Source: http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/classical.monsters.html
Katherine S. McCartney and M. Delahoyde
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Monsters in classical mythology are typically part
animal and part human, or else they constitute a
collection of animal graftings. They are not really
horror monsters, just unpleasant or nasty afflictions
sent by the gods. They often do no more than throw
into relief the heroism of the protagonist (e.g.,
Perseus, Oedipus, Odysseus, Theseus) by existing
simply to be overcome or destroyed as obstacles to his
goal.
In modern monster stories, conversely, heroes are
boring and draw little interest whereas we remember
the monster. It is the monster who lives on and who
even lends its name to the story (e.g., Dracula, The
Mummy, The Wolf Man, The Blob, etc.).
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Insofar as monsters manifest the polar opposites
of what a culture values, the fact that the classical
monsters are deviations from the "classical"
human form is telling. Greek and Roman culture is
known for its sculpture of what has become the
ideals of male and female beauty. Naturally its
monsters diverge from this.
Distortion from or violation of the cultural ideal is
what defines them as monsters.
Cerberus is the watchdog of the realm of Hades,
generally described as being a three-headed dog with a
serpent tail, and on his back innumerable snakes'
heads. He is believed to be the son of Echidna and
Typhon, brother of Orthrus, the monstrous dog of
Geryon, of the Hydra of Lerna, and of the Nemean lion.
Chained in front of the gates of the Underworld, he
terrorizes souls upon their entering. You can catch a
glimpse of him in Virgil's Aeneid, Book VI (Aeneas'
journey into the underworld) and in Dante's Inferno. In
other stories, Cerberus was bested by men such as
Heracles and Orpheus.
He stops barking if you throw him some bread soaked
in wine. "To give a sop to Cerberus" means to present
someone who is likely to cause trouble with a gift in
order to keep him quiet, but this works best on dogs.
Considered savage and violent, these beings are half man
and half horse. The live in the mountains and forests, their
food is raw flesh, and their behavior is bestial. The
centaurs are known for their drunkenness and lust and are
often portrayed as followers of Dionysus, god of wine.
Two centaurs, Chiron and Pholus, were not the brutal
beasts as their lineage destined, but rather were
hospitable, charitable, and loved their fellows, shunning
violence.
Centaurs are known for their battling against Heracles and
were featured in some legends concerning abductions.
Nessus had given Dejanira, the wife of Heracles, a small
bottle filled with his own blood, telling her that if she ever
found that her husband ceased to love her, she could
restore his affection by using it. However, this blood was
poison to the touch and in some legends destroyed
Heracles. A version of this story can be found in Ovid's
Metamorphoses.
Satyrs had the head and upper
body of people, but the lower
body of a goat.
The Roman name for satyrs was
fauns.
Pan was the leader of the satyrs
and the god of shepherds.
This monster is a legendary beast taking
its shape from both a goat and a lion.
Some stories say that it had the
hindquarters of a snake and the head of a
lion on the body of a goat. Others claimed
that it had two heads, one goat and one
lion, and it breathed fire. The king of Lycia,
Iobates, commanded Bellerophon to kill it
since the monster made many raids on his
kingdom; with the help of Pegasus, the
winged horse, Bellerophon succeeded.
The Chimaera often appears in
architecture, although the monster is
usually greatly changed from the form
known to classical mythology.
These beings are giants with one enormous eye in
the middle of their forehead. In Hesiod, the three
sons--Arges, Brontes, and Steropes--of Uranus and
Gaea, the personifications of heaven and earth,
were Cyclopes. They were thrown into the
underworld by their brother Cronus, one of the
Titans, after he dethroned Uranus. Zeus released
the Cyclopes from the underworld and they gave
him the gifts of thunder and lightning.
In Alexandrine poetry, the Cyclopes were
considered merely as subordinate spirits: smiths
and craftsmen who made the weapons for the
gods. They forged Zeus' lightning bolts.
In Homer's Odyssey, the Cyclopes are shepherds
from Sicily. They are lawless, savage and
cannibalistic. They fear neither gods nor humans.
Harpies are birds with the
heads of women, long claws,
faces pale with hunger, and
they leave behind filth and
stench. They were originally
sent by Zeus/Jove to torment a
blinded soothsayer, Phineas.
This monster was also the spawn of Echidna and
Typhon, a snake with numerous heads that were
sometimes said to be human as well. It was brought up
near the source of the river Amymone in order to
provide a test for Heracles. The breath of the Hydra was
so venomous that anyone who approached it would die,
even if the monster was sleeping.
Heracles thought to destroy it by cutting off its heads,
but as soon as he did so more heads grew in their place.
Therefore Heracles seared the bleeding necks of the
monster with a torch in order to prevent growth that
way. According to some legends one of the heads was
immortal, but Heracles cut it off anyway and buried it
deep in the earth. Heracles also dipped his arrowheads
in the Hydra's blood and made them extremely
poisonous.
The term hydra is commonly applied to any complex
situation or problem that continually poses
compounded difficulties.
Somewhat vampirical, this was a
female monster who was thought to
steal children and drink their blood.
She was thought to have a woman's
head and breasts, but a serpent's
body. In some accounts she was one
of Zeus' lovers who bore him children.
