![]() " ‘He once sent me even here to fetch away the hound of Haides, for he thought no task could be more fearsome for me than that. "If in the wiliness of my heart I had had thoughts like his, when Herakles (Heracles) was sent down to Haides of the Gates, to hale back from Erebos (the Dark) the hound of the grisly death god ( Haides Stygeros), never would he have got clear of the steep-dripping water Styx." Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.ĬLASSICAL LITERATURE QUOTES Heracles, Cerberus and Hecate, Apulian red-figure volute krater C4th B.C., Staatliche Antikensammlungen 784.) The place where Cerberus kept watch was according to some at the mouth of the Acheron, and according to others at the gates of Hades, into which he admitted the shades, but never let them out again. 449.) Some poets again call him many-headed or hundred-headed. Later writers describe him as a monster with only three heads, with the tail of a serpent and a mane consisting of the heads of various snakes. ![]() 311) fifty-headed and a son of Typhaon and Echidna. 623.) Hesiod, who is the first that gives his name and origin, calls him ( Theog. EKHIDNA (Bacchylides Frag 5, Ovid Metamorphoses 7.412)ĬE′RBERUS (Kerberos), the many-headed dog that guarded the entrance of Hades, is mentioned as early as the Homeric poems, but simply as "the dog," and without the name of Cerberus. TYPHOEUS & EKHIDNA (Hesiod Theogony 310, Quintus Smyrnaeus 6.260, Hyginus Pref & Fab 30) Kerberos' name perhaps means "Death-Daemon of the Dark" from the ancient Greek words kêr and erebos. Herakles (Heracles) was sent to fetch Kerberos as one of his twelve labours, a task which he accomplished with the aid of the goddess Persephone. According to some he had fifty heads although this count may have included the serpents of his mane. ![]() Kerberos was depicted as a three-headed dog with a serpent's tail, mane of snakes, and a lion's claws. KERBEROS (Cerberus) was the gigantic, three-headed hound of Haides which guarded the gates of the underworld and prevented the escape of the shades of the dead. Death-Darkness? Heracles and Cerberus the hound of Hades, Caeretan black-figure hydria C6th B.C., Musée du Louvre
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |