Proteus

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Proteus

In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Proteus (???te??) is an early sea-god, one of several deities whom Homer

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
calls the "Old Man of the Sea

Old Man of the Sea

In Greek mythology, the Old Man of the Sea was a primordial figure who could be identified by several names, Proteus or Nereus or Pontus . There is evidence in the Iliad, Book I, line 588 , that he is the father of Thetis, mother of Achilles....
", whose name suggests the "first", as protogonos (p??t??????) is the "primordial" or the "firstborn". He became the son of Poseidon

Poseidon

In Greek mythology, Poseidon was the god of the sea and, as "Earth-Shaker," of earthquakes. The name of the god Nethuns in Etruscan mythology was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon....
in the Olympian theogony (Odyssey iv. 432), or of Nereus

Nereus

Nereus , in Greek Mythology, was the eldest son of Pontus and Gaia , a Titan who fathered the Nereids, with whom Nereus lived in the Aegean Sea....
and Doris

Doris (mythology)

This is an article about the Greek goddess. For other uses, see Doris .Doris , an Oceanid, was a sea nymph in Greek mythology, whose name represented the bounty of the sea....
, or of Oceanus

Oceanus

Oceanus was believed to be the World Ocean in classical antiquity, which the Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece considered to be an enormous river encircling the world....
and a Naiad, and was made the herdsman of Poseidon's seal

Pinniped

Pinnipeds or fin-footed mammals are a widely distributed and diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals comprising the families Odobenidae , Otariidae , and Phocidae ....
s, the great bull seal at the center of the harem.

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In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
calls the "Old Man of the Sea

Old Man of the Sea

Poseidon

Nereus

Nereus , in Greek Mythology, was the eldest son of Pontus and Gaia , a Titan who fathered the Nereids, with whom Nereus lived in the Aegean Sea....
and Doris

Doris (mythology)

This is an article about the Greek goddess. For other uses, see Doris .Doris , an Oceanid, was a sea nymph in Greek mythology, whose name represented the bounty of the sea....
, or of Oceanus

Oceanus

Pinniped

Mytheme

In the study of mythology, a mytheme is the essential kernel of a myth, an irreducible, unchanging element, one that is always found shared with other, related mythemes and reassembled in various ways—"bundled" was Claude L?vi-Strauss's image— or linked in more complicated relationships, like a molecule in a compound....
familiar from several cultures, will change his shape to avoid having to; he will answer only to someone who is capable of capturing him. From this feature of Proteus comes the adjective

Adjective

In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntax role is to grammatical modifier a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's definition....
protean, with the general meaning of "versatile", "mutable", "capable of assuming many forms": "Protean" has positive connotations of flexibility, versatility and adaptability.

The myth of Proteus

According to Homer

Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
(Odyssey
Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Hellenic civilization epic poetrys attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionally ascribed to Homer....
iv:412), the sandy island of Pharos

Pharos

Pharos may refer to:Places:* Hvar, an island in the Adriatic Sea off the coast of Croatia, originally PharosLighthouses:* Lighthouse of Alexandria, Egypt, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, as well as the island on which the lighthouse stood...
situated off the coast of the Nile Delta

Nile Delta

The Nile Delta is the River delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas?from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, it covers some 240 km of Mediterranean coastline?and is a rich agricultural region....
was the home of Proteus, the oracular Old Man of the Sea and herdsman of the sea-beasts. In the Odyssey, Menelaus

Menelaus

Menelaus may refer to;*Menelaus, one of the two most known Atrides, a king of Sparta and son of Atreus and Aerope*Menelaus on the Moon, named after Menelaus of Alexandria....
relates to Telemachus

Telemachus

Telemachus is a figure in Greek mythology, the son of Odysseus and Penelope, and a central character in Homer's Odyssey. The first four books in particular focus on Telemachus's journeys in search of news about his father; they are, therefore, traditionally accorded the collective title Telemachy....
that he had been becalmed here on his journey home from the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta....
. He learned from Proteus' daughter, Eidothea ("the very image of the Goddess"), that if he could capture her father he could force him to reveal which of the gods he had offended, and how he could propitiate them and return home. Proteus emerged from the sea to sleep among his colony of seals, but Menelaus was successful at holding him, though Proteus took the forms of a lion, a serpent

