Penthilus Penthilus Penthilus (; Ancient Greek: Πένθιλος) is the illegitimate or legitimate son of half-siblings Orestes and Erigone in Greek mythology. Penthilus' grandmother was Clytemnestra. His maternal and paternal grandfathers were Aigisthos and Agamemnon respectively. Orestes killed both Clytemnestra, who was his own mother and Aigisthos. Erigone is said to have hanged herself or married Orestes after Orestes' first wife, Hermione died. Orestes was ruler over much of the Peloponnese and died of a snakebite at age 70. One story says that as a child, Penthilus was torn apart and devoured by wolves in the Taygetus mountains, near Sparta. His father
Dragons in Greek mythology Dragons in Greek mythology Dragons play a significant role in Greek mythology. The word dragon derives from the Greek δράκων (drakōn) and its Latin cognate draco. Ancient Greeks applied the term to large, constricting snakes. Daniel Ogden speaks of three ways to explain the origins of Greek dragon myths: as "vertical" evolution from (reconstructed) Proto-Indo-European mythology, as "horizontal" adaptation from Ancient Near Eastern mythology, or as sitting within "the cloud of international folktale". Regarding theories of vertical transmission, Ogden argues that they carry "an unspoken assumption that prior to such a transfer the Greeks' own myth-world was a "tabula rasa"",