User:Paul August/Echidna (mythology)

Echidna (mythology)

To Do

Read

• Ogden 2013a

Introduction: pp. 1-25?

Chapter 2, pp. 68-86

Chapter 4, pp. 148-151

Someday?

• Find Schol. Aristoph. Frogs 473 (See Hošek)
• Look at Visintin 1997 [1] (cited by Ogden 2013a, p. 81 n. 67)
• Look at Küster 1913 pp. 86–92 (cited by Ogden 2013a, p. 81 n. 67)

Sources

Ancient

Homer

Iliad

2.780–784

So marched they then as though all the land were swept with fire; and the earth groaned beneath them, as beneath Zeus that hurleth the thunderbolt in his wrath, when he scourgeth the land about Typhoeus in the country of the Arimi [εἰν Ἀρίμοις], where men say is the couch of Typhoeus. Even so the earth groaned greatly beneath their tread as they went;

2.864–866

And the Maeonians [Lydians] had captains twain, Mesthles and Antiphus, [865] the two sons of TaIaemenes, whose mother was the nymph of the Gygaean lake; and they led the Maeonians, whose birth was beneath Tmolas.

20.381–385

But Achilles leapt among the Trojans, his heart clothed about in might, crying a terrible cry, and first he slew Iphition, the valiant son of Otrynteus, the leader of a great host, whom a Naiad nymph bare to Otrynteus, sacker of cities, [385] beneath snowy Timolus in the rich land of Hyde.

Odyssey

12.124–125

Nay, row past with all thy might, and call upon Crataiis, [125] the mother of Scylla, who bore her for a bane to mortals.

Hesiod

Theogony

265–269

And Thaumas wedded Electra the daughter of deep-flowing Ocean, and she bore him swift Iris and the long-haired Harpies, Aello （Storm-swift） and Ocypetes （Swift-flier） who on their swift wings keep pace with the blasts of the winds and the birds; for quick as time they dart along.

270–294.

And again, Ceto bore to Phorcys the fair-cheeked Graiae, sisters grey from their birth: and both deathless gods and men who walk on earth call them Graiae, Pemphredo well-clad, and saffron-robed Enyo, and the Gorgons who dwell beyond glorious Ocean [275] in the frontier land towards Night where are the clear-voiced Hesperides, Sthenno, and Euryale, and Medusa who suffered a woeful fate: she was mortal, but the two were undying and grew not old. With her lay the Dark-haired One¹ in a soft meadow amid spring flowers. [280] And when Perseus cut off her head, there sprang forth great Chrysaor and the horse Pegasus who is so called because he was born near the springs² of Ocean; and that other, because he held a golden blade³ in his hands. Now Pegasus flew away and left the earth, the mother of flocks, [285] and came to the deathless gods: and he dwells in the house of Zeus and brings to wise Zeus the thunder and lightning. But Chrysaor was joined in love to Callirrhoe, the daughter of glorious Ocean, and begot three-headed Geryones. Him mighty Heracles slew [290] in sea-girt Erythea by his shambling oxen on that day when he drove the wide-browed oxen to holy Tiryns, and had crossed the ford of Ocean and killed Orthus and Eurytion the herdsman in the dim stead out beyond glorious Ocean.

¹ i.e. Poseidon.

² pegae

³ aor

295–305

And in a hollow cave she [Ceto? Callirrhoe?] bore another monster, irresistible, in no wise like either to mortal men or to the undying gods, even the goddess fierce Echidna who is half a nymph with glancing eyes and fair cheeks, and half again a huge snake [ὄφιν], great and awful, with speckled skin, eating raw flesh beneath the secret parts of the holy earth. And there she has a cave deep down under a hollow rock far from the deathless gods and mortal men. There, then, did the gods appoint her a glorious house to dwell in: and she keeps guard in Arima beneath the earth, grim Echidna, [305] a nymph who dies not nor grows old all her days.

306–318

Men say that Typhaon the terrible, outrageous and lawless, was joined in love to her, the maid with glancing eyes. So she conceived and brought forth fierce offspring; first she bore Orthus the hound of Geryones, [310] and then again she bore a second, a monster not to be overcome and that may not be described, Cerberus who eats raw flesh, the brazen-voiced hound of Hades, fifty-headed, relentless and strong. And again she bore a third, the evil-minded Hydra of Lerna, whom the goddess, white-armed Hera nourished, [315] being angry beyond measure with the mighty Heracles. And her Heracles, the son of Zeus, of the house of Amphitryon, together with warlike Iolaus, destroyed with the unpitying sword through the plans of Athena the spoil driver.

319–336

She [Echidna?] was the mother of Chimaera who breathed raging fire, [320] a creature fearful, great, swift footed and strong, who had three heads, one of a grim-eyed lion, another of a goat, and another of a snake, a fierce dragon; in her forepart she was a lion; in her hinderpart, a dragon; and in her middle, a goat, breathing forth a fearful blast of blazing fire. [325] Her did Pegasus and noble Bellerophon slay; [326] but ["she" Echidna?] was subject in love to Orthus and brought forth the deadly Sphinx which destroyed the Cadmeans, and the Nemean lion, which Hera, the good wife of Zeus, brought up and made to haunt the hills of Nemea, a plague to men. [330] There he preyed upon the tribes of her own people and had power over Tretus of Nemea and Apesas: yet the strength of stout Heracles overcame him. And Ceto was joined in love to Phorcys and bore her youngest, the awful snake [Ladon] who guards [335] the apples all of gold in the secret places of the dark earth at its great bounds. This is the offspring of Ceto and Phorcys.

824–825

From his [Typhon's] shoulders [825] grew a hundred heads of a snake, a fearful dragon,

Homeric Hymns

Hymn to Apollo (3)

300–304

[300] But near by was a sweet flowing spring, and there with his strong bow the lord, the son of Zeus, killed the bloated, great she-dragon, a fierce monster wont to do great mischief to men upon earth, to men themselves and to their thin-shanked sheep; for she was a very bloody plague.

305–306

[305] She it was who once received from gold-throned Hera and brought up fell, cruel Typhaon to be a plague to men.

349–369

But when the months and days were fulfilled [350] and the seasons duly came on as the earth moved round, she bare one neither like the gods nor mortal men, fell, cruel Typhaon, to be a plague to men. Straightway large-eyed queenly Hera took him and bringing one evil thing to another such, gave him to the dragoness; and she received him. [355] And this Typhaon used to work great mischief among the famous tribes of men. Whosoever met the dragoness, the day of doom would sweep him away, until the lord Apollo, who deals death from afar, shot a strong arrow at her. Then she, rent with bitter pangs, lay drawing great gasps for breath and rolling about that place. [360] An awful noise swelled up unspeakable as she writhed continually this way and that amid the wood: and so she left her life, breathing it forth in blood. Then Phoebus Apollo boasted over her:

“Now rot here upon the soil that feeds man' You at least shall live no more to be a fell bane to men [365] who eat the fruit of the all-nourishing earth, and who will bring hither perfect hecatombs. Against cruel death neither Typhoeus shall avail you nor ill-famed Chimera, but here shall the Earth and shining Hyperion make you rot.”

Epimenides

fr. 7 Fowler apud Pausanias 8.18.2 [= FGrHist 457 F 5; Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker 3 B 6]

Fowler 2001, p. 96

Pausanias 8.18.2

Epimenides of Crete, also, represented Styx as the daughter of Ocean, not, however, as the wife of Pallas, but as bearing Echidna to Peiras, whoever Peiras may be.

Freeman, p. 10 (apud Demonax | Hellenic Library Beta)

6. (Pausanias: Epimenides also makes Styx the daughter of Ocean, and unites her not with Pallas but with an unknown Peiras, to whom she bore Echidna).

fr. 8 [=FGrHist 457 F 6a, Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker 3 B 7]

Fowler 2001, p. 96

Freeman, p. 10 (apud Demonax | Hellenic Library Beta)

7. (Epimenides says that the Harpies are the children of Ocean, and were slain near (Rhegium?)).

Gantz, p. 18

the Epimenides Theogony, however calls [the Harpies] daughters of Okeanos and Gaia (3B7),

Pindar

Olympian

4.6–7

Son of Cronus, you who hold Aetna, the wind-swept weight on terrible hundred-headed Typhon,

Pythian

1.15–28

[15] among them is he who lies in dread Tartarus, that enemy of the gods, Typhon with his hundred heads. Once the famous Cilician cave nurtured him, but now the sea-girt cliffs above Cumae, and Sicily too, lie heavy on his shaggy chest. And the pillar of the sky holds him down, [20] snow-covered Aetna, year-round nurse of bitter frost, from whose inmost caves belch forth the purest streams of unapproachable fire. In the daytime her rivers roll out a fiery flood of smoke, while in the darkness of night the crimson flame hurls rocks down to the deep plain of the sea with a crashing roar. [25] That monster shoots up the most terrible jets of fire; it is a marvellous wonder to see, and a marvel even to hear about when men are present. Such a creature is bound beneath the dark and leafy heights of Aetna and beneath the plain, and his bed scratches and goads the whole length of his back stretched out against it.

8.15–16

Violence trips up even a man of great pride, in time. Cilician Typhon with his hundred heads did not escape you,

Fragment 92 [apud Strabo 13.4.6]

Race, p. 317

92 [apud Strabo 13.4.6] Strabo, Geography of Greece. "Pindar associates the territory of Pithekoussai and of Sicily with that of Cilicia, for he says that Typhos lies beneath Aitna (he quotes Pyth. 1.17-19), and further":¹

around him Aitna, an enormous confinement,

lies.

Fragment 93 [apud Strabo 13.4.6]

Race, p. 318

93 The same [Strabo]. "and further":

but father Zeus alone of the gods was slaying unapproachable, fifty-headed¹ Typhos by force once among the Arimoi.²

¹ Elsewhere in Pindar Typhos has one hundred heads.

² Cf. Il. 2.783 and Hes. Th. 304. It is uncertain whether this is a people or place—or where either is located.

West, p. 250

Pi fr. 93 ἀλλ᾽ οἶος ἄπλατον ...

Fontenrose, pp. 72–73

[Pindar] describes Typhon much as Aeschylus does and definitely places him in the "Cilician cave of many names" (Κιλίκιον θρέψεν πολυώνυμον ἄντρον), i.e., the Corycian Cave; but he barely allides to the combat, swaying only that Zeus destroyed Typhon among the Arimoi (presumbly in Cilicia) and that he lies in dread Tartaros under Etna. He is the earliest author to mention the flight of the gods before Typhon, when they took animal forms to escape him.⁷

⁷ Aesch. Pr. 353-374, Sept. 511-517; Pind. Pyth. 1.15-20, 8.16, Ol. 4.7 f., frags. 81, 240 Bowra.

Fox Lane, p. 292

In the early fifth century BC Pindar described the lair which "nurtured Typhon" [Pythian 1.17] as the "highly celebrated Cilician cave": it was presumably there, as we know in a fragment of one of his lost poems, that he claimed that "once, among the Arimoi," Zeus had battered Typhon, the monster with "fifty" heads.³³

Lasus of Hermione

Fragment 706A (Campbell, pp. 310–311)

The Sphinx was daughter of Echidna and Typhon, according to Lasus of Hermione.

[See also Theoi "Ekidna"]

Hipponax

(Cited by Ogden 2013a) Fragment 79

The dog stealer ... hisses like a viper

ANDRISANO, p. 295

[το]ῦ κυνὸς τὸν φιλήτην/ [ ]ὡς ἔχιδνα συρίζει (Hipponax fr. 79.10–11 W² = 79 Deg.²) (...the dog-stealer ... hisses like a viper, trans. Gerber 1999, 415)

West 1971, p. 133

Acusilaus

fr. 13 Fowler [= FGrH 2F13, Ogden 2013a] [= Diels Vorsokr.⁵ 9 B 6 = FGrH 2 F13?, Hošek]

Fowler 2001, p. 11

Ἐχίδνης καὶ Τυφῶνος Κέρβεροη καὶ ἄλλα τερατώδη τέκνα

Fowler 2013, p. 28

Kerberos and 'other monsters' duly reappear as children of Typhon and Echidna in Akous. fr. 13;

Freeman, p. 15 [= Demonax | Hellenic Library Beta]

6. (Cerberus is the son of Echidnê and Typho; also other monsters, including the eagle that eats the liver of Prometheus).

Gantz, p. 22

To this list, Akousilaos (2F13) and Pherekydes (3F7) agree in adding the eagle who devoured Prometheus' liver; Hesiod gives it no parentage.

Ogden 2013a, pp. 149–150 with n. 4

In the meantime the pair [Echidna and Typhon] had also aquired another monstrous child, according to Acusilaus and Pherecydes, in the form of the eagle that devoured Prometheus' liver.⁴

⁴Aucsilaus of Argos F13 Fowler, Pherecydes F7 Fowler.

Aeschylus

Prometheus Bound 353–356

Pity moved me, too, at the sight of the earth-born dweller of the Cilician caves curbed by violence, that destructive monster [355] of a hundred heads, impetuous Typhon.