Serpent (symbolism)

Serpent is a word of Latin origin that is commonly used in a specifically mythology or religion context, signifying a snake that is to be regarded not as a mundane natural phenomenon nor as an object of scientific zoology, but as the bearer of some symbolic value....
, a leopard, a pig, even of water or a tree. Proteus then answered truthfully, further informing Menelaus that his brother Agamemnon

Agamemnon

In Greek mythology, Agamemnon / is the son of King Atreus of Mycenae and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus and the husband of Clytemnestra; different mythological versions make him the king either of Mycenae or of Argos....
had been murdered on his return home, that Ajax the Lesser

Ajax the Lesser

Ajax was a Greeks Greek mythology hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris. He was called the "lesser" or "Locrian" Ajax, to distinguish him from Ajax , son of Telamon....
had been shipwrecked and killed, and that Odysseus

Odysseus

Odysseus or Ulysses , in Greek mythology , was a legendary Greeks king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's Epic poetry, the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
was stranded on Calypso

Calypso (mythology)

Sorry, no overview for this topic
's Isle Ogygia

Ogygia

Ogygia , is an island mentioned in Homer's Odyssey book V as the home of the nymph Calypso , the daughter of the Titan Atlas , also known as Atlantis ...
.

According to Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works?the Bucolics , the Georgics and the Aeneid?although several Appendix Vergiliana are also attributed to him....
in the fourth Georgic

Georgics

The Georgics, published in 29 BCE, is the second major work by the Latin poet Virgil. Its ostensible subject is rural life and farming. It is generally described as Didacticism....
, at one time the bees of Aristaeus

Aristaeus

Cyrene (mythology)

In Greek mythology, as recorded in Pindar's 9th Pythian ode, Cyrene was the daughter of Hypseus, King of the Lapiths. When a lion attacked her father's sheep, Cyrene wrestled with the lion....
, for help; she told him that Proteus could tell him how to prevent another such disaster, but would do so only if compelled. Aristaeus

Aristaeus

A minor god in Greek mythology, which we read largely through Athenian writers, Aristaeus or Aristaios , "ever close follower of the flocks", was the culture hero credited with the discovery of many useful arts, including bee-keeping; he was the son of Apollo and the huntress Cyrene ....
had to seize Proteus and hold him, no matter what he would change into. Aristeus did so, and Proteus eventually gave up and told him to sacrifice 12 animals to the gods, leave the corpses in the place of sacrifice, and return three days later. When Aristaeus returned after the three days he found in one of the carcasses a swarm of bees, which he took to his apiary

Apiary

An apiary is a place where beehive of honey bees are kept. Traditionally beekeepers paid land rent in honey for the use of small parcels. Some farmers will provide free apiary sites, because they need pollination, and farmers who need many hives often pay for them to be moved to the crops when they bloom....
. The bees were never again troubled by disease.

The children of Proteus include besides Eidothea, Polygonos and Telegonos, who both challenged Heracles

Heracles

In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles meaning "glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera" Alcides or Alcaeus " was a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus....
and were defeated and killed, one of Heracles' many successful encounters with representatives of the pre-Olympian world order.

Proteus of Egypt

In the Odyssey
Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Hellenic civilization epic poetrys attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionally ascribed to Homer....
(iv.430ff) Menelaus wrestles with "Proteus of Egypt, the immortal old man of the sea who never lies, who sounds the deep in all its depths, Poseidon's servant" (Robert Fagles

Robert Fagles

Robert Fagles was an United States professor, Poetry of the United States, and Academia, best known for his many translations of ancient Greece classics, especially his acclaimed translations of the Epic poetry of Homer....
' translation). Proteus of Egypt is mentioned in an alternate version of the story of Helen

Helen

In Greek mythology, Helen , better known as Helen of Sparta later Helen of Troy, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda , wife of King Menelaus of Sparta and sister of Castor and Pollux, Castor and Pollux and Clytemnestra....
in Euripides

Euripides

Euripides was the last of the three great tragedy of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias....
' tragedy Helen (produced in 412 BC). The often unconventional playwright introduces a "real" Helen and a "phantom" Helen (who caused the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy stole Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta....
), and gives a backstory that makes the father of his character Theoclymenus

