Augeas

Sources present variant genealogies for Augeas, situating him within heroic royal lineages typical of Greek myth: some traditions make him a son of the sun-god Helios (by Nausidame or Iphiboe), others name Eleios, Poseidon, or Phorbas and Hyrmine as his parents. These conflicting parentages link a mortal king to divine or heroic ancestry without describing Augeas himself as an immortal deity; he functions as a human ruler whose household becomes the locus of the fifth Labour of Heracles. He is named father of several children in the summaries (including Epicaste and Phyleus), and in some accounts Phyleus is exiled for supporting Heracles and later becomes king after Augeas's death.

The primary attested 'appearance' in the sources is not a physical description of Augeas but of his household: his stables contained an extraordinary herd — cited as three thousand cattle — and had accumulated filth for over thirty years until Heracles' labour. The sources do not provide clothing, stature, or portrait-like details of Augeas himself; instead they emphasize the scale and condition of his stables and livestock as the defining visual and narrative feature.

Augeas is portrayed as a powerful mortal ruler who possesses vast, divinely healthy livestock (the stables are said to have housed three thousand cattle described as divinely healthy or 'immortal' in summaries), political authority over Elis, and the capacity to negotiate (he promises Heracles a tenth of his cattle for cleaning the stables). The sources do not ascribe supernatural powers to Augeas himself; his notability arises from his wealth, rulership, and the contractual conflict in which he reneges on payment and is subsequently killed by Heracles.