In the Theban mythic-historical sequence preserved by classical mythographers, Polydorus is one of the children born to Cadmus and Harmonia. Sources such as Apollodorus list him among their sons and daughters and place him in the sequence of Theban rulers: he succeeds earlier kings (in some synopses his reign follows the troubled reign of Pentheus) and is the father of Labdacus, thereby forming the immediate dynastic link to Laius and the later Theban tragedies. The tradition presents him as a human member of the Cadmean household whose genealogical position explains subsequent regencies and successions (for example the interventions of Nycteus and Lycus when heirs are minors) rather than as a divine or magical founder figure (Apollodorus; Pausanias; modern summaries).
Classical sources and the provided summaries supply no physical or iconographic description of Polydorus. He is treated in surviving texts as a named genealogical person and king in lists and narrative summaries rather than as a described physical presence; thus extant accounts represent him through lineage and office (son of Cadmus and Harmonia, husband of Nycteis, father of Labdacus) rather than through bodily features or attributes (Apollodorus; Pausanias; modern summary).
No supernatural powers or distinctive magical abilities are attributed to Polydorus in the sources cited. His role is political and genealogical: he marries Nycteis (daughter of Nycteus), fathers Labdacus, and occupies a place in the Theban king-list after earlier generations such as Pentheus and before his son Labdacus. Where later narratives describe regency or usurpation, Polydorus’ absence (by death or removal from power) explains why figures like Nycteus and Lycus administer Thebes on behalf of underage heirs—his importance is structural within dynastic history rather than active or miraculous (Apollodorus; Pausanias; modern summary).
Cadmus
Cadmus is a legendary Phoenician prince and culture-hero in Greek myth, credited with founding Thebes, slaying a local dragon/guardian, marrying Harmonia, and—by some ancient sources—bringing a Phoenician script to Greece.
Harmonia
Harmonia is the ancient Greek goddess who personifies harmony, concord, and the principle of fitting or joining that underwrites civic and cosmic order. She appears in myth chiefly as the wife of Cadmus, mother of important Theban figures, and as the legendary source or eponym of a famed cursed heirloom (the Necklace or peplos) whose misfortunes affect later generations.
Lycus
Lycus (Ancient Greek: Λύκος, lit. 'wolf') is not a single supernatural being but an ancient Greek personal name and toponym applied to multiple mythological human figures (notably regents and rulers in Theban cycles) and to several rivers across the classical world. The extant sources present Lycus primarily as mortal mythic actors or as geographic names rather than as an independent class of spirit or creature.
Amphion
Amphion is a figure (or set of figures sharing a name) in Greek myth best known as the son of Zeus and Antiope, twin brother of Zethus, husband of Niobe, and famed in some traditions for using music to raise the walls of Thebes. The name also appears for several minor mythic characters (an Argonaut, an Achaean at Troy, a centaur), indicating multiple onomastic uses in the Greek corpus.
Acanthus (son of Autonous)
Acanthus is a mythic human figure in a Greek metamorphosis tale (recorded by Antoninus Liberalis) who, with his family, was transformed by Zeus and Apollo into a bird named after him. The story functions etiologically, explaining the origin and behaviors of certain birds by linking them to formerly human persons and their experiences.
Admetus
Admetus is a mortal king of Pherae in Thessaly in the Greek tragic tradition (notably Euripides' Alcestis). His life becomes the subject of a divine bargain in which Apollo intervenes to delay his appointed death, a bargain that requires another to die in his stead — most famously his wife Alcestis.
Admetus of Pherae
Admetus of Pherae is a mortal king of Thessaly in Greek myth whose household and fate intersect with Olympian gods (notably Apollo and Artemis), the Fates, the personification of Death (Thanatos), and the hero Heracles. He is celebrated for hospitality and justice and is best known from the tragic cycle surrounding his wife Alcestis, who dies in his stead and is later recovered.