Theoclymenus

In Greek mythology, Theoclymenus, son of Polypheides, was a prophet from Argos, who, in the Odyssey, had been taken from that city after killing one of his relativesbeing captured by pirates....
, Proteus, a king in Egypt who had been wed to a Nereid

Nereids

In Greek mythology, the Nereids are sea nymphs, the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris . They often accompany Poseidon and are always friendly and helpful towards sailors fighting perilous storms....
Psamathe

Psamathe

In Greek mythology, there were two people named Psamathe .#Psamathe was a Nereid, the lover of Aeacus and mother of Phocus . In the tragedy Helen by Euripides, she was married to king Proteus of Egypt....
. In keeping with one of his themes in Helen, Euripides mentions in passing Eido ("image"), another unseen daughter of the king. Euripides' king (never seen) is only marginally related to the "Old Man of the Sea" and should not be confused with the sea god Proteus.

At Pharos

Pharos

Lighthouse of Alexandria

The Lighthouse of Alexandria was a tower built in the 3rd century BC on the island of Pharos in Alexandria, Egypt to serve as that port's landmark, and later, its lighthouse....
—a king of Egypt named Proteus welcomed Dionysus

Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos , is the God of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, among whom Greek mythology treated Dionysus as a late arrival....
in the young god's wanderings.

A further Proteus occurs in Greek myth, as one of the fifty sons of King Aegyptus

Aegyptus

In Greek mythology, Aegyptus is a descendant of the heifer maiden, Io , and the river-god Nilus , and was a king in Ancient Egypt. Aegyptos was the son of Belus and Achiroe, a naiad daughter of Nile....
.

Biology

Many organisms in biology take their name from Proteus. These include:

Two genera
Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
of organisms have the name Proteus:
- Proteus
  Proteus (bacterium)
  
  Proteus is a genus of Gram-negative Proteobacteria....
  is a bacteria
  Bacteria
  
  The Bacteria are a large group of unicellular microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals....
  l genus within the medically important group of Enterobacteriaceae
  Enterobacteriaceae
  
  The Enterobacteriaceae are a large family of bacterium, including many of the more familiar pathogens, such as Salmonella and Escherichia coli....
  . Species
  Species
  
  In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring....
  most commonly associated with clinical disease are Proteus mirabilis
  Proteus mirabilis
  
  Proteus mirabilis is a Gram-negative, facultatively Anaerobic organism bacterium. It shows swarming motility, and urease activity. P. mirabilis causes 90% of all 'Proteus' infections in humans....
  , Proteus vulgaris
  Proteus vulgaris
  
  Proteus vulgaris is a rod-shaped, Gram negative bacterium that inhabits the intestinal tracts of humans and animals. It can be found in soil, water and fecal matter....
  and Proteus penneri. Proteus species are notorious in medical microbiological laboratories because of their rapid swarming growth on commonly used agar plate
  Agar plate
  
  An agar plate is a sterile Petri dish that contains a growth medium used to Microbiological culture microorganisms or small plants like the moss Physcomitrella patens....
  s. Noteworthy is the ability of these species to inhibit growth of unrelated strains resulting in a macroscopically visible line of reduced bacterial growth where two swarming strains intersect. This line is named Dienes line after its discoverer Louis Dienes.
- Proteus, an amphibian genus within the family Proteidae, consisting of a single species Proteus anguinus with two subspecies
  Subspecies
  
  In biology, subspecies is the taxonomic rank immediately subordinate to a species. A subspecies is a taxonomic group which is less distinct than the Common descent or species from which it originates....
  Proteus anguinus anguinus Laurenti 1768, Proteus anguinus parkelj Sket & Arnzten 1994.
The most representative species of the genus Amoeba
Amoeba

Amoeba is a term used either to describe protists that move by crawling via pseudopods, or to refer to a genus that includes species that move by this mechanism....
named Amoeba proteus
Amoeba proteus

Amoeba proteus, previously Chaos diffluens, is an amoeba closely related to the Chaos .This small protozoan uses tentacle protuberances called pseudopodia to move and phagocytosis smaller unicellular organisms, which are enveloped inside the cell's cytoplasm in a food vacuole, where they are slowly broken down by enzymes....
.
The bacterial phylum Proteobacteria
Proteobacteria

The Proteobacteria are a major group of bacteria. They include a wide variety of pathogens, such as Escherichia, Salmonella, Vibrio, Helicobacter, and many other notable genera....
.
The genus Protea
Protea

Protea is both the botanical name and the English common name of a genus of flowering plants, sometimes also called sugarbushes.The genus Protea was named in 1735 by Carolus Linnaeus after the Greek god Proteus who could change his form at will, because proteas have such different forms....
, endemic to the Cape Floral Kingdom, are named in honour of the god for the wide variety of forms that their blossoms present.

"Proteus" and "protean" in English

From his transforming nature, and multifarious aspects comes our adjective "protean". A "protean career" would embrace many human concerns. For example, Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italy polymath, being a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, Painting, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer....
was a painter, sculptor, scientist and designer of fortifications: his career was "protean".

Proteus syndrome

Proteus syndrome

Proteus syndrome is a congenital disorder that causes skin overgrowth and atypical bone development, often accompanied by tumors over half the body....
is the name given to the deforming disease that may have afflicted Joseph Merrick

Joseph Merrick

Joseph Carey Merrick was an English people who became known as "The Elephant Man" because of his physical appearance caused by a congenital defect....
, "The Elephant Man". Although difficult to differentiate from severe neurofibromatosis

Neurofibromatosis

Neurofibromatosis is a genetic disorder in which nerve tissue grows tumors that may be harmless or may cause serious damage by compressing nerves and other tissues....
, there have been about 100 cases of Proteus syndrome over the last few decades.

Proteus in literature and psychology

The German mystical alchemist Heinrich Khunrath

Heinrich Khunrath

Heinrich Khunrath , or Dr. Henricus Khunrath as he was also called, was a physician, Hermetic philosophy, and Alchemy. His most famous work is the Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae , a work on the mystical aspects of alchemy, which contains the oft-seen engraving entitled "The First Stage of the Great Work," better-known as the "A...
(1560–1605) wrote of the shape-changing sea-god who, because of his relationship to the sea, is both a symbol of the unconscious as well as the perfection of the art. Alluding to the scintilla, the spark from ‘the light of nature’ and symbol of the anima mundi, Khunrath in Gnostic vein stated of the Protean element Mercury

our Catholick Mercury, by virtue of his universal fiery spark of the light of nature, is beyond doubt Proteus, the sea god of the ancient pagan sages, who hath the key to the sea and …power over all things. Von Hyleanischen Chaos| in Carl Jung
Carl Jung

Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of Analytical psychology. Jung's approach to psychology has been influential in the field of depth psychology and in counterculture movements across the globe....
, vol. 14:50

The poet John Milton

John Milton

John Milton II was an English poet, author, polemicist and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England. He is best known for his Epic poetry Paradise Lost and for his treatise condemning censorship, Areopagitica....
was also aware of the association of Proteus with the Hermetic art of alchemy

Alchemy

Alchemy , a part of the Occult Tradition, is both a philosophy and a practice with an aim of achieving ultimate wisdom as well as immortality, involving the improvement of the alchemist as well as the making of several substances described as possessing unusual properties....
. In Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century England poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books....
(III.603–06) he wrote of the alchemists who sought the philosopher's stone

Philosopher's stone

The philosopher's stone, reputed to be hard as stone and malleable as wax, is a legendary alchemical tool, supposedly capable of turning base metals into gold; it was also sometimes believed to be an elixir of life, useful for Rejuvenation and possibly for achieving immortality....

In vain, though by their powerful Art they bind

Volatile Hermes

Hermes

Hermes is the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. An Twelve Olympians, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures, of invention, of general commerce, and of the cunni...
, and call up unbound

In various shapes old Proteus from the Sea,

Drain'd through a Limbec

Alembic

An alembic is an alchemy still consisting of two retorts connected by a tube. Technically, the alembic is only the upper part , while the lower part is the cucurbit, but the word was often used to refer to the entire distillation apparatus....
to his native form.

