(1.) Glaucus, surnamedPontius (ό πόντιον, equivalent to g θαλάσσιον), according to the common legend had originally been an expert fisherman and diver at Anthedon (Boeotia),'but, having eaten of the magical herb sown by Cronos, had leapt into the sea, where ultimately he was changed into a god, and endowed with the gift of unerring prophecy. A principal seat of his cultus was Anthedon, where the inhabitants claimed to be descended from him; but he was also worshipped extensively, not only on the coasts of Greece, but also on those of Sicily and Spain, it being customary for fishermen and sailors at certain seasons to watch during the night for the moment when he should come on his periodical rounds accompanied by his train, in order that they might consult him as an oracle. He is generally represented as endowed with most of the attributes of Nereus, but occasionally he is identified with Melicertes. He is sometimes said to have instructed Apollo in prophecy. In art he 13 depicted as a vigorous old man with long hair and beard, his body terminating in a scaly tail. The Argo· nautica represent Glaucus as having been builder and steersman of the “Argo,” as having alone remained unhurt in the fight of Jason with the Tyrrhenians, and as having afterwards become a sea god, in which capacity he was able in various ways to assist the expedition. A poetical account of his metamorphosis is given by Ovid {Met., xiii. 906), and his story has been also treated by Pindar and by Aeschylus, the latter of whom is known to have made Glaucus Pontius the subject of one of his satyr-dramas (see Pausanias, ix. 22, 6; and compare Hermann, De Aeschyli Glaucis). Allusions to the loves of Glaucus with Ariadne, Scylla, the Nereids, and Melicertes are frequently to be met with in ancient literature; and a considerable quantity of folklore concerning him will be found in the scholiast on Plato’s Republic, p. 536, and also in Athenaeus, Deipηosoph. vii. 47, 48, See also Gädechen’s monograph {Glaukos der Meergott, 1860).

(2.) Glaucus, usually surnamed Potnieus (ό πoτvι∈υv), from Potniae near Thebes, a deity worshipped chiefly in Corinth, is to be carefully distinguished from Glaucus Pontius. He was the son of Sisyphus by Merope, and the father of Bellerophon. According to the legend he was destroyed by his own mares,—the most common form of the .story being that he was tom to pieces by them. Accounts differ as to the place of his violent death, and also as to the immediate occasion of it. Sometimes it is represented as having happened at Iolcus, at the funeral games of Pelias, but usually the scene is laid at Potniae. He is most frequently represented as having offended Aphrodite by having kept his mares from breeding; but other versions of the myth are that he had fed them on human flesh to make them more spirited, or that they had been suffered to drink at a sacred well at Boeotia, or that they had eaten the herb hippomanes. On the isthmus of Corinth, and also at Olympia and Nemea, he was worshipped as ταρά£ιππος; and he was the subject of a lost tragedy of Aeschylus. His affinities with Poseidon Hippius are obvious; and it may be taken for granted that the frantic horses of Glaucus Potnieus represent the stormy waves of the sea, just as Glaucus Pontius is himself a personification of the ocean in its friendlier and calmer moods.

(3.) Glaucus, the son of Minos by Pasiphae, when a child, playing at ball or pursuing a mouse, fell into a honey pot and was smothered. His father, after a vain search for him, consulted the oracle, and was referred for an answer to the person who should suggest the aptest comparison for one of the cows of Minos which had the power of assuming three different colours. Polyidus (ΙΙολυϊδον) of Argos, who had likened it to a mulberry (or bramble), which changes from white to red and then to black, soon afterwards discovered the child. Minos then desired him to restore young Glaucus to life; and on his failure in this, he was sentenced to be entombed alive along with the corpse. Having in the sepulchre killed a serpent by which he had been attacked, he saw its com panion revivify it by laying upon it a few leaves of a certain herb. The same herb he successfully applied to Glaucus. This curious myth is now very generally admitted to be of a solar character; but interpreters are far from unanimous as to the significance of the various details. The story, which is related by Apollodorus (iii. 3, 1), and also by Aelian, was a favourite subject with poets and artists. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides are each of them said to have treated it dramatically; and, according to Lucian, it was often represented in mimic dances (Lucian, De Saltatione, 49; Weicker, Die G riech. Tragoedie). In some of its features at least the my thus is found to be very widely diffused. See Cox, Aryan Mythology, i. 161; Baring-Gould, Myths of the Middle Ages, ii. 145.

(4.j Glaucus, son of Hippolochus, and grandson of Bellerophon, mythical progenitor of the kings of Ionia, was a ^Lycian prince who, along with his brother Sarpedon, assisted Priam in the Trojan war. The incident between Glaucus and Diomede, as related in the Iliad, is well known. He was afterwards slain by Ajax; but his body was carried back to Lycia, as that of his brother had been. It seems probable that these two sons of the Lycian land—the land of light—who leave it in youth, but are carried thither again (by Hypnos and Thanatos) when their course is done, originally were meant to represent respectively the creeping light of the early dawn (Sarpedon) and the brightness of the open day (Glaukos).