AEGAEON Aegaeon was another name for Briareus, one of the Hecatoncheires, hundred-handed and fifty-headed monsters born to the earth goddess Gaia. In Homer’s epic the Iliad, it is explained that Aegaeon is the name that humans called him by but that the gods called him Briareus. In the passage of time, some monsters became conflated or confused with others. This was the case with Aegeaon/Briareus, whom the Roman poet Ovid describes as a sea deity, while Virgil, in his Aeneid, makes him a fire-breathing monster and one of the Giants who made an assault on Zeus and his siblings, the so-called Olympian gods. Aegaeon was even identified as one of the one-eyed Cyclopes.

(See also Briareus, Cyclopes [the], Gaia, Giants [the], Hecatoncheires [the], Olympus [Mount], and Zeus.)

ANTAEUS Antaeus was a Libyan giant and the son of Poseidon and Gaia (“Earth”). According to the mythographer Apollodorus, Antaeus would challenge travelers to his country to a wrestling match, in which he inevitably prevailed. The poet Pindar adds that he used the skulls of his victims to roof his father Poseidon’s temple. Antaeus met his match when Hercules came to Libya on his way to retrieve the Hesperides’ golden apples: in the knowledge that Antaeus derived his strength from contact with the earth (his mother), Hercules lifted him in the air and squeezed the life out of him.

(See also Gaia, Hercules, Hesperides [the], and Poseidon.)

ARGES Arges, “The Flashing One,” was a Cyclops, one of the one-eyed giants born to the elemental gods Uranus (“Heaven”) and Gaia (“Earth”). His brothers were Brontes and Steropes, according to the Greek poet Hesiod in his account of the origin of the gods.

(See also Cyclopes [the], Gaia, and Uranus.)

ARGUS The giant herdsman Argus (or Argos), the “Panoptes” (“All-Seeing One”), as he was called, was said to have as few as four eyes and as many as a thousand, according to the poet Hesiod and the tragedian Aeschylus, respectively. The mythographer Apollodorus adds that his eyes covered his entire body, and we learn from Ovid, for whom Argus had one hundred eyes, that only two of these rested shut at any given time. Just as there were divergent accounts of his appearance, there was no consensus about his parentage. Apollodorus lists four different potential human fathers, while for Aeschylus he was born directly from the earth and thus autochthonous. Argus is best known for his guardianship of the lovely maiden Io, whom Zeus pursued. To hide his amatory antics from his jealous wife, Hera, Zeus changed poor Io into a heifer. When Hera, suspecting trickery, asked Zeus for the heifer as a gift, he could thus hardly refuse. Upon receiving Io, Hera tasked Argus with guarding her, though she was ultimately rescued by Hermes, who slew the monster. The killing of Argus is what earned Hermes the name “Argeiphontes,” “Argos-Slayer.” As a tribute to her devoted servant, Hera placed Argus’s eyes on the tail feathers of the peacock, her sacred bird.

Other less-known exploits on Argus’s part are recorded by Apollodorus, who reports that the exceedingly strong Argus killed the following: a bull that was ravaging Arcadia; a Satyr who was stealing the Arcadians’ cattle; the monster Echidna, who was harassing passersby; and those guilty of murdering Apis, a king of the Peloponnese.

(See also Arcadia, Echidna, Hera, Hermes, Io, Satyrs [the], and Zeus.)

BRIAREUS Briareus (“The Mighty One”), also known as Obriareus or Aegaeon, was one of the three Hecatoncheires, hundred-handed and fifty-headed monsters born of the Earth goddess Gaia and Uranus. His siblings included the three one-eyed Cyclopes and the twelve Titan gods, according to the poet Hesiod. Of the Hecatoncheires, Briareus alone acquired somewhat of a personal mythology. For Homer, he is a son of Poseidon and was called upon by Thetis to prevent Poseidon, Hera, and Athena from revolting against Zeus and placing him in chains. Pausanias, on the other hand, repeats a tale explaining how the god Poseidon came to have special claim to the Isthmus of Corinth: when Poseidon and the sun god Helios were quarreling about control of the Isthmus, Briareus negotiated an agreement between them whereby Poseidon would maintain his interest in the isthmus while Helios would hold sway over the Corinthian acropolis, or Acrocorinth. Helios, in turn, would later transfer the Acrocorinth to Aphrodite.

(See also Aegaeon, Aphrodite, Corinth, Cyclopes [the], Gaia, Hecatoncheires [the], Olympus [Mount], Poseidon, Titans [the], Uranus, and Zeus.)

BRONTES Brontes, whose name means “the thunderer,” was one of the brood of one-eyed Cyclopes born to the gods Uranus and Gaia. His brothers, according to the Greek poet Hesiod, were Arges and Steropes.

(See also Cyclopes [the], Gaia, and Ouranos.)

CACUS Cacus (“The Evil One,” also spelled Kakos) was a bloodthirsty, fire-breathing, half-human giant and a son of the god Vulcan. In his epic the Aeneid, the Roman poet Virgil tells the only real story about him, a story repeated, but in slightly different detail, by other poets in the time of the emperor Augustus (indicating that Virgil might have been the story’s original source). While Hercules was driving Geryon’s cattle through Italy, Cacus contrived a ruse whereby to steal them. While Hercules had stopped to pasture his cattle, Cacus, under the cover of night, grabbed eight cattle by the tail and dragged them to his cavern lair beneath the Aventine Hill at the future site of Rome; the cattle having been moved in this way, Hercules would be unable to track them. But, when Hercules later passed by the cave, one of the remaining cattle bellowed, and one of purloined cattle lowed in response, alerting Hercules to its whereabouts. In a rage, Hercules tore off the jagged peak that served as the cavern’s roof and pelted the giant with arrows, branches, and rocks. Weakened, the monster could be strangled. His death was cause for celebration among the surrounding populace who, now rid of a scourge, revered Hercules as a hero and established the Great Altar of Hercules in his honor.

(See also Geryon, Hercules, and Vulcan.)

CECROPS Cecrops was known as the first king of Athens and its territory, Attica, which in his time was called Cecropia. He was reputedly autochthonous—literally being born from the earth—and hybrid in form, his lower body being that of a snake.

(See Cecrops [hero].)

CELAENO According to the Roman poet Virgil, Celaeno was one of the ghastly bird-woman Harpies who tortured the offending king Phineus as well as Aeneas’s band of Trojan refugees by snatching away their food before it could be eaten. When the Trojans, swords in hand, attacked the Harpies, Celaeno terrified them by prophesying that they would eventually reach their goal, the shores of Italy, but that they would there suffer from grievous famine. Interestingly, Virgil describes Celaeno as a Fury, and thus as one of the Spirits of Vengeance with whom the Harpies may have been conflated. The Harpy Celaeno is to be distinguished from the Oceanid of the same name.

(See also Aeneas, Furies [the], Harpies [the], Oceanids [the], Phineus, and Trojans [the].)

CENTAURS, THE The Centaurs, literally “bull-slayers,” are generally viewed as a tribe of hybrid creatures who had the torso of a human and body of a horse, but there was also a tradition—as, for example, recorded by the historian Diodorus Siculus—that they were a savage people who were the first to ride horses and who mated with mares to produce the first generation of “hippo-centaurs” (“horsey bull-slayers”). The Centaurs are described in some sources, including Diodorus, as being the direct offspring of the sinner Ixion and Nephele, a cloud goddess shaped by Zeus to resemble his wife, Hera, whom Ixion was pursuing. They are also called the children of Centaurus, a monstrous child of Ixion and Nephele, or of the god Apollo and Stilbe, a daughter of the river god Peneus and the Naiad Creusa. According to the poet Pindar, Centaurus sired the hybrid Centaurs by mating with mares. Still another tradition, preserved by the poet Nonnus, describes Zeus, having taken on the form of a horse, as being the father of the Centaurs with Ixion’s wife, Dia.

The Centaurs are collectively best known for their battle with the Lapiths, a neighboring people whose prince, Pirithous, invited them to his wedding. Whether it was because they became inebriated and accordingly unruly, or because they resented the fact that Pirithous, another of Ixion’s offspring, was going to inherit the latter’s throne, the Centaurs tried to make off with the Lapith women at the wedding. A fierce battle ensued, in which the Lapiths prevailed. This famous battle was depicted both on the sculptures of the Parthenon and the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, where it symbolized the precedence of the Greeks over barbarians and culture over savagery. Several of the Centaurs had their own, distinct mythologies. These included the wise and educated Chiron, who raised the young Achilles, and Nessus, who assaulted Hercules’s wife Deianeira.

(See also Achilles, Apollo, Chiron, Deianeira, Hercules, Ixion, Lapiths [the], Naiads [the], Nephele, Nessus, Parthenon [the], Pirithous, Olympia, and Zeus.)

CERBERUS Cerberus, whom Homer calls “the hound of Hades,” was one of the brood of monsters, which include the Hydra of Lerna and the Chimaera, spawned by Typhon and the half maiden, half serpent Echidna. He was variously described as having as many as fifty or one hundred heads and as few as three. The mythographer Apollodorus writes that Cerberus, the three-headed dog, had the tail of a dragon and snakes’ heads growing from his back. For the poet Hesiod, Cerberus was an eater of raw flesh and had a bark like clashing bronze. Cerberus’s duty was to allow the deceased to enter the House of Hades but to block the living from entering and the dead from leaving. On the instruction of the Sibyl of Cumae, the living hero Aeneas secured passage into Hades by throwing Cerberus a drugged honey cake. The best-known myth involving Cerberus is the tale of Hercules’s twelfth and final Labor (or by some accounts, the tenth): Hercules was ordered to bring Cerberus up from the Underworld, a task that he accomplished by overpowering the beast without the use of weapons. As the poet Ovid writes, upon reaching the realm of the living, the distressed hound raged, foam from its mouth falling upon the earth to produce the poisonous plant aconite, which the sorceress Medea used in attempting to kill the hero Theseus.

(See also Aeneas, Chimaera, Echidna, Hades [god and place], Hydra of Lerna [the], Medea, Sibyl of Cumae [the], Theseus, Typhon, and Underworld [the].)

CERYNITIAN HIND, THE The Cerynitian Hind, a golden-antlered deer sacred to the goddess Artemis, took its name from the Greek river Cerynites, which rose in Arcadia and flowed through Achaea into the sea. Capturing this deer and bringing it alive to Mycenae constituted the third Labor of Hercules. According to the mythographer Apollodorus, Hercules, wishing neither to kill nor wound it, pursued it for a whole year. At last, the weary deer sought shelter on Mount Artemisius, and while making its way to the river Ladon, it was shot and wounded by Hercules, who carried it off on his shoulders. Along the way, Hercules encountered an angry Artemis, accompanied by her brother Apollo. The gods would have taken the deer from him but ultimately allowed him to continue with it to Mycenae when he explained that he had only been following orders from King Eurystheus who, accordingly, was to blame.

(See also Apollo, Arcadia, Artemis, Eurystheus, Hercules, and Mycenae.)

CHARYBDIS The whirlpool Charybdis, conceived of as a female monster, was located opposite Scylla in a narrow strait. According to Homer, a fig tree growing on the rocks above her signaled her exact location, thus allowing Odysseus safely to avoid her. Three times daily Charybdis would suck down waters so forcefully that even Poseidon could not rescue a ship caught in the maelstrom’s powerful vortex. To avoid her, Odysseus resigned himself to the certain loss of men to Scylla, whose lair he would have to pass by closely. Jason, on his return journey from the land of Colchis, and Aeneas, on his way to Italy, were also able safely to avoid Charybdis. It was speculated even in antiquity that Charybdis actually existed and was located in the treacherous Straits of Messina.

(See also Aeneas, Colchis, Jason, Odysseus, Poseidon, and Scylla.)

CHIMAERA, THE The Chimaera was a hybrid female monster that, according to the poet Hesiod, was born of the half-maiden monster Echidna to Typhaon, a lawless monster confused or conflated by later writers with the hundred-bodied Typhon (also called Typhoeus). The Chimaera’s siblings, all likewise monsters, included Orthus, the hound of Geryon; the hellhound Cerberus; and the many-headed Hydra of Lerna. For Hesiod, the Chimaera was fearsome, huge, swift-footed, and strong. She had three heads—one of a lion, another of a goat, and another of a dragon—being a lion in the front, a fire-breathing goat at her middle, and a serpent to the rear. The hero Bellerophon was sent by the Lycian king Iobates to kill this monster, which was ravaging the countryside. This Perseus did with the help of the winged horse Pegasus, whom he had tamed with the help of the gods, and from whose back he, flying aloft, slew the monster with his arrows.

(See also Bellerophon, Echidna, Geryon, Hydra of Lerna [the], Iobates, Lycia, Pegasus, and Typhon.)