In his discourse The Garden of Cyrus
The Garden of Cyrus

The Garden of Cyrus or The Quincunciall, or Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, naturally, artificially, mystically considered is a Discourse written by Sir Thomas Browne....
(1658) Milton's contemporary Sir Thomas Browne

Thomas Browne

Sir Thomas Browne was an England author of varied works which disclose his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric....
, pursuing the figure of the quincunx

Quincunx

A quincunx is the arrangement of five units in the pattern corresponding to the five-spot on dice, playing cards, or dominoes. The Quincunx was originally a coin issued by the Roman Republic c.211-200 BC, whose value was five twelfths of an as , the Roman standard bronze coin....
, queried

Why Proteus in Homer the Symbole of the first matter, before he settled himself in the midst of his Sea-Monsters, doth place them out by fives?

Shakespeare uses the image of Proteus to establish the character of his great royal villain Richard III

Richard III of England

Richard III was List of the monarchs of the Kingdom of England of Kingdom of England from 1483 until his death. He was the last king from the House of York, and his defeat at the Battle of Bosworth Field marked the culmination of the Wars of the Roses and the end of the Plantagenet dynasty....
in the play Henry VI, Part Three
Henry VI, part 3

Henry the Sixth, Part 3, is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed written in approximately 1590, and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England....
, the prequel to his play Richard III
Richard III (play)

Richard III is a Shakespearean history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1591, depicting the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of Richard III of England....
. In Act III, Scene ii, Richard (not yet the king), boasts:

I can add colors to the chameleon,

Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,

And set the murderous Machiavel to school.

Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?

Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.

Shakespeare also names one of the main characters of his play The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a comedy by William Shakespeare from early in his career. It has the smallest cast of any of Shakespeare's plays, and is the first of his plays in which a heroine dresses as a boy....
Proteus. This character is inconstant in his affections. In the finale of the play when his deceptions have been unraveled and he is face to face with his friend Valentine and original love Julia, Proteus says:

O Heaven, were man

but constant, he were perfect: that one error

fills him with faults; makes him run through all sins

Inconstancy falls off, ere it begins.

In 1807 William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was a major England Romantic poetry poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
finished his sonnet

Sonnet

The sonnet is one of the Poetry that can be found in lyric poetry from Europe.The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian language word sonetto, both meaning "little song"....
on the theme of a modernity deadened to Nature

Nature

File:Jungle in Punjab.JPGNature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical universe, material world or material universe....
, which opens "The world is too much with us

The world is too much with us

"The world Is Too Much With Us" is a sonnet by the England Romanticism poet William Wordsworth. In it, Wordsworth criticizes the modern world for being absorbed in materialism and distancing itself from nature....
", with a sense of nostalgia for the lost richness of a world numinous with deities:

…I'd rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea.

Or hear old Triton

Triton (mythology)

Triton is a mythological Greek mythology, the messenger of the deep. He is the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, and Amphitrite, goddess of the sea....
blow his wreathèd horn.

In modern times the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung

Carl Jung

Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of Analytical psychology. Jung's approach to psychology has been influential in the field of depth psychology and in counterculture movements across the globe....
defined the mythological figure of Proteus as a personification of the unconscious, who, because of his gift of prophecy and shape-changing has much in common with the central but elusive figure of alchemy, Mercurius

Mercurius

Mercurius may refer to:* Mercury or Mercurius* Mercurius , a crater on the Moon* Saint Mercurius* OZ-13MSX2 Mercurius, a mobile suit from New Mobile Report Gundam Wing...
.

St. John's University Staten Island Campus releases a booklet named Proteus where students can express their artistic works.

"Proteus" in modern fiction

In James Joyce

James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Ireland expatriate author of the 20th century. He is best known for his landmark novel Ulysses and its controversial successor Finnegans Wake , as well as the short story collection Dubliners and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ....
's Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)

Ulysses is a novel by James Joyce, first serialized in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on February 2, 1922, in Paris....
, uses Protean transformations of matter in time for self exploration.

In Anne Ursu

Anne Ursu

Anne Ursu is an United States author based in Cleveland, Ohio and Minneapolis, Minnesota, with four published books.Her most recent book, The Siren Song, is the second in a trilogy, the , involving two cousins' adventures in the realms of Greek mythology....
's book The Siren Song, the second book in the Cronus Chronicles, the Greek Proteus, an ally of Poseidon, disguises as protagonist Charlotte's cousin Zee in order to keep the fact from her that he has kidnapped Zee himself. He is also the father of Charlotte's crush, Jason Hart, a mortal who does not appreciate his father's shape-shifting abilities. Once Charlotte finds this fact, she abandons Jason.