Aegiale
Aegiale is a mortal woman in Greek mythic tradition, best known as the wife of the hero Diomedes. In post‑Trojan War nostos narratives she is depicted in several accounts as unfaithful and as plotting against her husband; some traditions attribute her conduct to the vengeance of the goddess Aphrodite.
Aeopolus
Aeopolus (Ancient Greek: Αἰπόλος, gen.: Αἰοπόλου, romanized Aipolus or Aiopólos, lit. 'goatherd') is a mortal figure in Greek mythic genealogical tradition recorded only in brief scholia and summaries. He is named as the father of Cleobule, who in one variant is cited as a possible mother of Myrtilus by Hermes; some sources note he was also called Aeolus. Attestations are limited and no cult, deeds, or narratives are preserved for him.
Aerope
Aerope (Ancient Greek: Ἀερόπη) is a mythological mortal woman of Greek tradition, a Cretan princess connected to the royal house of Mycenae (the Atreidai). In surviving accounts she functions as a human agent whose sexual relationships and/or the transfer of a symbolic object (the "golden lamb") are narrated as catalysts in the dynastic feuds of Atreus and Thyestes; sources preserve variant and sometimes conflicting traditions about her fate and parentage.
Aesacus
Aesacus (Ancient Greek: Αἴσακος) is a mythic son of King Priam of Troy who, grieving the death of a river-nymph beloved, throws himself from a cliff and is transformed mid-plunge by the sea-goddess Tethys into a diving seabird (mergus). In some traditions (Apollodorus and Tzetzes) he is also described as a seer who learned dream-interpretation from his grandfather Merops and interprets Hecabe’s dream about Paris.
Aeëtes
Aeëtes is a mythic, semi-divine king of Aea (identified with Colchis) in the Greek heroic tradition, son of Helios and the Oceanid Perseis. He is guardian of wondrous objects—most famously the Golden Fleece—and functions as a royal task-master whose demands and possessions test visiting heroes (notably Jason and the Argonauts).
Agrius and Oreius
Agrius (Ἄγριος) and Oreius/Orius (Ὄρειος) are twin sons of Polyphonte and a bear in a Greek mythic tale. Presented as 'twin savage bear-like children,' they committed acts of impiety and violence and were ultimately transformed by the gods into ominous birds (vulture and eagle-owl) as part of divine punishment and resolution.
Alcimenes
Alcimenes (Ancient Greek Ἀλκιμένης) is a personal name borne by multiple mortal figures in Greek myth and literary history — including a Boeotian prince, one of the sons of Jason and Medea, and several authors. The sources treat Alcimenes as human characters within mytho-historical narratives and literary tradition rather than as a distinct supernatural class or spirit.
Aloadae
The Aloadae (Otus and Ephialtes) are twin, exceptionally large brothers of Greek myth—variously portrayed as gigantic, hubristic challengers to the Olympian order and as local culture-bringing founders and worshipers of the Muses. Traditions report prodigious growth and strength, an attempt to scale the heavens by stacking mountains, the capture of Ares in some versions, and several differing accounts of their deaths or posthumous punishment.
Amycus
Amycus (Ancient Greek: Amykos / Ἄμυκος) is a named figure in Greek myth chiefly attested as the king of the Bebryces of Bithynia who challenges the Argonauts and is slain in single combat by Pollux. The name is also reused in other, distinct contexts (a centaur in other sources; modern onomastic reuses such as an asteroid, a naval ship, and taxonomic names).
Community Record
- [1]Polydorus (son of Cadmus) — Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 'Polydorus (son of Cadmus)' (summary)wiki
- [2]Apollodorus, The Library (summary references to Cadmus' children and king-lists). Apollodorus, summary as provided in research notes (Source 3)literary
- [3]Pausanias, Description of Greece — summaries of Theban topography and king-list. Pausanias, Description of Greece (summarized in research notes; Source 2 and 4)literary