Hera, in fits of jealousy, caused each
child that was born to die. In despair,
Lamia became a monster jealous of
mothers more fortunate than herself.
So she devoured their children.
Female spirits which attached
themselves to children in order to
suck their blood were also called
Lamiae.
Once a beautiful woman, Medusa was the child of
Phorcys and Ceto. Of the three sisters, the gorgons,
Medusa was the only mortal. Their hair was a mass of
serpents; they had huge tusks, hands of bronze, and
golden wings enabling them to fly. Anyone who
encountered their gaze was turned to stone
immediately from a horrible fear and loathing.
Poseidon was the only immortal not fearful of
Medusa since he fathered a child with her. Medusa
was defeated by Perseus, who managed to chop off
her head by looking at her through a looking-glass,
which was most likely a bronze shield. This story can
be found in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Athena made use
of Medusa's head by fixing it to the center of her
shield or her aegis.
People of today sometimes call a person a gorgon,
meaning that her aspect is so stern and forbidding
that it almost turns one to stone.
The Minotaur was a beast that had the body of a man
and the head of a bull.
Legend has it that King Minos of Crete tried to cheat
Poseidon by begging for a beautiful white bull for
sacrifice to the gods. However, when Minos got hold
of this bull he put it in with his own herds. Very angry,
Poseidon caused Minos' wife to fall in love with the
bull and become its lover. The Minotaur was the result
of this weird union.
The Labyrinth was built in order to house the beast
and each year he was fed with seven boys and seven
girls who were the tribute exacted by Minos from
Athens. Theseus was able to defeat the Minotaur with
the help of Ariadne, King Minos' daughter. She gave
him a skein of thread and a sword so that he might kill
the monster and then retrace his steps back through
the labyrinth.
The horrendous lion was killed by
Heracles. Hera raised the lion and
set it in the region of Nemea,
where it ravaged the land,
devoured people, and ate the
herds. The legends state that no
weapon could penetrate the lion's
pelt. Therefore, Heracles
strangled the lion in the cave it
lived in and flayed it. He then clad
himself in its skin and used the
head as his helmet.
This monster was said to have the face of a
woman; the chest, feet, and tail of a lion; and
wings of a bird. This monster was sent to Thebes
by Hera to punish the city for the crime of Laius,
who had been guilty of loving Pelops' son. The
Sphinx devoured every mortal who passed by
within reach, but it would ask passers-by this
riddle: "What is it that has four feet in the
morning, two at noon, and three at night?" If
they couldn't solve the riddle they died. Only
Oedipus was able to solve it: humans crawl on
all fours in infancy, attain bipedal status, and
late in life walk with a cane. In despair the
Sphinx threw itself from the top of a rock and
killed itself.
In ancient Egypt, sphinxes were statues
representing deities, with the body of a lion and
the head of some other animal or of man,
frequently a likeness of the king.
1.
What similarities do you see with the ancient
Greek monsters?
2.
Are there ways you would group / categorize
them?
3.
For each of the groups that you see, why do you
think the ancient Greeks concentrated on these
groups?
There are several common denominators among the mythological
monsters. Except for the Cyclopes, each monster described above
has one or more appendages from various types of animals. The
most prominent animal appendage, however, was the serpent. Each
time the serpent was seen as a physical influence, it shot horrible
fear through the hearts of those that challenged the monster as
well as those the monster ravaged. Could it be that the serpent
showed how fearful the Greeks and Romans were towards the
gods?
When Heracles battled the Hydra, it was interpreted that the hydra
with the heads that renewed themselves was in reality the marsh of
Lerna, which was drained by Heracles. The heads represented the
springs which always seeped back, making Heracles' efforts useless
(Grimal 197). Throughout the centuries, the serpent has generally
symbolized some sort of evil, whether monstrous, as in Greek and
Roman mythology, or as the symbol of the devil, as in Christianity.
The lion is another animalistic feature present within many of the
monsters. This could possibly depict savagery and a hunger for blood from
the hunt. These beings were considered monstrous because not only did
they have animalistic appendages, they also were brutally savage and
loved the kill. This savagery and brutality could signify a fear of pagans,
cannibals, and uncivilized people--even the uncivilized urges within us.
The monsters typically are a test from the gods or a punishment. But why
animals? Why not someone who had such magic that a spell could destroy
people in a puff of smoke? Perhaps because people feared more that
which was tangible to them, like a being with the body of a man and a
head of a bull. People are afraid of the animalistic nature within them
because it makes them uncivilized. The beings with mixed animal and
human appendages were savage and uncivilized. The monsters depicted
pure animalistic nature, which civilized human beings received with
disgust and revulsion. The gods perhaps chose animalistic beings as tests
for the humans because the animals are the closest in species to the
humans but still distant enough to be unknowable.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnAJy5ITWME
Harpy (fury) in Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLpPDAQ0Z3s
Pan’s Labyrinth (satyr)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kguwhKq30I
Perseus vs. the Minotaur – Wrath of the Titans
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhLScMxedXI
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – Cerberus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5OERqTniro
The Odyssey - Cyclopes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akg77QqDPYI
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief – Hydra