The term "Proteus" and "vombis" also were used in a James Blish

James Blish

James Benjamin Blish was an United States author of fantasy fiction and science fiction. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling Jr....
short story about a race of alien beings who could change shape at will, but were not as malevolent as The Thing

The Thing

The Thing is a science fiction film horror film directed by John Carpenter, written by Bill Lancaster, and starring Kurt Russell. Ostensibly a remake of the fy Christian Nyby film The Thing from Another World, Carpenter's film is a more faithful adaptation of the novella Who Goes There? by John W....
written about by John W. Campbell

John W. Campbell

John Wood Campbell, Jr. was an influential figure in science fiction. As editor of Astounding Science Fiction , from late 1937 until his death, he is generally credited with shaping the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction....
.

In the film Fantastic Voyage
Fantastic Voyage

Fantastic Voyage is a 1966 in film science fiction film written by Harry Kleiner. Bantam Books obtained the rights for a paperback novelization based on the screenplay and approached Isaac Asimov to write it ....
, Proteus is the apt name for the experimental submarine which is shrunk to sub-cellular size, and injected into a dying scientist to save his life.

In the animated TV series "Gargoyles

Gargoyles (TV series)

Gargoyles is an United States animated television series created by Greg Weisman. It was produced by Greg Weisman and Frank Paur and aired from October 24, 1994 to February 15, 1997....
", Proteus is the shape-shifting menace and arch-enemy of the city of New Olympus in the episode titled "The New Olympians."

In the role-playing games Vampire: the Masquerade

Vampire: The Masquerade

Created by Mark Rein?Hagen, Vampire: The Masquerade was the first of White Wolf, Inc. World of Darkness live-action role-playing game and role-playing games, based on the Storyteller System and centered around vampire s in a modern Goth subculture-Punk ideology world....
and Vampire: the Requiem

Vampire: The Requiem

Vampire: The Requiem is a role-playing game published by White Wolf, Inc., set in the World of Darkness#The new World of Darkness , and the successor to the Vampire: The Masquerade line....
, vampires of the Gangrel clan may possess a discipline named Protean that allows them to transform into bats, wolves, mist and such.

Kurt Vonnegut's novel Player Piano
Player piano

The player piano is a self-playing piano, containing a pneumatic mechanism that plays on the piano action pre-programmed music via perforated piano rolls....
revolves around the actions of Paul Proteus, a manager of a machine works in New York. Paul's life mirrors Proteus in that he must change his "shape" (character) to find his place in a machine-controlled society with which he is out of sympathy.

In the Film "Lost in Space

Lost in Space

Lost in Space is a science fiction TV series created and produced by Irwin Allen, produced by 20th Century Fox Television, and broadcast on CBS....
", "Proteus" is the name of the space ship that is sent to look for the Robinson Family in an alternate time. The ship is subsequently destroyed.

In another Film, "Demon Seed

Demon Seed

Demon Seed is a 1977 in film American science fiction-horror film starring Julie Christie and directed by Donald Cammell. The film was based on Demon Seed by Dean Koontz, who updated his novel in 1997....
", the evil supercomputer is named "Proteus IV"

In Craig Thomas

Craig Thomas

Craig Thomas may refer to:* Craig L. Thomas , American politician who represented Wyoming in the United States Senate from 1995 to 2007* Craig Thomas , Welsh writer of techno-thrillers, whose best-known novel, Firefox , became a successful film...
' novel Sea Leopard, the British submarine is named HMS Proteus.

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. It is the longest book in the series, and was released on 21 June 2003....
, the Protean Charm is a complex spell used by Hermione Granger

Hermione Granger

Hermione Jean Granger is a fictional character in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. She initially appears in the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, as a new student on her way to magic school....
to enchant coins so that changing the serial number on one affected the others as well. She used it to communicate the times of secret meetings. It was also used by Voldemort to communicate with his Death Eaters.

