Sources present variant genealogies and local legend around Cercyon. In some accounts he is a king of Eleusis; other traditions depict him as a powerful robber who preyed on travelers. Family-material in the tradition connects him to the episode of his daughter Alope, who bore a child (identified in some sources as Hippothoon) after an affair with Poseidon; the exposed child was reared and later associated with Eleusinian lineage. Classical authors and later summaries record these variants without a single harmonized origin.
Classical sources emphasize Cercyon's exceptional physical strength and cruelty rather than detailed physiognomy. He is repeatedly described as a very strong, formidable man noted for his prowess at wrestling and for violent behavior toward challengers and, in some accounts, cruel treatment of his daughter Alope. No sustained fine-detail description (clothing, height, coloration) is preserved in the cited material.
Cercyon's capacities are presented as exceptional mortal strength and mastery of brutal wrestling techniques; he habitually stood on the roads near Eleusis and challenged passers-by, killing those he could defeat. Some traditions frame him as a robber who attacked travelers. There is no indication in the cited sources of supernatural powers; his menace is primarily physical violence and the social danger of lawless coercion.
Weaknesses
- conditionmortal vulnerability to superior technique
- otherdefeat by superior wrestling skill (Theseus lifted and dashed him to the ground)
Wards
None recorded.
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.
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.
Acarnan
Acarnan (Ancient Greek: Ἀκαρνάν) is an anthroponym attested in Greek mythic and epic tradition as the name of at least two distinct mortal figures: a son of Alcmaeon and Callirrhoe, and a human suitor of Penelope from Dulichium. The lexical form also appears adjectivally/ethnically (Acarnanian), linking the word to the region Acarnania; etymologically the name is reported as derived from a Greek fish-name (akarnan).
Acastus
Acastus is a mortal heroic figure of ancient Greek tradition: son of Pelias who became king of Iolcus, an Argonaut who sailed with Jason, and an actor in the post-Argonautic cycle involving Medea, Peleus, and the aftermath of Pelias’s death. He is attested as performing civic and ritual actions (burying Pelias, instituting funeral games, purifying Peleus) and as a participant in vendetta episodes that end in violent reprisals.
Acmon
Acmon (Ancient Greek: Ἄκμων, 'anvil') is a polyvalent personal name in Greek myth borne by several distinct minor figures — a Dactyl (artisan), a Phrygian eponymous king, a mischievous woodland creature, companions in epic cycles (one companion of Diomedes transformed into a bird; an Aenead), and in some brief traditions an alleged father of Uranus. The name therefore functions across artisanal, topographical, trickster, and metamorphosis motifs rather than denoting a single unified supernatural species.
Acrisius
Acrisius (Ancient Greek: Ἀκρίσιος, Akrisios) is a mythic-historical king of Argos in Greek tradition whose narrative is defined by an oracular prophecy foretelling his death by his daughter's son. He is portrayed as a mortal ruler entangled with dynastic rivalry, oracular authority, and the eventual accidental fulfillment of fate.
Aeacidae
The Aeacidae are a dynastic lineage in Greek myth and historiography descended from the hero Aeacus, son of Zeus and the nymph Aegina. The name functions as a patronymic designation for those 'of Aeacus' and is used to claim genealogical legitimacy and political prestige in regions such as Aegina and Molossian Epirus.
Aegipan
Aegipan (Αἰγίπαν / Αἰγίπανος) is an ancient Greek mythological figure associated with goat attributes and with the sea‑goat imagery of the constellation Capricornus. He appears in classical myth as a semi‑divine helper (notably in the Typhon episode) and, in later natural‑history and medieval bestiary reception, the name is applied to satyr‑like or ape‑like wild men in distant lands.
Aegisthus
Aegisthus (Greek Αἴγισθος, Aigisthos) is a mortal member of the House of Atreus in Greek myth who, born of incestuous circumstances and raised by shepherds and a goat, participates in dynastic murder and usurpation — notably the slaying of Atreus in some accounts and the conspiracy (with Clytemnestra) that results in Agamemnon's death — and is later killed by Orestes, an episode that figures in narratives about inherited guilt, vengeance, and the transition from private retribution to public justice.
Aepytus
Aepytus (Ancient Greek: Αἴπυτος, Aíputos/Aípytos, lit. 'steep, high, lofty') is a personal name in Greek myth borne by several legendary kings tied to Arcadian and Heraclid genealogies. The figures named Aepytus function as ancestral/dynastic nodes in literary genealogies and later literary receptions rather than as supernatural beings.
Aeson
Aeson (Ancient Greek: Αἴσων) is a legendary mortal king of Iolcus in Thessaly in Greek myth, best known as the father of the hero Jason. His fate—imprisonment by his half-brother Pelias and either suicide or a miraculous restoration performed by Medea—provides the dynastic and moral background for the Argonautic cycle.
Aethalides
Aethalides is a personal name borne by two distinct figures in ancient Greek myth: one listed among the Argonauts as a son of Hermes and Eupolemeia, and another named among the Tyrrhenian sailors who attempted to deceive Dionysus and was transformed into a dolphin. The sources treat Aethalides as named human mythic personages appearing in separate narrative contexts rather than as a class of supernatural being.
Community Record
- [1]Cercyon of Eleusis — Wikipedia. Wikipedia entry 'Cercyon of Eleusis' (summarizes classical accounts regarding Cercyon's cruelty, wrestling challenges, Alope episode, and defeat by Theseus).wiki
- [2]Wikidata: Cercyon of Eleusis. Wikidata item Q1349772 (identifier and summary metadata for Cercyon of Eleusis).other
- [3]LP0008 Theseus (Archive.org). Archive LP0008 (summary and translations of classical passages—Diodorus and related accounts—reporting that Cercyon wrestled travelers and killed those he defeated).literary
- [4]LP0009 Labors of Theseus (Archive.org). Archive LP0009 (collections discussing Theseus' labors including encounter with Cercyon near Eleusis and the wrestling-school reference).literary
- [5]LP0014 Medea and Aegeus (Archive.org). Archive LP0014 (additional classical-material context cited in compilations on Theseus cycle and local genealogical variants such as the Alope/Hippothoon story).literary