389.)Īnother set of traditions describes Proteus as a son of Poseidon, and as a king of Egypt, who had two sons, Telegonus and Polygonus or Tmolus. He is sometimes represented as riding through the sea, in a chariot drawn by Hippocampae. 1500) mentions Eurynome instead of Eidothea. 472) mentions Cabeiro as a second, and Zenodotus ( ap. 365) ascribes to him one daughter, Eidothea, but Strabo (x. When he had finished his prophecy he returned into the sea (Hom.
Any one wishing to compel him to foretell the future, was obliged to catch hold of him at that time he, indeed, had the power of assuming every possible shape, in order to escape the necessity of prophesying, but whenever he saw that his endeavours were of no avail, he resumed his usual appearance, and told the truth (Hom. At midday he rises from the flood, and sleeps in the shadow of the rocks of the coast, and around him lie the monsters of the deep (Hom. 676), whereas, according to the same poet, Proteus was born in Thessaly ( Georg. Virgil, however, instead of Pharos, mentions the island of Carpathos, between Crete and Rhodes ( Georg. He resided in the island of Pharos, at the distance of one day's journey from the river Aegyptus (Nile), whence he is also called the Egyptian (Hom. PROTEUS (Prôteus), the prophetic old man of the sea (halios gerôn), occurs in the earliest legends as a subject of Poseidon, and is described as seeing through the whole depth of the sea, and tending the flocks (the seals) of Poseidon (Hom. 2x SONS (by Torone) (Lycophron Alexandra 112) POLYGONOS, TELEGONOS (Apollodorus 2.105) THEOKLYMENOS, EIDO-THEONOE (by Psamathe) (Euripides Helen 5) KABEIRO (Pherecydes Frag, Strabo 10.3.21) EIDOTHEA (Homer Odyssey 4.365, Hyginus Fabulae 118) POSEIDON (Apollodorus 2.105, Lycophron 112) OFFSPRING The island of Pharos, which is his home in the Odyssey, possessed a Phoenician trading colony in historical times. Like Melikertes he may have been the Greek equivalent of the Phoenician sea-god Melkart. Proteus was specifically associated with the island of Lemnos, the nearby Thracian peninsular of Pallene, and the Egyptian island of Pharos.
Menelaus, a hero of the Trojan War, encountered Proteus during his return voyage to Greece, and upon capturing him compelled the god to prophesy the future.
PROTEUS was a prophetic old sea-god and the herdsman of Poseidon's seals.