In the Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics is an American comic book and related media company owned by Marvel Publishing, Inc., a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, Inc. Marvel counts among as its List of Marvel Comics characters such well-known properties as Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk , Iron Man, Spider-Man, the X-Men, and many others....
series X-men

X-Men

The X-Men are a fictional superhero team in the . In the series, Professor Xavier responds to anti-Mutant prejudice by creating a haven at his Westchester County, New York mansion to train young mutants to use their powers for the benefit of humanity....
, Proteus is the villain identity of reality-changing mutant Kevin MacTaggert

Proteus (comics)

Kevin MacTaggert, best known as Proteus and also called Mutant X, is a Marvel Comics fictional character, associated with the X-Men....
, son of Moira MacTaggert

Moira MacTaggert

Dr. Moira Kinross MacTaggert is a fictional character appearing in X-Men stories in the Marvel Comics Marvel Universe....
on Muir Isle Mutant Research Facility.

In the DC Comics

DC Comics

DC Comics is one of the largest and most popular American comic book and related media companies, along with Marvel Comics. A subsidiary of Warner Bros....
pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Legion of Superheroes stories, the Proteans are a race of telepathic shapeshifters. Shapeshifting Legionnaire Chameleon Boy

Chameleon Boy

Chameleon , also known as Chameleon Boy, is a DC Comics superhero, a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30th and 31st centuries....
kept a Protean as a pet, whom he dubbed "Proty". After Proty sacrificed itself to save Saturn Girl

Saturn Girl

Imra Ardeen, known as Saturn Girl, is a comic book fictional character, a DC Comics superhero, a telepathy and a founding member of the Legion of Super-Heroes, an organization of adolescence heroes that exists one thousand years in a future DC Universe....
and resurrect Lightning Lad, Chameleon Boy obtained a new Protean pet, "Proty II".

In Rick Wakeman's song "The Battle/The Journey" Proteus is described as a giant pre-historic man who herds mastadons in the center of the Earth (itself an image from Jules Verne

Jules Verne

Jules Gabriel Verne was a France author who helped pioneer the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Journey to the Center of the Earth , From the Earth to the Moon , Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , and Around the World in Eighty Days ....
's Journey to the Center of the Earth

Journey to the Center of the Earth

A Journey to the Centre of the Earth , also translated as A Journey to the Interior of the Earth, is a classic 1864 science fiction novel by Jules Verne....
)

In Dean Koontz's "Phantoms" the character is referred to as being like Proteus by one of his victims.

In Charles Sheffield's science fiction novels titled "Proteus in the Underworld" and "Proteus Combined." Here Proteus refers to the process of using biofeedback equipment to change the shape of the characters' bodies.

James P. Hogan

James P. Hogan (writer)

James Patrick Hogan is a United Kingdom science fiction author....
's novel The Proteus Operation
The Proteus Operation

The Proteus Operation is a science fiction novel which was written by James P. Hogan and published in 1985. Alternate history, time travel, and parallel universe form the basis of its plot, in which a group of military commandos, diplomats, and scientists travel back to 1939....
. The term Proteus seems to relate to the ability to change time and reality, it that it is "flexible". He also uses it to refer to quantum mechanics wherein it seems as if something changes to avoid being caught (i.e.: the act of measuring something changes it).

In Treasure Planet

Treasure Planet

Treasure Planet is a 2002 in film United States animated feature film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, and released by Walt Disney Pictures on November 27, 2002....
, the alien Morph, a pink blob who takes the form of everything he sees (much like a parrot

Parrot

File:Ara ararauna -eating -Wilhelma Zoo-8-2rc.jpgParrots, also known as psittacines , are birds of the roughly 372 species in 86 genus that make up the order Psittaciformes, found in most warm and tropical regions....
repeats what it hears), is referenced to come from the fictional planet Proteus 1, a reference to his shapeshifting abilities.

In Rick Riordan

Rick Riordan

Rick Riordan author from Texas of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. He also wrote the Tres Navarre mystery series for adults and helped to edit Demigods and Monsters, a collection of essays on the topic of his Percy Jackson series....
's The Titan's Curse

The Titan's Curse

The Titan's Curse is the third book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, written by Rick Riordan. It was released in the United States on April 1, 2007....
, Percy Jackson captures a Proteus-like man, Nereus

Nereus

Nereus , in Greek Mythology, was the eldest son of Pontus and Gaia , a Titan who fathered the Nereids, with whom Nereus lived in the Aegean Sea....
, to ask where the monster that, when its entrails are burned, will give you the power to destroy Mount Olympus

Mount Olympus

Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece at 2,919 metres high . Since its base is located at sea level, it is one of the highest mountains in Europe in terms of topographic prominence, the relative altitude from base to top....
.

