Cychreus
(Κυχρεύς), or CENCHREUS, a son of Poseidon and Salamis, became king of the island of Salamis, which was called after him Cychreia, and which he delivered from a dragon. He was subsequently honoured as a hero, and had a sanctuary in Salamis. (Apollod. 3.12.7; Diod. 4.72.) According to other traditions, Cychreus himself was called a dragon on account of his savage nature, and was expelled from Salamis by Eurylochus; but he was received by Demeter at Eleusis, and appointed a priest to her temple. (Steph. Byz. s. v. Κυχρεῖος.) Others again said that Cychreus had brought up a dragon, which was expelled by Eurylochus. (Strab. ix. p.393.) There was a tradition that, while the battle of Salamis was going on, a dragon appeared in one of the Athenian ships, and that an oracle declared this dragon to be Cychreus. (Paus. 1.36.1; comp. Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 110, 175; Plut. Thes. 10, Solon. 9.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.