According to an ancient Greek legend, who was the first vampire to appear in history?
Question #148445. Asked by pehinhota.
Last updated May 14 2021.
Originally posted May 08 2021 2:56 PM.
looney_tunes
Answer has 15 votes
Currently Best Answer
looney_tunes Moderator 19 year member
3326 replies
Answer has 15 votes.
Currently voted the best answer.
Ambrogio, a young man who was punished by Apollo for daring to fall in love with Selene, a woman the god himself fancied. This curse caused him to be unable to be exposed to the sun. Trying to get this sorted, he asked for help from Hades - but fulfilling that task got him in the bad books with Artemis, who cursed him to suffer agony if in contact with silver. Finally, he got her help to reuinite him with Selene, but the price was having to kill her mortal body and drink her blood, so that she could become immortal. Selene became the moon, and Ambrogio the first vampire.
This isn't really an Ancient Greek legend though if the hero of it has a modern Italian name like Ambrogio. It is clearly a modern legend pretending that the traditional features of vampirism are tied to Ancient Greek gods, when they seem to be Slavic in origin.
May 13 2021, 10:26 PM
Baloo55th
Answer has 1 vote
Baloo55th 22 year member
4545 replies
Answer has 1 vote.
It may be worth pointing out that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selene has not a single mention of Ambrogio or vampires. A look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrogio also does not contain any reference to vampires (or Selene). The list of Ambrogios, while containing a British robotic lawnmower, does not contain any person earlier than St Ambrogio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose who was born quite a lot later than the introduction of Selene into the Greek pantheon. I think the possible origin of this 'ancient legend' might be in a Harry Potter pastiche at fanfiction.net, but don't feel inclined to dig any deeper into the rehashings of this fairly certainly pseudo legend. There are definite references to the Ambrogio lawnmower and the saint easily found, but I have found nothing reliable for the 'vampire'. I may be missing something - feel free to prove me wrong.