In Ralph Ellison

Ralph Ellison

Ralph Waldo Ellison was a scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, named by his father after Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ellison was best known for his novel Invisible Man , which won the National Book Award in 1953 in literature....
's Invisible Man

Invisible Man

Invisible Man, a novel written by Ralph Ellison. It was the only novel that Ellison published during his lifetime, and it won him the National Book Award in 1953 in literature....
, Proteus is the middle name of the con artist Rinehart.

In the children's TV series Thomas and Friends, Proteus is the name of a fictional locomotive told in and old legend.

"Proteus" as name

The German–American scientist Carl August Rudolph Steinmetz, who had several physical disabilities, changed his name to Charles Proteus Steinmetz

Charles Proteus Steinmetz

Charles Proteus Steinmetz was a German-American mathematician and electrical engineer. He fostered the development of alternating current that made possible the expansion of the electric power industry in the United States, formulating mathematical theories for engineers....
. This name reflected his identification with a figure that could easily alter its outward form.

"Proteus" in gaming

Proteus was first used as the name of a roleplaying game published in 1992 by and written by Bruce Gomes and Duncan Barrow. Non-standard races and an original world setting, using skill rolls under stats on 1d30. Currently out-of-print.

Proteus is also the name of a cross-genre roleplaying game. Proteus is a freely downloadable game available through . The game focuses on characters with incredible mental powers, Psionics. Proteus was a project to artificially create such people for military purposes. The name of the Greek god was chosen to reflect both the fact that these individuals are extremely adaptable and that they are among the first of their kind. An expanded version, Proteus: Second Edition, is currently in the works.

The collectible card game Magic: The Gathering

Magic: The Gathering

Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast....
references Proteus in the card Proteus Machine from the Scourge expansion that is able to change its creature type to any type when it is morphed. Recently in the Dissension expansion, the creature Protean Hulk allows its controller to replace it with other creatures when it dies.

Proteus is the name of an expansion for the collectible card game Netrunner

Netrunner

Netrunner is a collectible card game designed by Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering. It was published by Wizards of the Coast and introduced in 1996....
.

Proteus is also the name of a key document in the computer game Freelancer.

In the role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade

Vampire: The Masquerade

Gangrel (World of Darkness)

The Gangrel are a clan of vampires, often associated with the Camarilla , from White Wolf, Inc.'s Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Dark Ages, and Vampire: The Requiem books and role-playing games....
that enables them to shapeshift, grow claws and see in the dark.

In the Paragons setting for role-playing game Mutants and Masterminds

Mutants and Masterminds

Mutants & Masterminds is a top-selling multiple ENnie award and Pen & Paper Fan Award winning superhero role-playing game written by Steve Kenson and published by Green Ronin Publishing based on a variant of the d20 System by Wizards of the Coast....
Proteus is a silvery shapeshifting paranormal. He is a paranormal supremacist with uncertain origins - everything from regular paranormal to shapeshifting alien to artificial construct made of nanomachines has been proposed.

In the game F.E.A.R., 'Proteus' is the name for a text file concerning the Icarus and Perseus Projects.

In the game Culdcept Saga

Culdcept Saga

is a video game developed exclusively for the Xbox 360 video game console. It is the first entry for a Microsoft console in the Magic: The Gathering-meets-Monopoly game franchise that included previous installments on the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Sega Saturn and Dreamcast....
, a 'Protean Ring' tool will transform the user's creature into another random creature for the duration of the battle.

In the Apocrypha release of EVE Online

EVE Online

Eve Online is a video game by CCP Games. It is player-driven persistent-world massively multiplayer online game set in a science fiction space setting....
, the Gallente Strategic Cruiser is named the 'Proteus' Class. Strategic Cruisers allow players to change the shape of the ship depending on the subsystems incorporated into its fitting.

Proteus

The myth of Proteus

Proteus of Egypt

Biology

"Proteus" and "protean" in English

Proteus in literature and psychology

"Proteus" in modern fiction

"Proteus" as name

"Proteus" in gaming

See also