Proteus: Prophetic Greek Sea God Who Knew All Things, Past, Present And Future

A. Sutherland  – AncientPages.com – In Greek mythology, Proteus was a sea god, son of Poseidon and Tethys, and sometimes said to be Poseidon’s attendant.

His name probably means “firstborn”, “first”, or the “primordial” and he belongs to the so-called “sea elders”.

Aristaeus fettering ProteusbySébastien Slodtz (1655–1726). Palace of Versailles. Source

Like many other gods of the sea, Proteus was amphibious being, which means these gods could live alternately in the water and on land. Proteus was believed to live on the island of Faros (Pharos,) in ancient times an island off Alexandria, Egypt, and like many other sea gods, he was a divine being but did not give up his knowledge voluntarily.

He had the gift of foretelling the future and he knew past, present, and future; time had no secret for him. He also possessed the ability to change his form at will hence the expression “protean shape” (resembling Proteus in having a varied nature or avoid those who wanted to question him by changing his shape). In modern times, a changeable human can, therefore, be called “a Proteus nature”.

As Proteus had the ability to transform, he was therefore difficult to defeat. He could change his form rapidly into snake, lion, snake, panther and much more, and he did it very often to avoid being questioned. In this case, no answer could be obtained from Proteus to all the insistent questions.

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