Perieres is presented in classical mythographic genealogies as a son of Aeolus who became king of Messenia and married Gorgophone, a daughter of Perseus. Through this marriage he is integrated into the Perseid network of royal families: Gorgophone bore him at least Leucippus and Aphareus. Sources distinguish this Perieres (the Messenian king) from other figures bearing the same name in separate local traditions, for example a Theban charioteer named Perieres. Some later summaries note variant accounts of early Messenian rulership (e.g., traditions naming Polycaon as a first king or noting the eventual extinction of Perieres' line), but the core genealogical placement—son of Aeolus and husband of Gorgophone—is attested in the mythographic record.
Classical sources and the supplied summaries do not provide an iconographic or physical description of Perieres. He appears in literature and mythographic compilations as a named mortal king and genealogical node rather than as an individuated figure with distinguishing physical traits. His presence in the tradition is primarily textual—appearing in lists of descent and marital connections that locate dynastic claims—rather than visual or cultic.
No supernatural powers or special abilities are ascribed to Perieres in the cited materials. His role is social and dynastic: he rules as a mortal king of Messenia, marries Gorgophone, and fathers children (notably Leucippus and Aphareus) who continue regional lines. His "power" in the tradition consists of genealogical and political influence by virtue of his marriages and progeny, linking Messenia to the Perseid and other heroic houses. Sources do not record magical actions, prophetic gifts, or other extraordinary capacities.
Aeolus
Aeolus is a name applied to multiple related figures in Greek myth: an eponymous son of Hellen (founder of the Aeolian people), a son of Poseidon who led colonial ventures to Tyrrhenian islands, and a son of Hippotes depicted in epic as a ruler or keeper of the winds. Ancient mythographers note confusion and overlap among these persons.
Aphareus
Aphareus (Ancient Greek: Ἀφαρεύς) is an ancient Greek anthroponym attested for several distinct figures in myth and history (a Messenian king, a Centaur, a Greek warrior at Troy, and an Athenian rhetor/tragedian) and separately as a modern taxonomic genus of fish. The name does not denote a single autonomous supernatural being in the supplied sources but is used across multiple narrative registers.
Perseus
Perseus is a legendary hero of ancient Greek myth, a mortal son of Zeus and Danaë famed as a slayer of monsters and founder of the Perseid dynasty; his narrative emphasizes divine intervention (gifts from Hermes, Athena, and Hades), heroic cunning, and eventual placement among the stars as a constellation.
Polycaon
Polycaon is a proper name in ancient Greek tradition borne by at least two mytho-historical individuals: one a son of Lelex associated with the foundation of Messenia alongside his wife Messene, and another a son of Butes who married into the descendants of Heracles. The name also appears as a modern biological genus homonym in taxonomic records.
*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]Perieres (king of Messenia) — Wikipedia. Wikipedia: Perieres (king of Messenia)wiki
- [2]Perieres — Wikipedia (disambiguation/content). Wikipedia: Periereswiki
- [3]Apollodorus / mythographic summaries (as cited in research notes). Genealogical material summarizing Perseus' descendants and Gorgophone's marriages (Apollodorus and mythographic tradition)literary
- [4]Perieres in Greek Mythology - Greek Legends and Myths. Modern summary of mythographic traditions concerning Perieresfolk
- [5]Aphareus (son of Perieres) — Wikipedia. Article on Aphareus documenting parentage as son of Periereswiki
- [6]POLYCAON (Polykaon) - Messenian King of Greek Mythology — Theoi. Discussion of variant traditions about early Messenian rulers related to Perieres' genealogical contextliterary