Bacchylides

Ode 5.62

So it was, they say, that the gate-destroying unconquerable son [Heracles] of Zeus of the flashing thunderbolt went down to the halls of slender-ankled Persephone [60] to bring up into the light from Hades the razor-toothed dog [Cerberus], son of the fearsome Echidna.

Pherecydes of Athens

fr. 7 Fowler [= FGrH 3F7 = Frag. 21 Müller = Schol. Ap. Rhod. 2.1248-50a (212.12 Wendel)]

Fowler 2001, p. 278

Τυφῶνος καὶ Ἐχίδνης τῆς Φόρκυνος τὸν ἀετὸν τὸν ἐπιπεμφθέντα Προμηθεῖ

Fowler 2013, p. 28

To this progeny, Pher. fr. 7 adds the eagle who devoured Prometheus' liver. The great hero-tormenting eagle sits reasonably well with siblings such as the Sphinx and the Nemean Lion.⁹⁸

⁹⁸ The genealogy is repeated in Apollod. 2.119.

Ogden 2013a, pp. 149–150 with n. 4

In the meantime the pair [Echidna and Typhon] had also aquired another monstrous child, according to Acusilaus and Pherecydes, in the form of the eagle that devoured Prometheus' liver.⁴

⁴Aucsilaus of Argos F13 Fowler, Pherecydes F7 Fowler.

Gantz, p. 22

To this list, Akousilaos (2F13) and Pherekydes (3F7) agree in adding the eagle who devoured Prometheus' liver; Hesiod gives it no parentage.

Allen, "Prometheus and The Caucasus", American Journal of Philoogy, Vol. XIII, No. 49, p. 61)

Pherecydes of Leros ... treated the story of Prometheus. The one quotation we have from this narrative concerns itself with the parentage of the eagle which tortured Prometheus.¹ It [eagle] was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna.

¹Frag. 21 Müller (= Schol. Apoll. Rhod. II.1252).

Hošek, p. 678

Pherecydes, FGrH 3 F 7 names the father [of Echidna] -»Phorkys without specifying a mother

fr. 16b Fowler [= FGrH 3 F 16 b]

Fowler 2001, p. 286

Fowler 2013, p. 28

Pher. fr. 16b adds [to the children of Typhon of Echidna] a hundred-headed, nameless snake [Ladon] that guarded the apples of the Hesperides.⁹⁷

⁹⁷ So also Apollod, Bibl. 2.113, Hyg. Fab. 151.1; Ap. Rhod. 4.1396-8 makes him earthborn and is the first to call him Ladon. Hesiod. Th. 333-5 made the serpent child of Keto and Phorkys.

Fowler 2013, p. 292

Fr. 16b says ...she [Hera] appointed a monstrous snake, child of Typhon and Echidna, possessing '100 heads and all manner of voices', to guard [the Golden Apples]

Ogden 2013a, p. 149 n. 3

³ ... Prior to Hyginus, Echidna had been made the mother of Ladon by Pherecydes F16b Fowler;

Hošek, p. 678

Children of E. and Typhon: ... Pherecydes, FGrH 3 F 16 b, the hundred-headed serpent that guards the golden apples of the Hesperides (-»Hesperides, -»Hercules;. Cf. Hes. Theog. 333-336).

fr. 54 Fowler

Fowler 2001, p. 307

Fowler 2013, p. 29

The report of Pher. fr. 54 makes it clear that ...

Gantz, p. 50

Pherekydes also told the story: a summary of his account relates that Typhoeus flees to Caucasus and then, when those mountains begin burning (from a thunderbolt?), to Italy, where the island of Pithekoussai is thrown up around him (3F54).

Sophocles

Women of Trachis 1097–1099

you [Heracles] tamed the beast in Erymanthia, and underground the three-headed whelp of Hades, a resistless terror, offspring of the fierce Echidna;

Herodotus

1.93

There are not many marvellous things in Lydia to record, in comparison with other countries, except the gold dust that comes down from Tmolus. [2] But there is one building to be seen there which is much the greatest of all, except those of Egypt and Babylon. In Lydia is the tomb of Alyattes, the father of Croesus, the base of which is made of great stones and the rest of it of mounded earth. It was built by the men of the market and the craftsmen and the prostitutes. [3] There survived until my time five corner-stones set on the top of the tomb, and in these was cut the record of the work done by each group: and measurement showed that the prostitutes' share of the work was the greatest. [4] All the daughters of the common people of Lydia ply the trade of prostitutes, to collect dowries, until they can get themselves husbands; and they themselves offer themselves in marriage. [5] Now this tomb has a circumference of thirteen hundred and ninety yards, and its breadth is above four hundred and forty yards; and there is a great lake hard by the tomb, which, the Lydians say, is fed by ever-flowing springs; it is called the Gygaean lake. Such then is this tomb.

4.8

This is what the Scythians say about themselves and the country north of them. But the story told by the Greeks who live in Pontus is as follows. Heracles, driving the cattle of Geryones, came to this land, which was then desolate, but is now inhabited by the Scythians. [2] Geryones lived west of the Pontus, settled in the island called by the Greeks Erythea, on the shore of Ocean near Gadira, outside the pillars of Heracles. As for Ocean, the Greeks say that it flows around the whole world from where the sun rises, but they cannot prove that this is so. [3] Heracles came from there to the country now called Scythia, where, encountering wintry and frosty weather, he drew his lion's skin over him and fell asleep, and while he slept his mares, which were grazing yoked to the chariot, were spirited away by divine fortune.

4.9

When Heracles awoke, he searched for them, visiting every part of the country, until at last he came to the land called the Woodland, and there he found in a cave a creature of double form that was half maiden and half serpent; above the buttocks she was a woman, below them a snake. [2] When he saw her he was astonished, and asked her if she had seen his mares straying; she said that she had them, and would not return them to him before he had intercourse with her; Heracles did, in hope of this reward. [3] But though he was anxious to take the horses and go, she delayed returning them, so that she might have Heracles with her for as long as possible; at last she gave them back, telling him, “These mares came, and I kept them safe here for you, and you have paid me for keeping them, for I have three sons by you. [4] Now tell me what I am to do when they are grown up: shall I keep them here (since I am queen of this country), or shall I send them away to you?” Thus she inquired, and then (it is said) Heracles answered: [5] “When you see the boys are grown up, do as follows and you will do rightly: whichever of them you see bending this bow and wearing this belt so, make him an inhabitant of this land; but whoever falls short of these accomplishments that I require, send him away out of the country. Do so and you shall yourself have comfort, and my will shall be done.”

4.10

So he drew one of his bows (for until then Heracles always carried two), and showed her the belt, and gave her the bow and the belt, that had a golden vessel on the end of its clasp; and, having given them, he departed. But when the sons born to her were grown men, she gave them names, calling one of them Agathyrsus and the next Gelonus and the youngest Scythes; furthermore, remembering the instructions, she did as she was told. [2] Two of her sons, Agathyrsus and Gelonus, were cast out by their mother and left the country, unable to fulfill the requirements set; but Scythes, the youngest, fulfilled them and so stayed in the land. [3] From Scythes son of Heracles comes the whole line of the kings of Scythia; and it is because of the vessel that the Scythians carry vessels on their belts to this day. This alone his mother did for Scythes. This is what the Greek dwellers in Pontus say.

Euripides

The Phoenician Women

1019–1025 [Coleridge]

You [the Sphinx] came, you came, O winged creature, born of earth [1020] and hellish viper [Ἐχίδνας], to prey upon the sons of Cadmus, full of death, full of sorrow, half a maiden, a murderous monster, with roving wings [1025] and ravening claws;

1019–1025 [Wyckoff]

You came, you came,

you winged thing, earth's offspring, monster's child,

to seize the sons of Cadmus.

Half a maiden, fearful beast,

with roving wings and claws that fed on blood.

Ogden 2913a, p. 149 n. 3

Prior to Hyginus, Echidna had been made the mother of ... the Sphinx by Euripides Phenissae 1020 ...

See also Pearson, p. 154; Mastronarde, p. 437

Aristophanes

Frogs

465–478

Aeacus [to Dionysus disguised as Heracles]

O impious, daring, and most shameless wretch,

O villain, double villain, and arch-villain,

It was you who came before, and stole my dog,

Poor Cerberus! you gagged and seized him,

And then ran off—I was guarding him! but now we've got you,

Thus the black-hearted Stygian rock

and the crag of Acheron dripping with gore

can hold you; and the circling hounds of Cocytus

and Echidna with her hundred heads shall tear [473]

your entrails; your lungs will be attacked by

the Tartesian Eel, your kidneys

bleeding with your very entrails

the Tithrasian Gorgons will rip apart.

To them I will direct my hasty foot.

Anaxilas

F22

Edmonds, The Fragments of "Attic Comedy" After Meineke, Bergk, and Kock: Augm., Newly Ed. with Their Contexts, Annot., and Completely Transl. Into English Verse. Old comedy, pp. 340–341

[See Ogden 2013a, p. 4 n. 7: Anaxilas Comicus F22 lines 1–6 asserts that courtesans are less civilized even than an unapproachable drakaina, the Chimaera, Charybdis, Scylla, the Sphinx, the Hydra, a lioness, the Echidna, or Harpies;" ]

Callisthenes

FGrH 124 F33 [apud Strabo 13.4.6]

Callisthenes says that the Arimi, after whom the neighboring mountains are called Arima, are situated near Mt. Calycadnus and the promontory of Sarpedon near the Corycian cave itself.

Lane Fox

p. 292

According to Callisthenes, "the Arimoi are located by the Corycian cave near Calycadnus and the promintory of Sarpedon: the neighbourging mountains are called 'Arima.'"³⁴

p. 406

34. Callisthenes, FGrH 124 F33.

Callimachus

fragment 515 Pfeiffer (Trypanis, pp. 258–259) [= fragment 40 (161) Mair (below)]

... the foreigner.^a bringing the monstrous son of Echidna from below.

^a Heracles, who dragged Cerberus, the monstrous dog, guardian to the entrance of the lower world, away. Cerberus was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna.

fragment 40 (161) Mair [= fragment 515 Pfeiffer (above)]

The guest bringing from the underworld the snaky [ἐχιδναῖον] beast.^c

^c The 12th labour of Heracles was to bring from Hades Cerberus whose mother was Echidna.

Apollonius of Rhodes

Argonautica

2.1208–1215 (pp. 184–185)

so huge a serpent keeps round and about it [the fleece] deathless and sleepless, which Earth [Gaia] herself brought forth on the sides of Caucasus, by the rock of Typhaon, where Typhaon, they say, smitten by the bolt of Zeus, son of Cronos, when he lifted against the god his sturdy hands, dropped from his head hot gore; and in such plight he reached the mountains and plain of Nysa, where to this day he lies whelmed beneath the waters of the Serbonian lake.

4.1396 (pp. 388–389)

Ladon, the serpent of the land, till yesterday kept watch over the golden apples in the garden of Atlas;

Lycophron

Alexandra

1351ff. (pp. 606–607)

And in turn falcons^f [Tyrrhenians from Lydia come to Eturia] set forth from Tmolus and Cimpsus and the gold-producing streams of Pactolus and the waters of the lake where the spouse^g [Echidna] of Typhon couches in the hidden recess of her dread bed,

Diodorus Siculus

2.43.3

At a later time, as the Scythians recount the myth, there was born among them a maiden sprung from the earth; the upper parts of her body as far as her waist were those of a woman, but the lower parts were those of a snake. With her Zeus lay begat a son whose name was Scythes. This son became more famous than any who had preceded him and called the folk Scythians after his own name.

5.71.2–6

He [Zeus] also visited practically the entire inhabited earth, putting to death robbers and impious men and introducing equality and democracy; and it was in this connection, they say, that he slew the Giants and their followers, Mylinus in Crete and Typhon in Phrygia.

Virgil

Ciris 67 [Latin commentary]

Sive illam monstrum genuit grave Echidna biformis,

Lyne, pp. 130–131

Strabo

5.4.9 [Jones, LacusCutius]

The island of Prochyta lies off Cape Misenum, and it is a fragment broken off of Pithecussae.³⁵⁶ Pithecussae was once settled by Eretrians and also [p. 457] Chalcidians, who, although they had prospered there on account of the fruitfulness of the soil and on account of the gold mines, forsook the island ³⁵⁷ as the result of a quarrel; later on they were also driven out of the island by earthquakes, and by eruptions of fire, sea, and hot waters; for the island has "fistulas" of this sort, [248] and it was these that caused also the people sent thither by Hiero the tyrant of Syracuse to forsake the island and the fortress they had erected there; and then the Neapolitans came over and took possession. Hence, also, the myth according to which Typhon lies beneath this island, and when he turns his body the flames and the waters, and sometimes even small islands containing boiling water, spout forth. But what Pindar says is more plausible, since he starts with the actual phenomena; for this whole channel, beginning at the Cumaean country and extending as far as Sicily, is full of fire, and has caverns deep down in the earth that form a single whole, connecting not only with one another but also with the mainland; and therefore, not only Aetna clearly has such a character as it is reported by all to have, but also the Lipari Islands, and the districts round about Dicaearchia, Neapolis, and Baiae, and the island of Pithecussae. This, I say, is Pindar's thought when he says that Typhon lies beneath the whole region: "Now, however, both Sicily and the sea-fenced cliffs beyond Cumae press hard upon his shaggy breast."

³⁵⁶ But cp. 1.3.19.

³⁵⁷ Strabo's conciseness (if the MSS. are correct) leaves the passage obscure as to whether (1) both peoples left together because of a quarrel with other inhabitants, and later on returned, only to be driven out by the earthquakes (about 500 B.C.), or (2) left separately, first, the Chalcidians, because of a quarrel between the two, and, later on, the Eretrians, because of the earthquakes, or (3) part of each left at first, and the rest later on; but the first interpretation seems more likely. Livy (8.22), without mentioning the Eretrians, ascribes the founding of Cumae to the Chalcidians who had previously settled "Aenaria and Pithecussa."

9.2.20 [Jones, Perseus]

Among the neighboring lakes are Lake Trephia1 and the Cephissian Lake, which is also mentioned by the poet: "Who dwelt in Hyle, strongly intent upon wealth, on the shore of the Cephissian Lake."2 For he does not mean Lake Copais, as some think, but lake Hylice (accented on the last syllable like lyricé), which is named after the village near by that is called Hyle (accented like lyra and thyra), not Hyde, as some write, "who dwelt in Hyde." For Hyde is in Lydia, "below snowy Tmolus in the fertile land of Hyde,"3 whereas Hyle is in Boeotia; at any rate, the poet appends to the words, "on the shore of the Cephissian lake," the words, "and near him dwelt the rest of the Boeotians." For Lake Copais is large, and not in the territory of Thebes; whereas the other is small, and is filled from lake Copais through subterranean channels; and it is situated between Thebes and Anthedon. Homer, however, uses the word in the singular number, at one time making the first syllable long, as in the Catalogue, "and Hyle and Peteön,4 by poetic licence, and at another making it short, "who dwelt in Hyle," and "Tychius . . . , by far the best of leatherworkers, who had his home in Hyle."5 And certain critics are not correct in writing Hyde here, either; for Aias was not sending to fetch his shield from Lydia.

12.8.19 [Jones, Perseus] [= the first part of Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum Xanthus F4 p. 36 =? FGrH 765 F4a (see Ogden) or F13? (see Lane Fox)]

One should also hear the words of the ancient historians, as, for example, those of Xanthus, who wrote the history of Lydia, when he relates the strange changes that this country often underwent, to which I have already referred somewhere in a former part of my work.¹ And in fact they make this the setting of the mythical story of the Arimi and of the throes of Typhon, calling it the Catacecaumene² country. Also, they do not hesitate to suspect that the parts of the country between the Maeander River and the Lydians are all of this nature, as well on account of the number of the lakes and rivers as on account of the numerous hollows in the earth. And the lake³ between Laodiceia and Apameia, although like a sea,⁴ emits an eflluvium that is filthy and of subterranean origin. And they say that lawsuits are brought against the god Maeander for altering the boundaries of the countries on his banks, that is, when the projecting elbows of land are swept away by him; and that when he is convicted the fines are paid from the tolls collected at the ferries.

¹ 1.3.4.

² Cp. 13.4.11.

³ Now called Chardak Ghieul.

⁴ i.e., in size and depth.

13.4.5 [Jones, Perseus]

Sardeis is a great city, and, though of later date than the Trojan times, is nevertheless old, and has a strong citadel. It was the royal city of the Lydians, whom the poet calls Meïonians; and later writers call them Maeonians, some identifying them with the Lydians and others representing them as different, but it is better to call them the same people. Above Sardeis is situated Mt. Tmolus, a blest mountain, with a look-out on its summit, an arcade of white marble, a work of the Persians, whence there is a view of the plains below all round, particularly the Caÿster Plain. And round it dwell Lydians and Mysians and Macedonians. The Pactolus River flows from Mt. Tmolus; in early times a large quantity of gold-dust was brought down in it, whence, it is said, arose the fame of the riches of Croesus and his descendants. But the gold-dust has given out. The Pactolus runs down into the Hermus, into which also the Hyllus, now called the Phrygius, empties. These three, and other less significant rivers with them, meet and empty into the sea near Phocaea, as Herodotus says.¹ The Hermus rises in Mysia, in the sacred mountain Dindymene, and flows through the Catacecaumene country into the territory of Sardeis and the contiguous plains, as I have already said,² to the sea. Below the city lie the plain of Sardeis and that of the Cyrus and that of the Hermus and that of the Caÿster, which are contiguous to one another and are the best of all plains. Within forty stadia from the city one comes to Gygaea,³ which is mentioned by the poet, the name of which was later changed to Coloe, where is the temple of Coloënian Artemis, which is characterized by great holiness. They say that at the festivals here the baskets dance,⁴ though I do not know why in the world they talk marvels rather than tell the truth.

¹ Hdt. 1.80.

² Cf. 13. 1. 2.

³ Lake Gygaea, Hom. Il. 2.865

⁴ Thought to be the baskets carried on the heads of maidens at festivals.

13.4.6 [Jones, Perseus]

The verses of Homer are about as follows: “Mnesthles and Antiphus, the two sons of Talaemenes, whose mother was Lake Gygaea, who led also the Meïonians, who were born at the foot of Tmolus;”¹ but some add the following fourth verse: “At the foot of snowy Tmolus, in the fertile land of Hyde.” But there is no Hyde to be found in the country of the Lydians. Some also put Tychius there, of whom the poet says, “far the best of workers in hide, who lived in Hyde.”² And they add that the place is woody and subject to strokes of lightning, and that the Arimi live there, for after Homer's verse, “in the land of the Arimi where men say is the couch of Typhon,”³ they insert the words, “in a wooded place, in the fertile land of Hyde.” But others lay the scene of this myth in Cilicia, and some lay it in Syria, and still others in the Pithecussae Islands, who say that among the Tyrrhenians "pitheci"⁴ are called "arimi." Some call Sardeis Hyde, while others call its acropolis Hyde. But the Scepsian⁵ thinks that those writers are most plausible who place the Arimi in the Catacecaumene country in Mysia. But Pindar associates the Pithecussae which lie off the Cymaean territory, as also the territory in Sicily, with the territory in Cilicia, for he says that Typhon lies beneath Aetna: “Once he dwelt in a far-famed Cilician cavern; now, however, his shaggy breast is o'er-pressed by the sea-girt shores above Cymae and by Sicily.”⁶ And again, “round about him lies Aetna with her haughty fetters,” and again, “but it was father Zeus that once amongst the Arimi, by necessity, alone of the gods, smote monstrous Typhon of the fifty heads.”⁷ But some understand that the Syrians are Arimi, who are now called the Arimaeans, and that the Cilicians in Troy, forced to migrate, settled again in Syria and cut off for themselves what is now called Cilicia. Callisthenes says that the Arimi, after whom the neighboring mountains are called Arima, are situated near Mt. Calycadnus and the promontory of Sarpedon near the Corycian cave itself.

¹ Hom. Il. 2.864

² Hom. Il. 7.221

³ Hom. Il. 2.783

⁴ i.e., monkeys.

⁵ Demetrius of Scepsis.

⁶ Pind. P. 1.31

⁷ Pind. Fr. 93 （Bergk)

13.4.11 [Jones, Perseus] [= the second part of Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum Xanthus F4 p. 36 =? FGrH 765 F4b (see Ogden) or F13? (see Lane Fox)]]

After this region one comes to the Catacecaumene country,¹ as it is called, which has a length of five hundred stadia and a breadth of four hundred, whether it should be called Mysia or Meïonia (for both names are used); the whole of it is without trees except the vine that produces the Catacecaumenite wine, which in quality is inferior to none of the notable wines. The surface of the plain is covered with ashes, and the mountainous and rocky country is black, as though from conflagration. Now some conjecture that this resulted from thunderbolts and from fiery subterranean outbursts, and they do not hesitate to lay there the scene of the mythical story of Typhon; and Xanthus adds that a certain Arimus was king of this region;

¹ i.e., "burnt" country, situated about the upper course of the Hermus and its tributaries. Hamilton (Researches, II, p. 136, quoted by Tozer (Selections, p. 289, confirms Strabo's account.

16.2.7 [Jones, LacusCutius]

The Orontes River flows near the city. This river has its sources in Coelê-Syria; and then, after flowing underground, issues forth again; and then, proceeding through the territory of the Apameians into that of Antiocheia, closely approaches the latter city and flows down to the sea near Seleuceia. Though formerly called Typhon, its name was changed to that of Orontes, the man who built a bridge across it. Here, somewhere, is the setting of the mythical story of the Arimi, of whom I have already spoken.⁴³ [751] They say that Typhon (who, they add, was a dragon), when struck by the bolts of lightning, fled in search of a descent underground; that he not only cut the earth with furrows and formed the bed of the river, but also descended underground and caused the fountain to break forth to the surface; and that the river got its name from this fact. Now on the west, below Antiocheia and Seleuceia, lies the sea; and it is near Seleuceia that the Orontes forms its outlets, this city being forty stadia distant from the outlets, and one hundred and twenty from Antiocheia. Inland voyages from the sea to Antiocheia are made on the same day one starts. To the east of Antiocheia are the Euphrates, as also Bambycê and Beroea and Heracleia, [p. 247] small towns once ruled by the tyrant Dionysius, the son of Heracleon. Heracleia is twenty stadia distant from the temple of Athena Cyrrhestis.

⁴³ 12.8.19, 13.4.6

16.4.27 [Jones, LacusCutius]

[p. 373] The poet also mentions "Arimi,"²²² by which, according to Poseidonius, we should interpret the poet as meaning, not some place in Syria or in Cilicia or in some other land, but Syria itself; [785] for the people in Syria are Aramaeans, though perhaps the Greeks called them Arimaeans or Arimi

²²² Iliad 2.783.

Hyginus

Fabulae

Preface

From Gorgon and Ceto, Sthenno, Eurylae, Medusa.

From Thaumas and Electra: Iris, Harpies, Celaeno, Ocypete, Podarce.

From Typhon and Echidna: Gorgon, Cerberus, the dragon which guarded the Golden Fleece at Colchis, Scylla who was woman above but dog-forms below [whom Hercules killed]; Chimaera, Sphinx who was in Boeotia, Hydra serpent which had nine heads which Hercules killed, and the dragon of the Hesperides.

From Neptune and Medusa, the horse Pegasus.

14

They drove away the three Harpies, Aëllopous, Celaeno, and Ocypete, daughter of Thaumas and Oxomene, from Phiensu, son of Agenor, when Jason’s comrades were going to Colchis.

30

The Nemean Lion, an invulnerable monster, which Luna had nourished in a two-mouthed cave, he [Hercules] slew and took the pelt for defensive covering.

He killed at the spring of Lerna the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra, offspring of Typhon.

The huge dragon, Typhon’s son, which used to guard the golden apples of the Hesperides, he killed near Mount Atlas, and brought the apples to King Eurystheus.

67

the Sphinx, offspring of Typhon,

151

CHILDREN OF TYPHON AND ECHIDNA

From Typhon the giant and Echidna were born Gorgon, the three-headed dog Cerberus, the dragon which guarded the apples of the Hesperides across the ocean, the Hydra which Hercules killed by the spring of Lerna, the dragon which guarded the ram’s fleece at Colchis, Scylla who was woman above but dog below, with six dog-forms sprung from her body, the Sphinx which was in Boeotia, the Chimaera in Lycia which had the fore part of a lion, the hind part of a snake, while the she-goat itself formed the middle. From Medusa, daughter of Gorgon, and Neptues, were born Chrysaor and horse Pegasus; from Chrysaor and Callirhoe, three-formed Geryon.

Poeticon astronomicon

2.15

[Zeus] sent an eagle to [Prometheus] to eat out his liver which was constantly renewed at night. Some have said that this eagle was born from Typhon and Echidna, other from Terra and Tartarus, but many point out it was made by the hands of Vulcan and given life by Jove.

Ovid

Metamorphoses

4.500–501

And with a monstrous composite of foam—

once gathered from the mouth of Cerberus,

the venom of Echidna,

7.406–409

Medea, seeking his destruction, brewed

the juice of aconite, infesting shores

of Scythia, where, 'tis fabled, the plant grew

on soil infected by Cerberian [Echidneae "of Echidna"] teeth.

10.311 ff.

Cupid declares his weapons never caused

an injury to Myrrha, and denies

his torches ever could have urged her crime.—

one of the three bad sisters kindled this,

with fire brand from the Styx, and poisoned you

with swollen vipers.

13.749

And the nymph,

daughter of Nereus, thus replied to her [Crataeide i.e the daughter of Crataeis, Scylla]:

Pliny the Elder

Natural History

5.30

Lydia, bathed by the sinuous and ever-recurring windings of the river Mæander, lies extended above Ionia; it is joined by Phrygia on the east and Mysia on the north, while on the south it runs up to Caria: it formerly had the name of Mæonia1. Its place of the greatest celebrity is Sardes2, which lies on the side of Mount Tmolus3, formerly called Timolus. From this mountain, which is covered with vineyards, flows the river Pactolus4, also called the Chrysorroas, and the sources of the Tarnus: this famous city, which is situate upon the Gygæan Lake5, used to be called Hyde6 by the people of Mæonia. This jurisdiction is now called that of Sardes, and besides the people of the places already mentioned, the following now resort to it—the Macedonian Cadueni7, the Loreni, the Philadelpheni8, the Mæonii, situate on the river Cogamus at the foot of Mount Tmolus, the Tripolitani, who are also called the Antoniopolitæ, situate on the banks of the Mæander, the Apollonihieritæ9, the Mesotimolitæ10, and some others of no note.

1 By this name alone it is known to Homer.

2 Its ruins, now called Sart, are very extensive, though presenting nothing of importance. Its citadel, situated on a rock, was considered to be almost impregnable.

3 Now called Kisilja Musa Dagh. It was famous for its wine, saffron, and gold.

4 Now called the Sarabat. It was famous for its gold-producing sands.

5 On the road between Thyatira and Sardes: near it was situate the necropolis of Sardes.

6 Strabo says that some persons called the citadel only by that name.

Valerius Flaccus

Argonautica

4.422–435 Latin

His tale was done; and clam winds were making the canvas fill. The morrow’s dawn showed to the Minyae that the night’s journey had not been vain; all that they see is new – the Thynian shores near-by aghast at the fate of prophetic Phineus, oppressed at his life’s close by the gods’ stern might. For not only is he a stranger from his land, not only blind, but moreover the Harpies, daughters of Typhoeus, ministers of the Thunderer’s wrath, do ravage him, thieving his food from his very mouth. Such portents and such penalties doth he suffer for his crimes; one hope alone the old man hath: the Fates decreed of yore that the sons of Aquilo should dispel the cruel plague. So Phineus, aware that the Minyae and sure succour are drawing nigh, goes down with his staff’s aid to the water’s edge, and lifting up sightless eyes seeks out the ship.

4.514–528 Latin

"Here while they hovered, weary and panting with fear of death’s approach, and weighed down in low and timorous flight implored with ghastly shriek their father Typho, he rose and brought up the darkness with him, mingling high and low, while from the heart of the gloom a voice was heard: “It is enough to have chase the goddesses so far; why strive ye farther in rage against the ministers of Jove, whom, though he wield the thunderbolt and the aegis, he has chosen to work his mighty wrath? Now also hath that same Jove commanded them to depart from the dwellings of Agenor’s son; they hearken to his prompting, and withdraw upon his word. Yet anon will ye also in like manner flee, when the fatal bow shall bring doom upon you.²⁰ Never shall the Harpies lack sustenance, so long as mortals shall merit the anger of the gods.” The twain stopped short in the air, and hovered awhile with doubtful wing; then they depart, and in triumph rejoin their comrades’ ranks."

Paul Murgatroyd, Commentary on Book Four of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica p. 215

Apollodorus

1.2.6

And to Sea （ Pontus） and Earth were born Phorcus, Thaumas, Nereus, Eurybia, and Ceto.1 Now to Thaumas and Electra were born Iris and the Harpies, Aello and Ocypete;2 and to Phorcus and Ceto were born the Phorcides and Gorgons,3 of whom we shall speak when we treat of Perseus.

1.6.3

When the gods had overcome the giants, Earth, still more enraged, had intercourse with Tartarus and brought forth Typhon in Cilicia,¹ a hybrid between man and beast. In size and strength he surpassed all the offspring of Earth. As far as the thighs he was of human shape and of such prodigious bulk that he out-topped all the mountains, and his head often brushed the stars. One of his hands reached out to the west and the other to the east, and from them projected a hundred dragons' heads. ... However Zeus pelted Typhon at a distance with thunderbolts, and at close quarters struck him down with an adamantine sickle, and as he fled pursued him closely as far as Mount Casius, which overhangs Syria. There, seeing the monster sore wounded, he grappled with him. But Typhon twined about him and gripped him in his coils, and wresting the sickle from him severed the sinews of his hands and feet, and lifting him on his shoulders carried him through the sea to Cilicia and deposited him on arrival in the Corycian cave. Likewise he put away the sinews there also, hidden in a bearskin, and he set to guard them the she-dragon Delphyne, who was a half-bestial maiden.

¹ As to Typhon, or Typhoeus, as he is also called, who was especially associated with the famous Corycian cave in Cilicia, see Hes. Th. 820ff.; Pind. P. 1.15ff.; Aesch. PB 351ff.; Ant. Lib. 28; Ov. Met. 5.321ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 152; Mela i.76, ed. G. Parthey; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 4, 29, 92 (First Vatican Mythographer 11, 86; Second Vatican Mythographer 53). As to the Corycian cave, see Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 3rd ed. i.152ff. According to Hesiod (Hes. Th. 821, Typhoeus was the youngest child of Earth.

2.1.2

It is said, too, that Echidna,5 daughter of Tartarus and Earth, who used to carry off passers-by, was caught asleep and slain by Argus.

2.3.1

It is said, too, that this Chimera was bred by Amisodarus, as Homer also affirms, [Illiad 16.328] and that it was begotten by Typhon on Echidna, as Hesiod relates

2.5.1

First, Eurystheus ordered him to bring the skin of the Nemean lion;¹ now that was an invulnerable beast begotten by Typhon.

1 As to the Nemean lion, compare Hes. Th. 326ff.; Bacch. 8.6ff., ed. Jebb; Soph. Trach. 1091ff.; Theocritus xxv.162ff.; Diod. 4.11.3ff.; Eratosthenes, Cat. 12; Tzetzes, Chiliades ii.232ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 30. According to Hesiod, the Nemean lion was begotten by Orthus, the hound of Geryon, upon the monster Echidna. Hyginus says that the lion was bred by the Moon.

2.5.10

He [Geryon] owned red kine, of which Eurytion was the herdsman and Orthus, the two-headed hound, begotten by Typhon on Echidna, was the watchdog.

2.5.11

These apples were not, as some have said, in Libya, but on Atlas among the Hyperboreans.3 They were presented < by Earth> to Zeus after his marriage with Hera, and guarded by an immortal dragon with a hundred heads [Ladon], offspring of Typhon and Echidna, which spoke with many and divers sorts of voices.

the Caucasus the eagle, offspring of Echidna and Typhon, that was devouring the liver of Prometheus,

3.5.8

For Hera sent the Sphinx,2 whose mother was Echidna and her father Typhon; and she had the face of a woman, the breast and feet and tail of a lion, and the wings of a bird.

E1.1

Third, he slew at Crommyon the sow that was called Phaea after the old woman who bred it;1 that sow, some say, was the offspring of Echidna and Typhon.

E7.20

And after that he came to two ways. On the one side were the Wandering Rocks, and on the other side two huge cliffs, and in one of them was Scylla, a daughter of Crataeis and Trienus or Phorcus,³ with the face and breast of a woman, but from the flanks she had six heads and twelve feet of dogs.

3 Homer mentions Crataeis as the mother of Scylla, but says nothing as to her father （Hom. Od. 12.124ff.）. According to Stesichorus, the mother of Scylla was Lamia. See Scholiast on Hom. Od. 12.124; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xii.85, p. 1714. Apollonius Rhodius represents Scylla as a daughter of Phorcus by the night-wandering hag Hecate （Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.828ff.）, and this parentage has the support of Acusilaus, except that he named her father Phorcys instead of Phorcus （Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. iv.828; compare Eustathius on Hom. Od. xii.85, p. 1714）. Hyginus calls her a daughter of Typhon and Echidna （Hyginus, Fab. 125, 151, and praefat. p. 31, ed. Bunte）. A Scholiast on Plat. Rep. 9, 588c, who may have copied the present passage of Apollodorus, calls Scylla a daughter of Crataeis and Tyrrhenus or Phorcus, adding that she had the face and breasts of a woman, but from the flanks six heads of dogs and twelve feet. Some said that the father of Scylla was Triton （Eustathius on Hom. Od. xii.85, p. 1714）; and perhaps the name Triton should be read instead of Trienus in the present passage of Apollodorus. See the Critical Note.

Pausanias

3.18.10

It [throne of Apollo at Amyclae] is supported in front, and similarly behind, by two Graces and two Seasons. On the left stand Echidna and Typhos, on the right Tritons.

8.18.2

Epimenides of Crete, also, represented Styx as the daughter of Ocean, not, however, as the wife of Pallas, but as bearing Echidna to Peiras, whoever Peiras may be.

Quintus Smyrnaeus

Posthomerica (or Fall of Troy),

6.249–254 (pp. 272–273)

There lay the bulk of giant Geryon

Dead mid his kine. His gory heads were cast

in dust, dashed down by that resitles club

Before him that most murderous hound

Orthros, in furious might like Cerberus

His brother-hound

6.260–262 (pp. 272–273)

And there, a dread sight even for Gods to see,

Was Cerberus, whom the Loathy Worm [Έχιδνα] had borne

To Typho in a craggy cavern's gloom

Close on the borders of Eternal Night,

8.97–98 (pp. 354–355)

In craggy Dardanus, where the bride-bed [εὐναί] is

Whereon Anchises clasped the Queen of Love.

12.449–453 (pp. 518–519)

A cave there was, beneath a rugged cliff

Exceeding high, unscalable, wherein

Dwelt fearful monsters of the deadly brood

Of Typhon, in the rock-clefts of the isle

Calydna that looks Troyward from the sea.

Nonnus

Dionysiaca

1.140. (I pp. 12–13)

[Cadmos] came to the bloodstained cave of Arima,

1.154. (I pp. 14–15)

Then at a nod from his mother, the Earth, Cilician Typhoeus streched out his hands, and stole the snowy tools of Zeus, the tools of fire;

1.258–260 (I pp. 20–23)

Now Typhoeus shifted to the rocks, leaving the air, to flog the seas. He grasped and shook the peak of Corycios,^a and crushing the flood of the river that belongs to Cilicia, joined Tarsos and Cydnos together in one hand;

1.321 (I pp. 26–27)

Well at the very time when Cadmos paid his visit to Arima in his wanderings,

2.35 (I pp. 46–47)

as he [Typhon] marched, the solid earth did sink, and the steady ground of Cilicia shook to its foundations under those dragon feet.

2.631 ff. (I pp. 90–91)

Thus he mocked the hal-living corpse of the son of Earth [Typhon]. Then the Cilician Tauros brayed a victorious noise on his stony trumpet for Zeus Almighty, while Cydnos danced a zigzag on his watery feet,

4.315–318 (I pp. 156–157)

On the way, Cadmos espied from the road a sacred place where the Pythian had noticed on a hill the ninecircling coil of the dragon's back, and put to sleep the deadly poison of the Cirrhaian^a serpent [echidna].

^a Loosely for "Delphic," Cirrha being the harbout-town below Delphi.

18.273 ff. (II pp. 82–83)

Show me yourself [Dionysus] like Ares, for he also brought low such another, Echidna's son, the gods' enemy, spitting the horrible poison of hideous Echidna. He had two shapes together, and in the forest he shook the twisting coils of his mother's spine. Cronos used this huge creature to confront the thunderbolt, hissing war with the snaky soles of his feet; when he raised his hands above the circle of the breast and fought against your Zeus, and lifted his high head, covered it with masses of cloud in the paths of the sky.

Orphic fragments

58 Kern [= Athenagoras, Apology 20]

Athenagoras, Apology 20, (Pratten, p. 393)

"But from the sacred womb Phanes begat

Another offspring, horrible and fierce,

In sight a frightful viper, on whose head

Were hairs: its face was comely; but the rest,

From the neck downwards, bore the aspect dire

Of a dread dragon [drakontos]"³);

3 Fragments.

Fowler 2013, p. 9

Echidna, who in later Orphic tradition (fr. 58 Kern, 81 Bernabé) is a daughter of Phanes himself, so perhaps there was a more elevated role for her in early Orphic tradition, and her father.

van den Broek, p. 137 n. 20

Orphic Fragment no. 58 (ed. Kern = Athenagoras, Apol. 20), where it is said that Phanes generated φοβερωπὸν Ἔχιδναν, / ...

Olympiodorus

Commentary on Plato's Phaedo (Taylor 1824, 76–77 n. 63)

Typhon, Echidna, and Python being the progeny of Tartarus and Earth, which is conjoined with Heaven, form, as it were, a certain Chaldaic triad, which is the inspective guardian of the whole disordered fabrication.

Typhon is the cause of the all-various subterranean winds and waters. But Echidna is a cause revenging and punishing rational souls; and hence the upper arts of her are those of a virgin, but the lower those of a serpent. And Python is the guardian of the whole of prophetic production. Though it will be better to say, that he is the cause of the disorder and obstruction pertaining to things of this kind. Hence, also, Apollo destroyed Python, in consequence of the latter being adverse [to the prophetic energy of the former].

Modern

Aune

See "Acts of Philip" in [2]

Caldwell

p. 7

[Digram showing Echidan as descending from Phorkys and Keto]

p. 46

[295] She〫bore another unbeatable monster, in no way

like mortal men or immortal gods, in a

hollow cave, the divine and hard-eyed Echidna,

295-303 "She" is presumably Keto. Echidna is another ambivalently-regarded hybrid, half-serpent and half-nymph. Hesiod does not specify which half is which, but the viper-maiden met by Herakles is described by Herodotos (4.8-10) as a woman from the buttocks up and a serpent below. This would conform with other composit monsters (Harpies, Sphinx, etc.); if they are part woman, the upper part is human (since this is the part of the mother with which the male child is familiar; the other, lower part is unseen, therefore exciting curiosity and fantasy).

Clay

p. 159

At this point, we must raise the thorny question of the referents of the pronouns at lines 319 and 326.³² Who is the mother of the Chimaera? Does she have a father? And finally, who mates with Othos to produce the Sphinx, and the lion of Nemea? The literature both ancient and modern offers every possible solution to these questions, and consensus remains as chimerical as the creature herself.³³

³² There is a similar difficulty at 295, where ἡ designates the mother of Echidna. Here, however, the modern scholarly consensus (West [1966] 249; Abramowicz [1940-46] 171; Lemke [1968] 48-49; Siegmann [1969] 756; Wilamowitz [1959] 3: 259; and Hamilton [1989] 89) assigns the role to Keto, with the exception of Schwabl [1969] 174-76, who insists that the reference must be to Kallirhoe. Cf. Welker (1865) 125.

³⁴ At 319, the mother of the Chimaera is identified as Echidna by Wilamowitz (1959) 3.260; Marg (1970) 165; Schwabl (1969) 177-78; cf, Apollodorus 2.3.1 (citing Hesiod as his authority); Hydra, by West (1966) 254-55; Abramowicz (1940-46) 167; and Keto, by Siegmann (1969) 756; Lemke (1968) 52; and Hamilton (1989) 91-92. At 326, the mother of Phix and the Nemean Lion is identified as Echidna by Wilamowitz (1959) 3.260; Marg (1970) 167; and Schwabl (1969) 183; cf. Apollodorus 3.5.8; Chimaera; Abramowicz (1940-46) 167; Siegmann (1969) 756; West (1966) 256; Hamilton (1989) 91; cf. Scholia at 326 (p. 62 Di Gregorio). Only Lemke (1968) 53 nominates Keto. For a summary of earlier opinions, see Abramowicz (1940-46) 167.

Fontenrose

pp. 14–15

[Delphyne]

p. 71

The Arimoi, it seems fairly certain, are the Aramaeans, and the country is either Syria or Cilicia, most likely the latter, since in later sources that is usually Typhon's land.

p. 72

Hesiod's Typhon also appears to have lived among the Arimoi; for he mated with the monstrous Echidna, who lived there in a cave ...

p. 78

Typhon's father was Tartaros, who according to Olympiodoros, was also the father of Python and Echidna, Ge being the mother of all three. ... ⁴

⁴ Olymp. on Phaed. 201, 240 Norv. ...

p. 83

According to Olympiodoros, Typhon, Echidna, and Python were equally spirits of disorder.

pp. 94–97

[Delphyne]

pp. 95–96

Yet it seems possible that in Phrygian Hierapolis, where Apollo had an oracle, his dragoness opponent was called Echidna; for coins of the city show Apollo's dragon combat was localized there. This fact Leo Weber links with testimony of the [p. 96] apocryphal Acta Philippi: that the pagan Hierapolitans worshipped Echidna and her entourage of snakes, called her sons. In this Christian legend Saint Philip has ousted Apollo.⁵

⁵ See Weber (1910) 201-221, and AW 9; also citations on p. 79, note 8. Notice that Nonnos (Dion. 4.318) calls the Delphian serpent "Cirrhaean echidna."

pp. 407–433

[Corycian cave]

p. 408

For there is no doubt that the Corycian Cave was peëminently the home of Typhon and Echidna. It is located a few miles west of ancient Korykos, and a little over a mile inland from the sea. The name is given both an open chasm that is approximately 900 feet long, 65 feet wide, and 100-200 feet deep, and a cavern, 200 feet deep, at its south end. The cavern has a spring within it; a roar of water flowing deep underground can be heard; stactites hang from the ceiling. There is also a shallow grotto on the east side of the chasm. On the plateau at the western edge of the chasm is the temple of Zeus Korykios. Inscriptions [cont. p. 409]

p. 409

show that Pan and Hermes were worshipped at the cave itself, probably in an old temple at its mouth. Only a hundred yards to the east of the Corycian chasm is another, about a quarter-mile in circumference, which was specifically called Typhon's cave (specus Typhoneus), the bottom of which is nearly inaccessible because of its steep sides. It may be connected by an underground passage with the Corycian Cave (but I cannot verufy this). Its name would indicate that it was really Typhon's home. But Apollodoros and others make it fairly certain that Typhon and Echidna lived in the other cave and that there Zeus was laid away.

Fowler

2001

p. 11

Acusilas fr. 13

Ἐχίδνης καὶ Τυφῶνος Κέρβεροη καὶ ἄλλα τερατώδη τέκνα

p. 96

Epimenides fr. 7

Epimenides fr. 8

p. 278

Pherecydes fr. 7

p. 286

Pherecydes fr. 16b

p. 307

Pherecydes fr. 54

2013

p. 28

Homer (Il. 2.783, cf. Hes. Th. 304 with West, Pindar fr. 93) puts Typhon εἰν Ἀρίμοις, a phrase he does not explain and which baffled the ancients; opinion was divided between [cont. p. 29]

p. 29

a people Arimoi and mountains Arima.¹⁰¹ Apollonios of Rhodes has Typhon blasted on Kaukaos (where there was a Typhonian Rock to commemorate the event) but staggering off to the Nysian plain and Lake Serbonis. In common with Apollodoros and other later accounts, Apollonios envisages a multi-stage fight, with incidents at various locations: a useful way for a mythographer to combine the claims of competing versions, but in this case the multiple staging could be an original part of the story, as appropriate to a battle of this magnitude. The report of Pher. fr. 54 makes it clear that Kaukasos was a way-station; after the mountain was set ablaze by Zeus' thunderbolt,¹⁰² Typhon fled to Pithekoussai, where early Greek settlers had drawn inferences from the regions's volcanoes. Strabo (13.4.6) knows a theory that arimos is Etruscan for πίθηκος; it is not impossible that Etruscan words were known to Greeks in Pherekydes day,¹⁰³ but of course we do not know that Pherekydes drew this connection, if it were there to draw. Possibly Pherekedes started the battle in Kilikia, where both Pindar and Aischylos¹⁰⁴ have Typhon born (cf. Apollod., schol. B Il. 2.783); nearby Hittite place-names 'Arimmata' and 'Erimma', and the Hittite myth of the battle of the storm-god and Hedammu, make it quite probable that this was indeed the primary locale of the myth, subsequently transported westwards with the colonizers.¹⁰⁵ These writers agree too in imprisoning Typhon under Aitna, though Pindar adds in the first Pythian that his body stretched as far as Kymai. Pindar (fr. 91) also knows the story (common to Nikandros and Apollodoros) of how the gods, fleeing from Typhon, changed themselves to animals and fled to Egypt, where similar stories of gods changing into animals in battle were told—another link with that country.¹⁰⁶ If Egyptian Kaison figured in Akousilaos' version, perhaps he had this story too. We may rule it out for Pherekydes: when the scholiast says that Pherekydes did not send Typhon to Syria, 'as Apollonios says', he means he did not send him to Lake Serbonis near Kasion. to complete the list of early variants, the Hesiodic Shield of Herakles (32) strangely puts Typhon under a Boiotian mountain (cf. schol. Pind. Ol. 4.11, Tzetzes on Lykoph. Alex. 177, who reports also Phrygia as [cont. p. 30]

¹⁰¹ Hesiod, loc. cit., says it is Echidna's dwelling place, and puts it beneath the earth; this was eventually placed at the swampy lake Gygaia: cf. Hdt. 1.93. Lykoph. Alex. 1353, Xanthos FGrHist 765 F 13, Lane Fox Traveling Heroes 306, and L. Robert, BCH 106 (1982) 334-59.

¹⁰² As Fontenrose, 'Typhon among the Arimoi' 77 notes, this incident probably furnished the etymon for the name of the mountain. Note that this fr. is uniquely cited as Pherekydes in the Theogony', see Part B, "The Structure of Pherekydes' Book' ad fin.

¹⁰³ See §2.1 ad fin., §18.6. By Virgil's time (Aen. 9.716) 'Inarime' from εἰν Ἀρίμοις (written as one word in some Homeric MSS: see Radt on Strabo loc. cit.), is an alternative name for the island; this at least betrays the scholar's hand, and the Etruscan etymology (unconfirmed from Etruscan sources), rather too good to be true, could also be learnet speculation.

¹⁰⁴ Pind. Pyth. 8.16 (further in Pindar, Ol. 4.6-7, Pyth. 1.15-38, frr. 91-3); Aisch. PV 351.

¹⁰⁵ Bonnet, Typhon et Baal Saphon'; Watkins, How to kill a Dragon 450-9; Lane Fox, Travelling Heroes 299-314.

¹⁰⁶ J. G. Griffiths, 'The Flight of the Gods Before Typhon'.

p. 30

another possibility); Xanthos the Lydian 765 F 13 put his resting-place in his native country, in the Katakekaumene, the volcanic plain on the upper Hermos.¹⁰⁷

¹⁰⁷ Above, n. 101. Further variants and full references in Roscher, Lex. s.v. Typhoeus, Typhjon 1436-8.

Hošek

German

p. 678

ECHIDNA

(Ἔχιδνα, Echidna) «Schlange», Mischwesen aus einem Schlangenleib mit Oberkörper und Kopf einer Frau, Gattin des -»Typhon, Mutter zahlreicher Ungeheuer und Mischwesen.

LITERARISCHE QUELLEN: Genealogie: Nach Hes. theog. 295-300 wohl Tochter der Keto (eher als der Okeanide Kallirhoe; ein Vater wird nicht genannt); nach Epimenides, FGrH 457 F 5 Tochter der Okeanide Styx und des Peiras; nach Apollod. bibl. 2 (4) 1, 2 Tochter des Tartaros und der Ge. Pherekydes, FGrH 3 F 7 nennt als Vater -»Phorkys, ohne eine Mutter anzugeben (Phorkys ist bei Hes. theog. 237-238. 333-336 Bruder und Gatte der Keto und zeugt mit ihr eine Schlange, die unter der Erde goldene Äpfel hütet). In der orphischen Tradition ist der Vater -»Phanes, die nicht genannte Mutter wahrscheinlich Rhea (Kern Orph. F. frg. 58).

Nach Hes. theog. 304-305 verkriecht sich E. unter der Erde bei den Arimen, ist unsterblich und altert nicht, im Gegensatz zu Apollod. bibl. 2 (4) 1, 2 wo E., die Tochter des Tartaros und der Ge, von Argos im Schlaf ermordet wird.

Äußeres: Bei Hes. theog. 298-299 ist E. halb Jungfrau mit rollenden Augen und schönen Wangen, halb scheußliche Schlange. Vgl. auch Schol. Aristoph. Frogs 473; Nonn. Dion. 18, 273-277. Bei den Orphikern (Kern a. O.) hat sie lange Haare, und ihr Schlangenkörper zieht sich breit vom Nacken an nach unten. Bei Aristoph. Frogs 473 ist sie ein 100köpfiges Ungeheuer in der Unterwelt; 100köpfig ist sie ebenfalls bei Hipponax, West IEG frg. 79, 11.

Mit E. verband sich der «ruchlose Gewalttäter» Typhon und zeugte mit ihr eine ebenso «unerschrokkene» Nachkommenschaft wie sie selbst war (Hes. theog. 308; als Gattin des Typhon ebenfalls Lykophron 1353-1354 u.a.).

Kinder der E. und des Typhon (im folgenden nur die frühesten und wichtigeren Quellen): Hes. theog. 309-327 nennt Orthos (-»Orthros), -»Kerberos (ohne Angabe des Vaters auch Bakchyl. 5, 60-62; Soph. Trach. 1097-1099; Kall. frg. 515 Pf.), die Hydra (-»Herakles), die -»Chimaira, mit Orthos zeugt sie die -»Sphinx (Tochter der E. auch Eur. Phoen. 1019-1020) und den nemeischen Löwen (-»Herakles); Akusilaos, Diels Vorsokr.⁵ 9 B 6 = FGrH 2 F13 nennt (außer Kerberos und anderen, nicht namentlich genannten) den Adler, der -»Prometheus die Leber frißt; Pherekydes, FGrH 3 F 16 b die hundertköpfige Schlange, die die goldenen Äpfel der Hesperiden hütet (-»Hesperides, -»Herakles; vgl. Hes. theog. 333-336). Apollod. bibl. hat einige der schon genanten: Orthos (2 [106] 5, 10), Chimaira (2 [31] 319-322), Sphinx (3 [52] 5, 8), den nemeischen Löwen (2 [74] 5, 1, nur der Vater Typhon genannt), die Schlange der Hesperiden (2 [113] 5, 11). Die Listen bei Hyg. (fab. praefatio 39; fab. 151) geben außer schon genannten noch die Schlange, die das Goldene Vlies in Kolchis bewacht (-»Iason) (bei Apoll. Rhod. 2, 1208-1213 Kind von -»Ge und Typhon), -»Gorgo (auch Ov. met. 10, 313), -»Skylla (auch Verg. ciris 67 conj. Housman). Weitere Kinder: die Schlange, die den -»Laokoontötete (Q. Smyrn. 12, 452, nur der Vater Typhon genannt); die Sau von Krommyon, die von -»Theseus getötet wurde (Apollod. epitome 1, 1); ein unbenannter häßlicher Sohn der E., der ihr Gift speit, Gehilfe des -»Kronos, von -»Ares erschlagen (Nonn. Dion. 18, 273-275).

In Hierapolis (Phrygien) erscheinen eine kultisch verehrte Schlange und ihre Nachkommenschaft in der interpretatio Graeca als E. und ihre Kinder (acta Philippi 95. 113. 122-123. 130. 133).

Von einem ähnlichen Mischwesen, oben Frau und unten Schlange, im Gebiet der Skythen, mit dem Herakles Sönne zeugt, berichtet Hdt. 4, 8-10.

BIBLIOGRAPHIE: Comotti, A., EAA III (1960) 206 s. v. «Echidna»; Escher, J., RE V 2 (1905) 1917-1919 s.v. «Echidna»; Lemke, D., «Sprachliche und strukturelle Beobachtungen zum Ungeheuerkatalog in der Theogonie Hesiods», Glotta 46, 1968, 47-53; Poetscher, W., Eranos 71, 1973, 12-44; v. Sybel, L., ML I 1 (1884-86) 1212-1213 s. v. «Echidna».

p. 679

KATALOG

1. Amykläischer Thron des Bathykles aus Magnesia. Ehem. Amyklai, nicht erhalten. - Paus. 3, 18, 10; Lit. zum Bauwerk -»Apollon 55^• . - 2. Hälfte 6. Jh. v. Chr. - Nach Paus. standen l. vom Thron E. und Typhos, r. Tritone. Keine ikonographischen Angaben; wohl Statuen bzw. Stützfiguren, da die Beschreibung der Reliefs anschließend beginnt. Die Richtigkeit der Benennung durch Paus. von Furtwängler, A., Meisteriverke ... (1893) 692 bezweifelt.

DEUTUNG UNSICHER

Auf korinthischen Vasen erscheint als Pendant zum viel häufigeren bärtigen, geflügelten Mann mit Schlangenleib (sog. -»Typhon, Payne, NC76-77) selten die entsprechende weibliche Figur, ebenfalls geflügelt:

2. Alabastron, frükorinthisch. Berlin, Staatl. Mus. F1007. Aus Nola. - Lenormant, Ch./de Witte, J., Elite des monuments céramographiques (1837-61) III Taf. 32 B; Gerhard, E., Ges. Akad. Abh. (1868) Taf. 46, 2; Payne, NC Nr. 390; GGK, Führer Berlin 65. - 610-590 v. Chr. - Die Bezeichnung als E. (Escher 1919) könnte höchstens in Analogie zur entsprechenden bärtigen Figur, die als ikonographischer Typus auch für Typhon Verwendung fand, und wegen der Übereinstimmung mit der Beschreibung bei Hesiod erwogen werden, doch verzeichnen die lit. Quellen für E. nie Flügel.

DEUTUNG ABZULEHNEN

3. Giebelfigur vom Alten Athenatempel der Akropolis, Poros. Athen, Akropolismus. - Um 560 v. Chr. - Eine Schlange (Heberdey, R., Altattisdie Porosskulptur [1919] 101-105 Nr. IX A-E Abb. 84-94) war von Brueckner, A., AM 14, 1889, 74-77 Beil. zu S. 74 fälschlich dem Giebel mit dem «Dreileibigen» zugewiesen und als E. (und der «Dreileibige» als Typhon) gedeutet worden. Zur Rekonstruktion der Giebel s. Beyer, I., AA 1974, 645 Abb. 10.

4. Karneol-Skarabäus, etruskisch. London, BM 751. - Walters, BMGems Nr. 751 Taf. 13; Zazoff, EtrSk 188 Nr. 1118 (Übergangsstil). - 4. Jh. v. Chr. - Weibliche Figur mit zwei Schlangen anstelle der Beine, die in den Armen ein Kind hält. Nicht E., da von ihr keine menschengestaltigen Kinder bekannt sind.

English (using Google translate)

p. 678

(Ἔχιδνα, Echidna) "The Snake", hybrid of a body of a snake with torso and head of a woman, the wife of -»Typhon, mother of many monsters and hybrids.

LITERARY SOURCES: Genealogy: According to Hes. Theog. 295-300 probably daughter of Keto (rather than the Oceanid Kallirhoe; a father is not named); according to Epimenides, FGrH 457 F 5 daughter of the Oceanid Styx and Peiras; according to Apollod. bibl. 2 (4) 1, 2 daughter of Tartarus and Ge. Pherecydes, FGrH 3 F 7 names the father -»Phorkys without specifying a mother (Phorkys is, at Hesiod, Theogony 237-238 333-336, the brother and husband of Keto and fathers with her a snake that guards the golden apples under the earth). In the Orphic tradition the father is -»Phanes, the unnamed mother probably Rhea (Kern Orph F. frg. 58).

According to Hes. theog. 304-305 E. hides herself under the earth at Arimen, is immortal and does not age, in contrast to Apollod. bibl. 2 (4) 1, 2 where E., daughter of Tartarus and Ge, is murdered by Argos in her sleep.

Appearance: In Hes. Theog. 298-299 E. is half maiden with rolling eyes and lovely cheeks, half hideous snake. See, also Schol. Aristoph. Ranae 473; Nonn. Dion. 18, 273-277. In the Orphics (Kern cit.) Has long hair, and her snake body stretches wide from the neck down. In Aristoph. Ranae 473 she is a 100-headed monster in the underworld; she is also 100-headed in Hipponax, West IEG frg. 79, 11. [I see no evidence she is 100-headed in Hipponax!]

E. mated with the "terrible lawless" Typhon and she begot an equally "fierce" progeny, as she herself was. (Hes. Theog. 308; as the wife of Typhon see also Lykophron 1353-1354, etc.).

Children of E. and Typhon (hereinafter only the earliest and more important sources): Hes. Theog. 309-327 calls Orthos (-»Orthros), -»Kerberos (without mention of the father, also Bacchyl. 5, 60-62; Soph. Trach. 1097-1099; Kall. frg. 515 Pf.), the Hydra (-»Heracles), the -»Chimaira, with Orthos begets the -»Sphinx (daughter of E. also in Eur. Phoen. 1019-1020) and the Nemean lion (-»Heracles); Acusilaus, Diels Vorsokr.⁵ 9 B 6 = FGrH 2 F13 calls (besides Kerberos and others not mentioned by name) the eagle that eats the liver of -»Prometheus; Pherecydes, FGrH 3 F 16 b, the hundred-headed serpent that guards the golden apples of the Hesperides (-»Hesperides, -»Hercules;. Cf. Hes. Theog. 333-336). Apollod. bibl. has some of the already mentioned: Orthos (2 [106] 5, 10) Chimaira (2 [31] 319-322), Sphinx (3 [52] 5, 8), the Nemean lion (2 [74] 5, 1 except the Father called Typhon), the serpent of the Hesperides (2 [113] 5. 11). The lists in Hyg. (fab. praefatio 39; fab. 151) give, except for those already mentioned, also the serpent that guarded the Golden Fleece in Colchis (-»Iason) (at Apollo Rhod 2, 1208-1213 child of »Ge and Typhon), -»Gorgo (also Ov. met. 10, 313), -»Scylla (also Verg. ciris 67 conj. Housman). Other children: the serpent that the - »Laokoontötete (Q. Smyrn 12, 452, only the father called Typhon); the sow of krommyon, killed by "Theseus (Apollod epitome 1, 1.); an unnamed hideous son of E., who spits venom, assistant of - »Kronos, killed by -» Ares (Nonn Dion. 18, 273-275).

In Hierapolis (Phrygia) a cult that worshiped snakes and their progeny in the interpretatio graeca appear as E. and her children (acta Philippi 95. 113. 122-123. 130. 133).

From a similar hybrid creature, woman above and below snake, in the territory of the Scythians, testifies to the Heracles Soenne reported Hdt. 4, 8-10.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Comotti, A., EAA III (1960) 206 s. v. "Echidna"; Escher, J., RE V 2 (1905) 1917-1919 s. v. "Echidna"; Lemke, D., Sprachliche und strukturelle Beobachtungen zum Ungeheuerkatalog in der Theogonie Hesiods ["Linguistic and structural observations on the monster in the Theogony Hesiod's Catalogue"] Glotta 46, 1968: 47-53; Poetscher, W., Eranos 71, 1973 12-44; v. Sybel, L., ML I 1 (1884-86) 1212-1213 s. v. "Echidna".

p. 679

CATALOGUE

1. Amykläischer throne of Bathykles of Magnesia. Ehem. Amyklai not obtained. - Paus. 3, 18, 10; Reference to the building of -»Apollo 55^•. - 2nd half of the 6th century BC. According to Paus., on left of the throne stood E. and Typhos, on the right Tritons. No iconographic details; probably statues or supporting figures, since the description of the reliefs then begins. The accuracy of the designation by Paus. doubted by Furtwängler, A., Meisteriverke ... (1893) 692.

INTERPRETATION UNCERTAIN

Appears on Corinthian vases as a counterpart to the more common bearded, winged man with snake body (so-called -»Typhon, Payne, NC76-77.) Rarely the corresponding female figure, is also winged:

2. Alabastron, frükorinthisch. Berlin, Staatliche. Mus. F1007. From Nola. - Lenormant, Ch./de Witte, J., Elite des monuments céramographiques (1837-61) III Plate 32 B;.. ... Gerhard, E., Ges. Akad. Abh. (1868) Plate 46, 2. Payne, NC # 390; GGK Führer Berlin 65. - 610-590 BC -.. The designation as E. (Escher 1919) could at most analogous to the corresponding bearded figure was as iconographic type for use Typhon, and because of the agreement with the description be considered in Hesiod, but in lit. sources E. is never winged.

INTERPRETATION REJECTED

3. Gable figure from the Old Temple of Athena the Acropolis, Poros. Athens, Akropolismus. - Around 560 BC -.. A snake (.. Heberdey, R., Altattisdie Porosskulptur [1919] 101-105 No. IX AE Figure 84-94) was from Brueckner, A., AM 14, 1889, 74-77 hatchet , on page 74 erroneously assigned to the gable with the "triple-bodied" and has been interpreted as E. (the "Dreileibige" as Typhon and). To reconstruct the gable s. Beyer, I., AA 1974 645 Fig. 10.

4. Carnelian scarab Etruscan. London, BM 751. - Walters, BMGems # 751 pl. 13; Zazoff, EtrSk 188 no. 1118 (transitional style). - 4th century BC - Female figure with two snakes instead of legs, holding a child in her arms. Not E. because she is not known for any anthropomorphic children.

Kirk, Raven, and Schofield

p. 59

52 Σb in Homeri Il. II, 783 φασι τὴν ...

52 They say that Ge in annoyance at the slaughter of the Giants slandered Zeus to Hera, and that Hera went off and told Kronos about this. He gave her two eggs, smearing them with his own semen, and telling her two store them underground: from them, he said, a daimon would be produced who would displace Zeus from power. And she in anger put them under Arimon in Cilicia. But when Typhon had been produced, Hera had become reconciled to Zeus, and revealed everything; and Zeus blasted Typhon and named the mountain Aetna.

The exegetical class of older Homeric scholia retains much learned material from the Hellenistic era (so H. Erbse, Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem I (Berlin, 1969), xii). This particular comment adds a Homeric [cont. on p. 60]

p. 60

element (arimon) to those seen in fifth-century poetry (Pindar Pyth. I, 16ff., Aeschlus Pr. 351ff.). Orphic influence is also possible, although eggs are placed not in the windy wastes of Aither or Erebos (as in the Rhapsodic account) but in Gaia. That Kronos not Chronos is named is not necessarily important (see p. 57). The notable thing is that Kronos impregnates two eggs (why two?) with his own seed, and that the eggs have to be placed underground, κατὰ γῆς, possibly in a recess of some kind — here, under a mountain.

