian seeress/nurse, a Maenad, and mortal queens or wives tied to cycles such as the Argonautica, the Danaids, and the aftermath of the Trojan War.
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.
*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]Tlepolemus — Wikipedia. Wikipedia article 'Tlepolemus' summarizing classical sources (Homer, Apollodorus, Pindar, Hyginus, Pausanias, Polyaenus).wiki
- [2]Wikidata entry for Tlepolemus (modern taxonomic eponym). Wikidata: lists a genus named Tlepolemus (modern taxonomic reuse of the mythic name).other
- [3]COMPASS Final Report: Radioisotope Electric Propulsion (REP) Centaur Orbiter New Frontiers Mission (archive). NASA technical-archive reference noting a Trojan asteroid named Tlepolemus in a mission scenario (modern astronomical eponym).other
- [4]Who's Who in Classical Mythology (archive). Reference entry corroborating Tlepolemus as a classical mythological figure (modern reference work).other