In Greek
mythology, Proteus is an early sea-god, one of several deities whom Homer calls the "Old
Man of the Sea," whose name suggests the "first" as protogonos is the "
primordial" or the "firstborn.” He became the son of Poseidon in the Olympian theogony (Odyssey iv. 432), or of Nereus and Doris, or of Oceanus and a Naiad, and was made the herdsman of Poseidon's seals, the great bull seal at the center of the harem. He can foretell the future, but, in a mytheme familiar from several cultures, will change his shape to avoid having to; he will answer only to someone who is capable of capturing him.