Lane Fox

p. 39 [= p. 37 Kindle]

Even the ancients were uncertain. Did Homer mean a place called "Arima" or a people known as the "Arimoi?" Where was the place or the people to be found? What, we might wonder, is the force of "they say" here: did Homer mean "so rumour has it" or "so informed observers say" (although Homer had not seen it himself)? Is the phrase conferring authority or expressing non-committal doubt? Typhoeus was a huge snaky monster, whom we also know as Typhon, but unlike the Cayster river the exact location of Homer's comparison has never been clear. It seems to depend on the words of others, but we are not told who they are.

The din of the Greeks' first advance has thus perplexed readers ancient and modern, despite Homer's customary precision.

p. 107

In detail, we have followed traces of a Greek pottery trail from the Cilician plain, on round the Bay of Issus and so to the north Syrian river-plain which is punctuated by the winding Orontes. Have we hit here on the answer to our Homeric puzzle, those Arimoi" or "Arima" where Zeus's lashing of "Typhoeus" caused the ground to resound as it once resounded beneath the advance of the Greek troops across the plain of Troy? In north Syria, from the ninth century onwards, we have evidence of "Aramaeans" who were speaking and writing Aramaic. Even earlier, c. 1060 BC, texts of the ruling Assyrian king refer to a land "A-ri-me," "A-ri-mi" or "A-ra-me," out east in Mesopotamia. Its people recur as "A-ra-me" in a text from the scribes of the Assyrian king Sargon c. 710 BC.³² Surely they solve the problem, making the Arima or Arimoi a distant hint (hence "they say") in Homer's Iliad of the grand Syrian and Mesoptamian world known to these Greek visitors? The truth, however, is more subtle, as we shall gradually see: it spans the worls in ways which no Aramaean or Assyrian knew.

p. 283

On his first appearance in it [the Theogony] he is "terrible, insolent and lawless," the monster, "they say," who mated with Echidna ("Miss Viper"), a virgin at the time. Echidna lived far away "beneath the earth in Arima." Here Hesiod knows of the same mysterious location as Homer and like Homer he presents his information as hearsay.

p. 288 [viewable from my laptop] [= p. 298 (Kindle)]

[Delphyne, no mention of possible identification w. Echidna]:

He took [Zeus' sinews] away to the seashore in Cilicia, wrapped them in a bearskin and gave them to the she-dragon Delphyne. She guarded them in a cave, but the god Hermes and the goat-Pan recovered them, and fitted them back onto Zeus. ...

These stories share the same location: the seashore of Cilicia where a cave contained the stolen sinews [of Zeus] and a "capacious pit" held the monster [Typhon] himself. In Homer, however we hear of a different name. "Arima" or the "Arimoi," where Typhon is still being lashed: in Hesiod it is the place where his snaky mate Echidna lives. So we return to the problem with which this book began: where are these "Arimoi" or "Arima," a people or a place where the ground shakes mightily just as the ground once resounded beneath the feet of the advancing Greek army as battle began at Troy? The ancients themselves were uncertain; moderns have differed, or multiplied opinions. But the question can now be answered, squarely in the horizon of Euboean travelling heroes.

p. 289

This Egyptian resting place [Lake Bardawill], however, was never connected with "Arima." This silence is notable because such a range of sites was eventually linked with the name. The candidates are short-listed by the geographer Strabo (c. 20 BC), who could no longer choose between them: Lydia, Syria, Cilicia, and even Sicily and the west. These ancient theories have been dismissed as "evidently the product of learned speculation" or as "des créations plus ou moins artificiells."²² But they were not made at random. They never included Lake Bardawill, the Egyptian bog where Typhon still breathed. In fact each of them makes excellent sense when considered in terms of landscape.

We can trace the location in Lydia back to the mid-fifth century BC. It was then that the local historian, Xanthus of Lydia, placed a king Arimous in the region called Burnt Lydia where he must have ruled over so-called "Arimoi." In due course ancient scholars even adjusted their texts of Homer's Iliad to place the Arimoi near Sardis "because the place is wooded and struck by lightning."²³ [Xanthos, FGrH 765 F13; Strabo 13.4.6, with West (1966), 250-51.] Indeed it is, because the plain east of Sardis soon starts to show the black, scorched scars of volcanic eruptions.

p. 290

To the west of Satala lay something else, the gloomy lair of Typhon's concubine Echidna ("Miss Viper"). To the north of Sardis stretches the great "Salibury Plain" of Lydian burial mounds ... On the northern edge of this plain the ground turns into a swampy lake, Lake Gygaia or Koloe (the modern Mermere Gölü). ... But the gloomy swamp had a grimmer resident, Echidna herself.²⁶ [Hdt. 1.93; Lycoph., Alex. 1353; above all Robert (1982), 334-57.] To the [cont. p. 291]

p. 291

east, in Burnt Lydia, flaming Typhon had scorched the landscape. In Lake Gygaia his Echidna lived on the swamp.

Myths about the two of them made brilliant sense of two eerie Lydian landscapes and as a result the "Arima" of Homer and Hesiod was interpreted as a people ("Arimoi") and given an inland home beyond Sardis. This home was not "the product of learned speculation." It was the conclusion of people who had travelled, looked at the landscape and been justly terrified.²⁷ But it was not Homer's location for Typhon's "lashing": the monster was not still being beaten there. Only later did Xanthus, himself from Lydia, advance this local candidate for Typhon's "Arimoi."

As Mount Kasios was such a scene of battles with ancient "dragons of the sea," north Syria may seem a much more promising candidate for Arima's true location. However, it was not seriously argued, so far as we know, until c. 100 BC, and then only by Posidonius, a man from Syria.²⁸ [Strabo 16.4.27: Arima is "tēn Surian autēn."] The "Arimoi" were surely Aramaeans, the people in northern Syria whose Aramaic language continued to be widely spoken. "Typhon," he claimed was the ancient name of north Syria's Orontes river: it had been cut out of the landscape by Typhon the monster when he was struck by Zeus and burrowed underground to escape.²⁹ [Strabo 13.4.6 and 16.2.7; Scoliast on Hom., Il. 3.783.]

Each of these arguments had evidence to support it. ...

...

He severed Zeus's sinews, we hear, on Mount Kasios: in the [cont. p. 292]

p. 292 [ = p. 302 (Kindle)]

The Aramaeans, then are a false trail. Strabo's third candidate, Cilicia, is also in the Cilician-Levantine triangle but it is very much more promising. In the early fifth century BC Pindar described the lair which "nurtured Typhon" [Pythian 1.17] as the "highly celebrated Cilician cave": it was presumably there, as we know in a fragment of one of his lost poems, that he claimed that "once, among the Arimoi," Zeus had battered Typhon, the monster with "fifty" heads.³³ [Pind. F93; Pind., Pyth. 1.17 and esp. 8.16.] If this cave was "highly celebrated" for Pindar's audience, its location in Cilicia was older than his lifetime. It also persisted locally. A hundred and forty years after Pindar we can follow it with the help of Callisthenes, the historical adviser of Alexander the Great.

According to Callisthenes, "the Arimoi are located by the Corycian cave near Calycadnus and the promintory of Sarpedon: the neighbourging mountains are called 'Arima.'"³⁴ [Callisthenes, FGrH 124 F33.]

p. 294

On the wall of the cave one visitor, c. AD 200, arranged for the inscription of some apt Greek verses: "Before entering the broad recess in the depths of the earth in Arima, where the echoing Aous disappears with voiceless streams, I, Eupaphis, propiciated Pan and Hermes ..."⁴³

p. 299

"The sea-fencing cliffs off Cumae and the island of Sicily weigh on his shaggy chest" ... These cliffs are not cliffs "above" Cumae, as translators tend to imply: Cumae's site includes its steep acropolis, the coastline's one high point. They are the cliffs "off" it, the island cliffs of Iscia, to a poet who imagines himself looking up from Sicily towards them.⁵⁵ They include the "cliff" of Ischia's Monte Vico, the acropolis-hill on which the first Euboeans settled.

p. 300

The first settlers called Ischia Pithecussae, the enigmatic "Monkey Island," on which, though now lost to us, monkeys had lived and caught their attention. The island was not named at random. Here too the Greek settlers had asked for the local name, and from nearby Etruscans they learned it. Etruscans had a name for the island which meant according to Greek sources, "monkey": the Greeks therefore, called it "Monkey Island" too. Our understanding of the Etruscan language is still slight, but experts accept the word in question, transmitted by Strabo's sources and later Greek lexicographers, though not as yet found in an original Etruscan text. The word could hardly have been more significant: Arima.⁵⁷

...

Far from his Cilician cave he was being "lashed" here by Zeus, pinned down in the second "Arima".

p. 301

These perceptions ...

...

p. 317

We can at last understand the echoing sound of the Greek army's feet in Homer's Iliad as they advance across the plain of Troy. It was not like a sound from Syria, as if Homer meant "Aramaeans" by his puzzling Arimoi: ...

...

p. 318

...

p. 405

23. Xanthos, FGrH 765 F13; Strabo 13.4.6, with West (1966), 250-51.

p. 406

26. Hdt. 1.93; Lycoph., Alex. 1353; above all Robert (1982), 334-57.

27. Arundell (1828), 260: "I was much struck, I might almost say horror-struck." ...

28. Strabo 16.4.27: Arima is "tēn Surian autēn."

29. Strabo 13.4.6 and 16.2.7; Scoliast on Hom., Il. 3.783.

33. Pind. F93; Pind., Pyth. 1.17 and esp. 8.16.

34. Callisthenes, FGrH 124 F33.

p. 407

57. Strabo 13.4.6; Heesych., s.v. "Arimos;" Serv., ad Verg. Aen. 9.712; Bonfante and Bonfante (2000), 71 and 124 n. 35. I cannot agree with the derivation from "pithoi" ("Vaseburg" preferred by Ridgway (1992), 36. I also reject the "explanations" given by Cerchiai (1996), 141-50.

Ogden

2013a

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2013.11.21

p. 4

⁷ ... Anaxilas Comicus F22 lines 1–6 asserts that courtesans are less civilized even than an unapproachable drakaina, the Chimaera, Charybdis, Scylla, the Sphinx, the Hydra, a lioness, the Echidna, or Harpies;"

p. 40

DELPHYNE AND PYTHON, SLAIN BY APOLLO

The Delphic drakōn came, curiously, in femail and male variants, with differing tales initially attached to each (Figs. 1.4, 1.5). ...

p. 42

In the earliest literary verdsion of the story, the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, ... the (unnamed) serpent is female, a drakaina, and emphatically charachterized as such by being cast as the former nurse of Typhon. ...

p. 43 Amazon

whether the Pythian festival clebrated a male drakōn Delpynes or a heroine Delphyne.¹⁰⁰

The male counterpoint drakōn Python first appears in the literary record in a fragment of Simonides, ...

p. 44 Amazon

But in the literary record Apollodorus makes it clear that she [Delphyne] was an anguipede in in combining the terms drakaina and hēmithēr...korē, 'half-beast girl', in description of her.¹¹² Accordingly, she not only resembles in form another slain drakaina associated with Delphi, Lamia (Ch. 2), but also conforms with what may be recognized to be the standard early configuration for drakainai, this being found also in the early traditions relating to Echidna (Ch. 2), Scylla (Ch. 3), and Hecate (Ch. 7).

p. 46

cave of 'Delphynes' under Parnassus.¹³⁰

¹³⁰ Apollodorus Bibliotheca 1. 4. 1; Euripides Phoenissae 232, with scol. ad loc.

p. 68

2 --- Drakōn Fights: Drakontes Composite

We now turn to composite creatures, in which a drakōn element is compounded with one or more other forms. ... We begin by considering the anguipede drakontes, those basically made up of a humanoid upper body and a serpent-shaped lower body, Typhon, Echidna, the Giants, Campe, and Lamia.

p. 75

Of all Greek drakontes, Typhon is the one for whom the strongest case for specific Near Eastern influence has been mounted.

...

That said, the Agustan Strabo is the earliest Greek text explicitly to locate the battle between Zeus and Typhon near Mt. Kasios (he identifies Typhon with the Orontes river that flows beneath the mountain), before Apollodorus then [cont. on p. 76]

p. 76

explicitly names the mountain as the location of the battle.⁴⁴ However the earliest Greek sources locate Typhon and his battle ... in Cilicia. The Iliad speaks of Zeus lashing the earth whith his thunderbolts around Typhon in the land of the 'Arimoi' (a process evidently continuing beyound victory).⁴² Hesiod has Typhon's consort Echidna dwell in the land of 'Arima'⁴³ Lane Fox has made a strong case for 'Arima' refracting the Hittite Cilician toponym Erimma, and for both names in turn belonging to the pair of great Cilician ravines with caverns leading to an underground river and now known to the Turks as 'Heaven and Hell'⁴⁴ Cilicia itself is first named in connection with Typhon by Pindar, who places his birth there.⁴⁵ Then in the fourth century BC Callisthenes identified the Armoi people and the 'Arima mountains' with the area of the Cilician Calycadnus river, the Corycian cave, and the promintory of Sarpedon.⁴⁶ But from the fifth century BC the location of the actual battle and Typhon's place of eventual burial were already moving much further afield. As for the place of burial, Pindar has Typhon finally buried under Etna in Sicily and Cumae and Pithecussae in Campania. Strabo has a learned and reasonable explanation of Pindar's thinking: he contends that not only was the Phlegraean Fields area, the region of Cumae and Pithecussae (and, of course Vesuvius), volcanic, but so too was the entire Italian coast south of that point down to Sicily, and that Typhon was stretched out for the entirety of this distance beneath the surface of the earth. The notion that Typhon was buried under Etna became understandably popular with Latin writers.⁴⁷ The location of the battle itself was also pushed [cont. p. 77]

⁴⁴ Lane Fox 2008: 304-18. But it is the Hittite toponym Arimatta, which was located north-west of Cilicia in the region of Iconium (Koyna), that has received more attention in these debates: see e. g. Watkins 1995: 450. M. L. West 1997: 301 n. 70 prefers to follow one of Strabo's speculations at C626-7 and derive the term rather from 'Aramaens', but see Lane Fox 2008: 307.

