17 Facts About Proteus

In Greek mythology, Proteus 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 geron).

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.

From this feature of Proteus comes the adjective protean, meaning "versatile", "mutable", or "capable of assuming many forms".

Proteus' name suggests the "first", as protogonos (p??t??????) is the "primordial" or the "firstborn".

Proteus was generally regarded as the son of the sea-god Poseidon and Phoenice, a daughter of King Phoenix of Phoenicia.

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Proteus learned from Proteus' daughter Eidothea, that if he could capture her father, he could force him to reveal which of the gods he had offended and how he could propitiate them and return home.

Proteus emerged from the sea to sleep among his colony of seals, but Menelaus was successful in holding him, though Proteus took the forms of a lion, a serpent, a leopard, a pig, even of water or a tree.

Proteus then answered truthfully, further informing Menelaus that his brother Agamemnon had been murdered on his return home, that Ajax the Lesser had been shipwrecked and killed, and that Odysseus was stranded on Calypso's Isle Ogygia.

Aristaeus went to his mother, Cyrene, for help; she told him that Proteus could tell him how to prevent another such disaster, but would do so only if compelled.

Aristaeus did so, and Proteus eventually gave up and told him that the bees' death was a punishment for causing the death of Eurydice.

Proteus followed these instructions, and upon returning, he found in one of the carcasses a swarm of bees which he took to his apiary.

The play's king Proteus is already dead at the start of the action, and his tomb is present onstage.

Shakespeare uses the image of Proteus to establish the character of his great royal villain Richard III in the play Henry VI, Part Three, in which the future usurper boasts:.

Proteus is the name of the submarine in the original story by Otto Klement and Jay Lewis Bixby, which became the basis for the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage and Isaac Asimov's novelization.

In medicine, Proteus syndrome refers to a rare genetic condition characterized by symmetric overgrowth of the bones, skin, and other tissues.

Proteus refers to a genus of Gram-negative Proteobacteria, some of which are opportunistic human pathogens known to cause urinary tract infections, most notably.

Proteus mirabilis is one of these and is most referenced in its tendency to produce "stag-horn" calculi composed of struvite that fill the human renal pelvis.