Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
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King name "Agave" | Greek | Daughter of Cadmus, and wife of the Spartan Echion, by whom she became the mother of Pentheus, who succeeded his grandfather Cadmus as king of Thebes. Agave was the sister of Autonoe, Ino, and Semele (Apollodorus iii), and when Semele, during her pregnancy with Dionysus, was destroyed by the sight of the splendour of Zeus, her sisters spread the report that she had only endeavoured to conceal her guilt, by pretending that Zeus was the father of her child, and that her destruction was a just punishment for her falsehood. |
King name "Amyclas" | Sparta | A son of Lacedaemon and Sparta, and father of Hyacinthus by Diomede, the daughter of Lapithus. He was king of Laconia, and was regarded as the founder of the town of Amyclae. |
King name "Cynortes" | Greek | Or Cynortas, a son of Amyclas by Diomede, and brother of Hyacinthus. After the death of his brother Argalus, he became king of Sparta and father of Oebalus or of Perieres. His tomb was shown at Sparta not far from the Scias. Greek |
King name "Gorgophone" | Greek | A daughter of Perseus and Andromeda. Her name means "Gorgon Slayer", a tribute to her father who killed Medusa, the mortal Gorgon. Gorgophone is a central figure in the history of Sparta, having been married to two kings, Oebalus of Sparta (actually Lakonia, Sparta's region) and Perieres of Messenia, the region to the west of Lakonia which Sparta, in the late 8th or early 7th century B.C. enslaved. Greek |
Goddess name "Helen" | Helen is frequently alleged, in Homeric tradition, to have been a mortal heroine or a demigoddess | Goddess [Greek] åśśociated with the city of Troy. In his Catalogues of Women Hesiod, the Greek contemporary of Homer and author of the definitive Theogony of the Greek pantheon, confounds tradition by making Helen the daughter of ZEUS and Ocean. Other Greek authors contemporary with Hesiod give Helen's mother as NEMESIS, the Greco-Roman goddess of justice and revenge, who was raped by Zeus. The mythology placing Helen as a demigoddess identifies her mother as Leda, the mortal wife of Tyndareus, also seduced by Zeus who fathered POLLUX as Helen's brother. However Hesiod strongly denied these claims. Homeric legend describes Helen's marriage to king Menelaus of Sparta and her subsequent abduction by Paris, said to have been the catalyst for the Trojan war. After her death, mythology generally places her among the stars with the Dioscuri (sons of Zeus), better known as Castor and Pollux, the twins of the Gemini constellation. Helen was revered on the island of Rhodes as the goddess Dendritis.See also DISKOURI.... |
King name "Hippoçõõñ" | Greek | The eldest, but natural son of Oebalus and Bateia, and a stepbrother of Tyndareus, Icarius and Arene, at Sparta. After his father's death, Hippoçõõñ expelled his brother Tyndareus, in order to secure the kingdom to himself; but Heracles led Tyndareus back and slew Hippoçõõñ and his sons. Greek |
King name "Hyacinthus" | Greek | The youngest son of the Spartan king Amyclas and Diomede (Apollodorus iii), but according to others a son of Pierus and Clio, or of Oebalus or Eurotas. He was a youth of extraordinary beauty, and beloved by Thamyris and Apollo, who unintentionally killed him during a game of discus. Greek |
God name "Hyakinthos" | Greek | God of vegetation. An ancient pre-Homeric deity known particularly from Amyklai (preDorian seat of kingship at Sparta). He is beloved by APOLLO who perversely kills him with a discus and changes him into a flower. At Amyklai the bronze of Apollo stands upon an altar-like pedestal said to be the grave of Hyakinthos and, prior to sacrifice being made to Apollo, offerings to Hyakinthos were påśśed through a bronze door in the pedestal.... |
King name "Lacedaemon" | Sparta | A son of Zeus by Taygete, was married to Sparta, the daughter of Eurotas, by whom he became the father of Amyclas, Eurydice, and Asine. He was king of the country which he called after his own name, Lacedaemon, while he gave to his capital the name of his wife, Sparta. |
King name "Oebalus" | Greek | 1. A son of Cynortes, and husband of Gorgophone, by whom he became the father of Tyndareus, Peirene, and Arene, was king of Sparta. According to others he was a son of Perieres and a grandson of Cynortas, and was married to the nymph Bateia, by whom he had several children (Apollodorus iii). The patronymic Oebalides is not only applied to his descendants, but to the Spartans generally, and hence it occurs as an epithet or surname of Hyacinthus, Castor, Pollux and Helena. 2. A son of Telon by a nymph of the stream Sebethus, near Naples. Telon, originally a king of the Teleboans, had come from the island of Taphos to Capreae, in Italy and Oebalus settled in Campania. (The Aeneid Book VII) Greek |