⁴⁵ Pindar Pythians 1. 15-28, 8. 15-16, F92 SM; so too Apollodorus Bibliotheca 1. 6. 3, Nonnus Dionysiaca 1. 40, 55, 258-9, 321, 2. 35, 633 (Nonnus roots Typhon's story in Cilicia, though his wide-ranging battle with Zeus takes him as far as Mygdonia in Macedonia, 1. 145-53.).

⁴⁶ Callisthenes FGrH 124 F33, apud Strabo C626-7. Ampelius 2. 10 presumably envisages Cilicia too when locating Typhon's birth in the Taurus mountains. Schol. Homer Iliad 2. 793 [sic] preserves an Orphic theogony that locates Typhon's birth in Arima, and has him produced from two (!) eggs smeared in Cronus' semen and buried in the earth by Hera; cf. Kirk, Raven, and Schofield 1983: 59-60 no. 52 and Gantz 1993: 51. For Nonnus Typhon had an initial bloodstained lair in Cilician Arima (Dionysiaca 1.140). ...

...

⁴⁷ Pindar Pythians 1. 15-28 (Cumae, Etna), Olympians 4. 6-7 (with scholl. ad loc.), F92 SM (Pithecussae, Etna), F93 SM; cf. also schol. Pindar Olympians 1. 31 and 4. 12. Other sources agree ... Strabo C248, C626-7 (suggesting that arimoi is the Etruscan word for the 'monkeys', the pithékoi, that gave the island of Pithecussae its Greek name; cf. Lane Fox 2008: 315-17)

...

p. 77

west into Asia Minor, principally, it seems, so as to identify it with the Lydian-Maeonian Catacaumene, the 'Burnt Land', that could also be seen as adjacent to Mysia and Phrygia. Thus Xanthus of Lydia more simply told that the battle with Typhon took place in Mysia, where king Arimos and the people of the Arimoi lived, and that the Catacaumene, was so called because of the fiery battle; Diodorus located it rather in adjacent Phrygia.⁴⁸

⁴⁸ Xanthus of Sardis FGrH 765 F4a and b; cf Strabo C626-7 (Lydia, Mysia), incorporating Demetrius of Scepsis F39 Gaede (Mysia). Diodorus 5. 71.2: ὄτε δή ... takes the battle to the Caucasus.

p. 80 [viewable from my laptop]

ECHIDNA, SLAIN BY ARGUS

Typhon's consort Echidna ('Viper'),⁶⁷ is described briefly in the Theogony: above she is a fair-cheeked maiden with a darting glance; below she is a terrible, flashing- [continued on p. 81]

⁶⁷Principal texts: Hesiod Theogony 295-327, Hipponax F79 West line 11, Epimendis FGrH 457 F5, Acusilaus F13 Fowler, Bacchylides 5. 60-2, Pherecydes FF7, 16b Fowler, Sophocles Trachiniae [continued on p. 81]

p. 81

skinned, and raw-flesh-devouring serpent. She is immortal and lives in a cave in the earth beneath the Arimoi. The description of her as raw-flesh-eating may suggest that her serpent half culminates in a serpent-head, like the Lamia of Dio Chrysotom (below). She bears to Typhon a host of mainly anguiform monsters: Orthus, Cerberus, Hydra, Chimaera, Sphinx and the Nemean Lion.⁶⁸ Only Aristophanes develops the details of her form, when his Aeacus tells Dionysus, masguerading as Heracles, that she will tear his innards apart: he asserts that she has a hundred heads (à la Typhon), presumably snake heads again, and presumably, therefore, branching from her bottom half. But this exuberant description need not relate strongly to cannon.⁶⁹ Despite Hesiod's assertion of her immortality, Apollodorus tells that she was slain in her sleep by the all-seeing Argus.⁷⁰ Whilst there are frequent further mentions of her in the pagan literary tradition, it is only in the role of genealogical link, most commonly that of progenitrix [sic] of other anguiform monsters (see Ch. 4). She is however strikingly refracted in Herodotus' Scythian Echidna, a 'half-maiden, a double-formed echidna'. Herodotus, attributing the tale to 'Pontic Greeks', tells how heracles was driving the cattle of Geryon through the future Scythia, ...

...

Like the Hesiodic Echidna, this one too is first and foremost a progenetrix. And the Hesdiodic is gloriously reborn in the Acts of Philip, [cont. p. 82]

[continuation of note 67] 1097-9, Euripides Phoenissae 1020, Callimachus F515 Pfeiffer, Lycophron Alexandra 1353-4, Virgil Ciris 67, Apollodorus Bibliotheca 2.1.2, 2.3.1, 2.5.1, 2.5.10-11, 3.5.8, Epitome 1.1, Hyginus Fabulae preface and 151, Pausanias 3.18.10, 8.18.1. Iconography: LIMC Echidna (no certain examples survive, though Pausanias 3.18.10 tells us that images of her were made). Discussions: Küster 1913: 76-92, M. L. West 1966 on lines 306-7, Vistin 1977, Lambrinudakis 1986, Sancassano 1977b: 60-3.

p. 82

where the archetypal 'mother of snakes' becomes the saint's principal adversary and indeed nemesis, and is cast into a hole in the earth (Ch. 11). Whilst antiquity knew of other male anguipedes (Typhon, the Giants, Cecrops), there was perhaps a particular tendency for femail anguiforms to be conceptualized specifically in this way: with Echidna we should compare, Lamia aside, Delphyne (Ch. 1), Hecate (Ch. 7), and Scylla (Ch. 3).⁷²

p. 148 [viewable from my laptop]

Already in the Theogony we are given a geneaology that embraces most of the principal drakontes, pure and composit. Hesiod's phraseology, with a number of (perhaps wilfully) vague 'and she's picking up after descending lines and excursuses have been pursued, leaves it impossible to reconstruct his family tree with certainty. According to West's understanding, the sea-creatures Ceto and Phorcys are the first generation and the ultimate ancestors of all. ... The most likely alternative to this reconstruction, and the one favoured by the present author, identifies Echidna [continued on p. 149]

p. 149

as the mother of the Chimaera (as oppossed to the Hydra) and of the Sphinx and the Nemean Lion (as opposed to the Chimaera), to produce a much flatter tree in which Echidna becomes more fecund. She is now the mother to Orthus, Cerberus, Hydra by Typhon, the Chimaera by father unstated (by default we may guess Typhon again), and then the Sphinx and the Nemean Lion by her own son Orthus (see Table 4.1).

The tradition after Hesiod, which culminates in Apollodorus and Hyginus, sought to flatten and simplyfy the genealogy even beyond this, whilst also expanding it, concentrating almost all the monsters together as the immediate children of Typhon and Echidna. Thus Apollodorus makes Typhon and Echidna parents not only to the Nemean Lion, Ortus, the Chimaera, and the Sphinx, but also to her Hesiodic brother Ladon, as well as to a creature unmentioned by Hesiod, the Sow of Crmmyon. From Hesiod Hyginus' Typhon and Echidna retain as children Cerberus and Hydra and (probably) the Chimaera and the Sphinx too. Then from amongst Echidna's Hesiodic siblings Ladon and Gorgon' again become their children, as do two monsters unmentioned by Hesiod, the Colchis drakōn and Scylla In the meantime, the pair had also aquired another [continued on p. 150]

p. 150

monstrous child, according to Acusilaus and Pherecydes, in the form of the eagle that devoured Prometheus' liver.⁴

⁴ Acusilaus of Argos F13 Fowler, Pherecydes F7 Fowler. Echidna (no mention of Typhon) is also said to be the mother of an unamed 'double-formed' son, presumably an anguipede à la Cecrops, at Nonnus Dionysiaca 18. 273-7

p. 219 [viewable form my laptop]

For Xanthus of Lydia the volcanic Lydian Catacaumene, the 'Burnt Land', was burned up by the thunderbolts Zeus had hurled down on Typhon.

2013b

p. 16

The relationships of Hesiod's Echidna with Ariastophanes', and with Herodotus's Scythian Echidna (3) and with the Echidna encountered by St. Philip at Ophiorhyme-Hierapolis (134) remain unclear, but two common themes should be noted. First, the Hesiodic, Aristophanic and Philippian Echidnas are all associated with holes in the ground; Hesiod's Echidna is here associated with the depths of the earth both in her birth and in her subsequent cave lair at Arima (for which cf. 7-9, 11); Aristophanes casts his Echidna as a denizen of the underworld; and it is noteworth too that Philip's Echidna ends up confined to an underworld abyss. Secondly, the Hesiodic, Herodotean and Philippian Echidnas are all presented first and foremost as progenitrixes.

p. 23

The she-dragon (drakaina) Delphyne was also, like the Giants and Typhon, and indeed like most of the she-dragons in Greek myth, an anguipede in form: her description as a 'half-beast' implies, of course, that she was also half-humanoid. The relationship between Delphyne and Typhon goes unspecified here. By default we might imagine that she was his consort, the role normally taken on by another anguipede she-dragon, that prolific progenitrix of dragons, Echidna (1-2); that Delphyne too might be a prolific progenetrix is implied by her name, seemingly built out of the word delphys, 'womb.' But in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo Delphyne is instead the foster-mother into whose care his parthenogenetic birth mother, Hera, gives him (14).

p. 25

The two regions [Cilicia, and Sicily and southern Italy] also competed over claims to a Greek toponym associated Typhon and his consort Echidna, Arimoi or Arima, these being mentioned first by Homer, who speaks of Zeus lashing the earth with his thunderbolts around Typhon in the land of the 'Arimoi' (Iliad 2.781-3), and Hesiod, who has Echidna keeping watch under the earth in Arima (1). Neither Homer nor Hesiod gives any indication as to where the place might be, but Callistenes, in the fourth century BC (FGrH 124 F33), and Nonnus (8) locate it in Cilicia, and Strabo, in the early first century AD, identifies it with the island of Pithecussae, adjacent to Cyme, amongst other places (C626; cf. 9).

p. 216

The culminating battle (Martyrion 26-7) is against the presiding Echidna, 'Viper', also described as a drakaina (8.16-17) and as a drakōn in her own right (Martyrion 13, 24) and more particularly as 'the mother of snakes' (Acts of Philip 8.4, 8.17; cf. Martyrion 17). As such she strongly resembles the great Echidna of Hesiod's genealogy, who is there and subsequently the ultimate progenitrix, together with Typhon, of most of the great anguiform monsters of the classical tradition (1; cf. also 2-3). Just as Philip's Echidna is presented as presiding over all other drakontes and snakes, so too the major drakontes encountered by Philip en route to the Ophiorhyme and the Echidna are shown in their turn to preside over a host of lesser (though still monstrous) snakes.

In contrast with her subordinate great drakontes, the Echidna is not clearly described. All we can say is that she lives in her gated (Martyrion 19) and presumably lavish and expansive sanctuary, where she licks the citizens' new-born babies as they are introduced to her (Martyrion 2), and which is the scene of the denouement of the action and Philip's martyrdom. The notion that Echidna needed to be given wine so that she could sleep is a curious one (Martyrion 17).

Race

p. 317

[Pindar fragment] 92 [= Strabo 13.4.6] Strabo, Geography of Greece. "Pindar associates the territory of Pithekoussai and of Sicily with that of Cilicia, for he says that Typhos lies beneath Aitna (he quotes Pyth. 1.17-19), and further":¹

around him Aitna, an enormous confinement,

lies.

p. 319

[Pindar fragment] 93 [= Strabo, 13.4.6] The same [Strabo]. "and further":

but father Zeus alone of the gods was slaying unapproachable, fifty-headed¹ Typhos by force once among the Arimoi.²

¹ Elsewhere in Pindar Typhos has one hundred heads.

² Cf. Il. 2.783 and Hes. Th. 304. It is uncertain whether this is a people or place—or where either is located.

West

1966

p. 251

Posidonius (Strabo 784-5) connected the name Arimoi with the Aramaeans of Syria, of which Cilicia was a part. This identification has been repeated in modern times.

Typhon's εὐναἰ (Il. 2. 783) appear to be not just 'where he lies', but also where he keeps his spouse. CF. Q.S. 8. 97 f. ... [see Quintus Smyrnaeus, 8.97]