Cychreides (
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
: Κυχρειδης) is a fabled
dragon, or serpent, from
Greek mythology
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities ...
. It is named after
Cychreus In Greek mythology, Cychreus (; Ancient Greek: Κυχρεύς) was the son of Poseidon and Salamis, daughter of the river god Asopus.
Family
By the nymph Stilbe, Cychreus became the father of Chariclo, Chiron's wife. One of his daughters, Glau ...
, the Greek
demigod
A demigod or demigoddess is a part-human and part-divine offspring of a deity and a human, or a human or non-human creature that is accorded divine status after death, or someone who has attained the "divine spark" ( spiritual enlightenment). A ...
who either raised or killed it, depending on the version of the story being told.
Mythology
Cychreus, son of
Poseidon
Poseidon (; grc-gre, Ποσειδῶν) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a ...
, either:
* Fought a dragon/serpent that was terrorizing the island of Salamis, and upon slaying it was made king.
*Raised a dragon/serpent as a pet, before he became ruler of
Salamis. It went on a rampage, and was driven away or captured by
Eurylochus, who gave it to
Demeter, a goddess who then kept it for her own.
* Was known as "the dragon" for his hot-headed nature, and terrorized the island of Salamis until driven off by Eurylochus, but was received at
Eleusis by Demeter, who made him her high priest.
[ Stephanus of Byzantium, ''Ethnica'' s.v. ]
Kychreios
'
Notes
Greek dragons
References
*
Apollodorus, ''The Library'' with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website
* Stephanus of Byzantium, ''Stephani Byzantii Ethnicorum quae supersunt,'' edited by August Meineike (1790-1870), published 1849. A few entries from this important ancient handbook of place names have been translated by Brady Kiesling
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
* Strabo, ''The Geography of Strabo.'' Edition by H.L. Jones. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
* Strabo, ''Geographica'' edited by A. Meineke. Leipzig: Teubner. 1877
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
{{Greek-myth-stub
Characters in Greek mythology
Ancient Salamis