In Greek mythology, according to Hesiod, Echidna was a monster who was born in a cave. She lived alone beneath the secret parts of the Earth, deep down under a hollow rock far from the deathless gods and mortal men. A place appointed by the gods, where she kept guard in Arima, the same place from where Zeus lashed with his thunderbolts the land of the Arimoi where men said was the couch bed of Tiphon. From the Cave Echidna used to carry off passers-by. Across the Gulf of Issus from Corycus, in ancient Syria was the Mount Hasios (modern Jebel Aqra in Turkey) and the Orontes River, said to be the site of the Battle of Typhon and Zeus. The historian Posidonius identified the Arimoi with the Arameans of Syria.
Echidna was the mate of the fearsome monster Typhon, and known primarily for being the monster of monsters. He was joined in love to Echidna, the maid with glancing eyes and she bore fierce offsprings.
First there was Orthrus, the two-headed dog, who guarded the Cattle of Geryon. Second Cerberus, the multiheaded dog who guarded the Gates of Hades. Third the Lernaean Hydra, the many-headed serpent who, when one of its heads was cut off, grew 2 more. She is also mentioned in Hesiod's Theogony as an entity "she" mothering the Chimera, a fire-breathing beast that was part lion, part goat, and had a snake-headed tail. Hesiod next named 2 more descendants of Echidna, the Sphinx, a monster with the head of a woman and a body of a winged lion, and the Nemean Lion, killed by Heracles as his first labor.
Hesiod described Echidna as an entity born to a "she" to be the Sea goddess Ceto, making Echidna's father the Sea god Phorcys, without naming the mother. She was half beautiful maiden and half fearsome snake. The "goddess fierce Echidna" was described as a fleshy eating "monster, irresistible," who was like neither "mortal men"nor "the undying gods," but was "half a nymph with glancing eyes and fair cheeks, and half again a huge snake, great and awful, with speckled skin," who "dies not nor grows old all her days." Aristophanes (late 5th century BC), who makes her a denizen of the underworld, gave Echidna a 100 heads, matching the 100 snake heads her mate Typhon had.
Typhon was the most fearsome monster of Greek mythology. The last son of Gaia, fathered by Tartarus. Typhos, with his mate Echidna, fathered many famous monsters.
When Zeus had driven the Titans from heaven, huge Earth bore her youngest child Typhon of the love of tartarus, by the aid of golden Aphrodite. Gaia bore Typhon in anger at the gods for their destruction of her offspring the Giants.
The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (6th century BC) says that Typhon was the child of Hera alone. She was the wife and one of the 3 sisters of Zeus. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Hera, angry at Zeus for having given birth to Athena by himself, prayed to Gaia to give her a son as strong as Zeus, then slapped the ground, and became pregnant. Hera gave the infant to the serpent Python to raise, and Typhon grew up to become a great bane to mortals. He is described as "fell" and "cruel," and neither like gods nor men.
Typhon, according to Hesiod, was terrible, outrageous, and lawless. From his shoulders grew 100 snake heads, a fearful dragon with dark, flickering tongues, and under the brows of his eyes in his heads flashed fire, and fire burned from his heads as he glared. And there were voices in all his dreadful heads which uttered every kind of sound unspeakable. At one time they made sounds such that the gods understood, but at another, the noise of a bull bellowing aloud in proud ungovernable fury; and at another , the sound of a lion, relentless of heart; and at another, sounds like whelps, wonderful to hear; and again, at another, he would hiss, so that the high mountains re-echoed. Strength was in his hands in all he did and the feet were untiring.
ApolloDorus describes Typhon as a huge monster, whose head "brushed the stars," human in form above the waist, with snakes coils below, and fire flashing from his eyes. In size and strength Tiphon 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. One of his hands reached out to the West andthe other to the East, and from them projected a 100 dragon's heads. from the thighs downward he had huge coils of vipers, which when drawn out, reached to his very head and emitted a loud hissing. his body was all winged.
From the 5th century BC historian Herodotus, we learn of a creature half woman and half snake, that lived in a cave, and was known as a mother figure and the progenitor of the Scythians.
Greeks living in Pontus, a Region on the Southern Coast of the Black Sea, told a story of an encounter between Heracles and this snaky creature. Heracles was driving the cattle of GeryOnes through what would later become Scythia, when one morning he awoke and discovered that his horses had disappeared. While searching for them, 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. She had the horses and promised to return them if Heracles would have sex with her. Heracles agreed and she had 3 sons by him : AgaThyRsus, Gelonus, and Scythes. She asked Heracles what she should do with his sons, either she would keep them or send them with him. Heracles gave her a Bow and a Belt and told her, that when the boys were grown, whichever draw the Bow and wear the Belt, keep him and vanish the others. The youngest son Scythes fulfilled the requirements and became the founder and eponym of the Scynthians.
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