Cerberus

Cerberus – also known as the “hound of Hades” – was the many-headed dog who guarded the gates of the Underworld. According to Hesiod, he fawns on those who enter but does not allow them to go out again, and devours whoever he catches trying to leave (Theogony 769–774). A child of Typhon and Echidna, he was part of a monstrous family, which included Orthus, the Lernaean Hydra, and the Chimaera as well. Heracles brought him up to the world of the living as his twelfth labor, and in the poets he is also met by Orpheus and by Aeneas.

Family

According to Hesiod, the monstrous Echidna, half nymph and half snake, was joined in love to Typhaon in her cave in Arima, and bore “fierce offspring”: first Orthus, the hound of Geryon, then Cerberus, then the Lernaean Hydra, and, in Hesiod’s account, the Chimaera (Theogony 295–325). Cerberus is thus the second of the monstrous children of Typhon and Echidna, born after Orthus, the two-headed hound who guarded the cattle of Geryon, but before the Hydra. In Hesiod the Chimaera and Orthus, in turn, produced the Sphinx and the Nemean Lion (Theogony 326–329). Apollodorus lists many other monsters as offspring of Typhon and Echidna, among them Orthus, the dragon of the Hesperides, the eagle that tormented Prometheus on the Caucasus, and the Sphinx (Library 2.5.10, 2.5.11, 3.5.8); and he calls the Nemean Lion an invulnerable beast begotten by Typhon (Library 2.5.1).

Portrayal

As to the number of Cerberus’ heads we have contradictory testimonies. Hesiod, for example, calls him a monster not to be overcome and not to be described, “Cerberus who eats raw flesh, the brazen-voiced hound of Hades, fifty-headed, relentless and strong” (Theogony 310–312). The scholiast on the Iliad reports that Pindar raised the number to a hundred, and Horace too gives him a hundred heads (Scholiast on Iliad 8.368; Horace, Odes 2.13). Other writers give him three heads: Euripides speaks of the “hound with three bodies” (Heracles 23–25, 1277), and Ovid and Virgil have him bark with three throats and three jaws (Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.450–451; Virgil, Aeneid 6.417–418).

Later authors, trying to reconcile the descriptions, gave Cerberus three dog heads, with the heads of snakes growing on his back and the tail of a dragon. Apollodorus describes him in this way: “this Cerberus had three heads of dogs, the tail of a dragon, and on his back the heads of all sorts of snakes” (Library 2.5.12). In Virgil’s underworld snakes bristle on his neck (Aeneid 6.419).

Heracles’ Twelfth Labor

The last – and, thus, most difficult – of the Twelve Labors of Heracles set for him by Eurystheus was bringing Cerberus up from the Underworld. Homer already knows the story: Athena complains that she did not foresee how Heracles would be sent to the house of Hades to fetch the hound of hateful Hades, and Heracles himself tells Odysseus that Hermes and Athena guided him on the errand (Iliad 8.362–369; Odyssey 11.617–626).

In Apollodorus, Heracles first went to Eleusis, to Eumolpus, to be initiated; since he had not been cleansed of the slaughter of the Centaurs, he was purified before the mysteries. Then he descended at Taenarum in Laconia, where there is a mouth of the descent to Hades. The souls fled when they saw him, except Meleager and the Gorgon Medusa. Hades allowed him to take the dog, but only if he mastered him without using the weapons he carried. Heracles found Cerberus at the gates of Acheron; cased in his breastplate and covered by his lion skin, he flung his arms round the dog’s head, and although the dragon in its tail bit him, he did not relax his grip until the dog yielded. He carried Cerberus up through Troezen, showed him to Eurystheus, and then took him back to Hades (Library 2.5.12). In Ovid, Cerberus was dragged out, shrinking from the light of day, in adamantine chains, and the poisonous plant aconite grew from the foam that fell from his mouth (Metamorphoses 7.406–419).

Before leaving the Underworld, Heracles also found Theseus and Pirithous. They had gone down to win Persephone as Pirithous’ wife and had been made to sit on the Chair of Forgetfulness, to which they grew fast (Apollodorus, Epitome 1.24; Library 2.5.12). When they stretched out their hands to Heracles, he took Theseus by the hand and raised him up; but when he would have brought up Pirithous, the earth quaked and he let go. Pirithous remained below.

Other Myths: Orpheus and Aeneas

When Eurydice died, Orpheus went down to the Underworld to seek her. In Virgil, his singing amazed the Eumenides and held Cerberus’ three jaws open, and stopped the wheel of Ixion (Georgics 4.481–484); Ovid has him say that he had not come down to chain the three-necked monster Cerberus (Metamorphoses 10.20–24).

When Aeneas visited the Underworld, he had help from the Sibyl of Cumae. She saw the snakes bristling on the neck of Cerberus, who lay in his cave and made the whole region ring with his triple-throated roar, and threw him a cake of honey and drugged herbs. The hound, hungry, opened his three mouths and snatched it, and sank down in sleep across the floor of his cave, so that Aeneas could pass the entrance (Virgil, Aeneid 6.417–425).

Sources

For Cerberus’ lineage and description, consult Hesiod’s “Theogony” (295–329, 769–774). In his “Library,” Apollodorus describes Heracles’ Twelfth Labor in some detail (2.5.12; also 2.5.1, 2.5.10–11, 3.5.8 and Epitome 1.24), while Ovid, in the “Metamorphoses,” offers a memorable description of the moment when Heracles brings Cerberus to the earth and daylight for the first time (7.406–419). Homer mentions the labor in the Iliad (8.362–369) and the Odyssey (11.617–626), and Euripides in the Heracles (23–25, 1277). For the story of Aeneas and the Sibyl, check the sixth book of Virgil’s “Aeneid” (6.417–425); for Orpheus, Virgil’s Georgics (4.481–484) and Ovid’s Metamorphoses (10.20–24).

See Also: Typhoeus, Echidna, Labours of Heracles, Theseus, Hades, Orpheus, Aeneas