Apotropaei

(Group Ἀποτρόπαιοι), certain divinities, by whose assistance the Greeks believed that they were able to avert any threatening danger or calamity. Their statues stood at Sicyon near the tomb of Epopeus.1

The Romans likewise worshiped gods of this kind, and called them dii averrunci, derived from averruncare.2

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References

Notes

  1. Pausanias. Description of Greece ii, 11.2.
  2. Varro. On the Latin Language vii, 102; Gellius, v, 12.

Source

  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.