Phorcus, Phorcys

or PHORCYN (Φόρκος, Φόρκυς, Φόρκυν. ).

1. According to the Homeric poems, an old man ruling over the sea, or "the old man of the sea," to whom a harbour in Ithaca was dedicated. He is described as the father of the nymph Thoosa (Od. 1.71, 13.96, 345). Later writers call him a son of Pontus and Ge, and a brother of Thaumas, Nereus, Eurybia, and Ceto (Hes. Th. 237; Apollod. 1.2.6). By his sister Ceto he became the father of the Graeae and Gorgones (Hes. Th. 270, &c.), the Hesperian dragon (ibid. 333, &c.), and the Hesperides (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. 4.1399); and by Hecate or Cratais, he was the father of Scylla. (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. 4.828; Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1714; Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 45.) Servius (Serv. ad Aen. 5.824) calls him a son of Neptune and Thoosa. (Comp. Muncker, ad Hygin. Fab. praef. p. 4.)

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.