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Way back in October of 2010, Ferrebeekeeper featured a powerful series of posts about the children of Echidna, the ancient Greek “mother of monsters” who birthed so many of the scariest beasts of classical mythology. Among the hellish siblings born to her, there were all sorts of heterogeneous creatures—a lion, a dragon, a sow, a hydra, a sphinx, a giant eagle, and a mish-mash chimera (family dinners must have been extremely colorful)—but pride of place goes always to Cerberus, the three headed hell hound who guards the entrance to the underworld. Cerberus has fascinated artists, poets, and everyone else for thousands of years, and he still continues to do so. Despite the fact that the internet is filled with pictures, essays, and posts about the great monster dog of the underworld, he still garners attention. People really love the horrifying three-headed monster which forever prevented damned spirits from escaping the miserable realm of death: that is why the hellbeast Cerberus is the number 6 all-time most popular post on Ferrebeekeeper!
The original post mentioned the main Greco-Roman myths which featured Cerberus and then showed a gallery of paintings, drawings, prints, and digital images of the big dog. In order to celebrate, here are yet more artworks of Cerberus.
The Story of Orpheus: Cerberus (Edward Burne-Jones, 1875)
Cerberus (Martin Bouche? late eighteenth century, line engraving)
12th Labor of Hercules-Cerberus (Pierre Salsiccia, 2013, pencil drawing)
Hercules and Cerberus (Hans Sebald Beham, 1545, engraving)
Juno Defies Cerberus and Enters Hades (Johann Wilhelm Baur
German, c. 1639, etching)
Hercules and Cerberus (Antonio Tempesta, 1608, Print)
Wow, there is a reason the great three-headed dog remains popular even as Ixon, the Hekatonkheires, and Nix are all forgotten! Cerberus is an amazing subject for visual art (as well as being a dog, and all good-hearted people love dogs–even feisty problem pooches).
Obdurodon--A Miocene Platypus which flourished 15 to 20 million years ago
Ferrebeekeeper has an abiding interest in monotremes including both the poisonous platypus and the enigmatic echidnas (with their advanced frontal cortex). But sadly that is about it as far as it goes for the extant egg-laying mammals: there are only two living families of monotremes (with a scanty total of five species split between them). To learn more about these animals one must turn to paleontology. Unfortunately even in the fossil record, monotremes are extremely rare.
Based on genetic evidence, biologists believe that the first monotremes made their advent in the history of life about 220 million years ago during the Triassic era; however the earliest known fossil monotreme so far discovered was a fossil jaw from the early Cretacious era about 120 million years ago. The bones belonged to Steropodon galmani, which seems to have been a beaked swimmer about 50 cm (20 inches) long which lived in Australia. Steropodon was apparently a giant among Cretacious mammals–most of which seem to have been shrew-sized (so as to better avoid attention from their contemporaries, the dinosaurs). Reconstructions of Steropodon all seem to resemble the platypus, and most paleantologists would probably concede that it was a sort of platypus—as apparently were other Mesozoic fossil monotremes such as Kollikodon and Teinolophos (platypuses and these platypus-like forbears are called the Ornithorhynchida). During the Cretaceous era, the land which is now Australia was in the South Polar regions of the world (approximately where Antarctica is today). Although temperatures were much warmer during the Cretaceous, monotremes must still have been able to deal with terrible cold: it is believed that the extremely efficient temperature control and the deep hibernation mechanism which these animals continue to display first evolved during that time.
An artist's reconstruction of Steropodon
The only monotreme fossil which was not found in Australia was from another platypus-like creature named Monotrematus sudamericanum. The creature’s remains were found in a Patagonian rock formation from the Paleocene era (the era just after the fall of the dinosaurs). Monotremes probably flourished across South America and Antarctica, as well as on Australia, but evidence is still scarce. There are most likely many interesting monotreme fossils throughout Antarctica, but, for some reason, paleontologists have not yet discovered them. Additionally, unlike the marsupials (which still quietly flourish throughout South America), the poor monotremes were wiped out on that continent.
Another artist's vision of Steropodon galmani--Notice how peeved the poor creature looks!
Last week I wrote about the Eocene era and the great proliferation of mammalian types which took place during that warm and fecund time. Although most families of mammals alive today first appeared on the scene during the Eocene, obviously the monotremes were already incredibly ancient. The Eocene does however seem to have been significant time for the monotreme order: the aquatic platypuses were apparently the ancestral monotremes, and echidnas (the Tachyglossidae) probably split off from them during the Eocene. Unfortunately we have no Eocene monotreme fossils so this conclusion is based on genetic evidence and on the suffusion of Miocene monotremes which include representatives of both Ornithorhynchida and Tachyglossidae. Some of these latter creatures are spectacular, like Zaglossus hacketti the giant echidna from the Pleistocene which was about the size of a ram! As Australia dried up so did the monotremes and now there is only one species of platypus left…
The Giant Echidna (Zaglossus hacketti) which lived until 20,000 years ago...
