Proteus

Illustration of Proteus by Andrea Alciato from The Book of Emblems (1531)

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In Greek mythology, Proteus (/ˈproʊtiəs, -tjuːs/;^[1] Ancient Greek: Πρωτεύς, Prōteus) is an early prophetic sea-god or god of rivers and oceanic bodies of water, one of several deities whom Homer calls the "Old Man of the Sea" (halios gerôn).^[2] Some who ascribe a specific domain to Proteus call him the god of "elusive sea change", which suggests the constantly changing nature of the sea or the liquid quality of water. He can foretell the future, but, in a mytheme familiar to several cultures, will change his shape to avoid doing so; he answers only to those who are capable of capturing him. From this feature of Proteus comes the adjective protean, meaning "versatile", "mutable", or "capable of assuming many forms". "Protean" has positive connotations of flexibility, versatility and adaptability.

Name origin[]

Proteus' name suggests the "first" (from Greek "πρῶτος" prōtos, "first"), as prōtogonos (πρωτόγονος) is the "primordial" or the "firstborn". It is not certain to what this refers, but in myths where he is the son of Poseidon, it possibly refers to his being Poseidon's eldest son, older than Poseidon's other son, the sea-god Triton. The first attestation of the name, although it is not certain whether it refers to the god or just a person, is in Mycenaean Greek; the attested form, in Linear B, is