Hydaspes

Within the Greek mythographic frame Hydaspes is treated as one of the Potamoi — a personified river-god representing a specific foreign river. Sources identify him as the Hellenic personification of the river the Greeks knew as Hydaspes, equated with the Sanskrit Vitasta and the modern Jhelum River; literary references place him in the Greek poetic region called Pentapotamia or generally north‑western India and incorporate him into epic narratives, notably Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, where local rivers are assimilated into the Greek pantheon and mythology (Theoi; Wikipedia Hydaspes (mythology); Jhelum River / Vitasta identification).

No specific, standardized anthropomorphic iconography for Hydaspes is attested in the cited sources. He is categorized as a Potamos, and thus by general Greek convention would be imagined as an anthropomorphic male river‑deity (often bearded or reclining with watery attributes), but the sources explicitly note only poetic imagery tied to the river itself (for example, Nonnus’ depiction of the river reddened with blood during battle) rather than a detailed personal description for Hydaspes (Theoi; Wikipedia Hydaspes (mythology); Nonnus quoted in Theoi).

In the literary sources Hydaspes functions both as a swift flowing river and as an active, agentic river‑personality in narrative: he is described as having an "extraordinary swift stream" and as supporting the Indians against the invading forces of the god Dionysus in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca; poetic passages also depict the river turned red with the blood of Indians slain in the conflict, indicating his role as both landscape and participant allied to local defenders (Wikipedia Hydaspes (mythology); Theoi summary quoting Nonnus).