Well, that’s a cursory history of the monotremes based on what we know. I wish I could tell you more but unfortunately there is no fossil evidence concerning the first half of the order. Sometimes I like to imagine the first monotremes—which were probably clunky, furry platypus-looking characters with an extra hint of iguana thrown in. These creatures fished in the alien rivers of the Triassic world in a time when dinosaurs and pterosaurs were also still evolving.
Poison is very common in the animal kingdom (and throughout the other kingdoms of life) both as a means of defense and as a weapon for hunting, however only a tiny handful of mammals are poisonous. A few shrews have mildly venomous bites. The European mole has a toxin in its saliva which can send earthworms into a coma (allowing it to store them in the larder for later). The Solenodon, a strange burrowing nocturnal insectivore is perhaps most toxic among the mammals–with one glaring exception. At the beginning of the month we wrote about the clever echidna–a monotreme with unusual brain physiology. The echidna’s closest relative, and the world’s only other remaining monotreme, the duck-billed platypus is the planet’s most poisonous mammal by far. Not only do platypuses have bills, lay eggs, and utilize electrical sensory apparatus to hunt, but the male has a moveable poisonous spur on his hind legs which is attached to a venom-producing crural gland. Only the male platypus is capable of producing a toxic peptide cocktail and injecting it through his spurs. Female platypuses (and all echidnas) have rudimentary spurs which drop off and lack functioning crural glands. Platypus venom causes pain and hyperalgesia—which means an increased sensitivity to pain–so you shouldn’t cuddle male platypuses no matter how adorable their funny little bills may look to you.
The crural glands...and the spur!
The Stanford neuroblog (from whom I borrowed the attached image of a platypuses’ poisonous organs and appendages), notes the similarity of platypus venoms with reptile venoms, “One evolutionary curiosity: the defensin-like peptides found within the platypus venom are also found within reptile venom. However, genetic analysis in 2008 revealed that the platypus peptides evolved independently from the reptile peptides, although both were derived from the same gene family.” Its curious to think of how our ties with reptile forbears are manifested in the curious and endearing (and poisonous!) platypus.
Eek! Get down...he's got a platypus!
Here at Ferrebeekeeper we have written a great deal about Echidna and her monstrous offspring. But what about her erstwhile spouse Typhon, the hideous flaming giant made of snakes? Today’s news from Europe reminds us that we should not forget him, for Mount Etna on Sicily is erupting again.
A Reuters photo of the January 12th 2010 Etna eruption taking place behind the Sicilian village of Milo
When Typhon challenged the Olympian gods and nearly destroyed them with his chaotic rampage, Zeus barely defeated the monster by hurling a flaming mountain onto him. According to myth, Typhon still struggles beneath the bulk of Mount Etna. His convulsions cause earthquakes, explosions, and eruptions of boiling rock. Here are some pictures taken today of the volcano’s fury.
An Eruption on the Southeast Crater cone of Etna (AP)
The Short-Beaked Echidna (Source: M McKelvey/P Rismiller/)
Last year featured an in-depth examination of Echidna, the terrifying “mother of monsters” from Greek mythology. To start this year on a glorious high note, here is an essay concerning the actual echidnas (Tachyglossidae), a family of mammals from Australia and New Guinea. The echidnas were much wronged when explorers named them after a hellish demigoddess. Although I have never met—or even seen—a living echidna, they are one of my favorite creatures for many reasons. Combining a gentle temperament with fascinatingly alien intelligence, the echidna is a delightful animal whose taxonomical oddity reveals the strange paths of fate which life takes over great expanses of time.
Along with the charismatic platypus, the echidna is the last of the egg-laying monotremes. Monotremes are a very different sort of mammal than the other two major divisions of mammals, the eutheria and the metatheria. The teeming eutheria (familiar mammals like shrews, manatees, picas, goats, and humans) nourish their fetal young by means of a placenta. The ancient metatheria (marsupials) sustain their developing young in a special pouch. The monotremes predate both groups and give evidence of mammals’ origins. Genetic studies suggest that the monotremes originated from some reptile-like ancestor about 220 million years ago. The long and tangled family history of the mammals and their antecedents will have to wait for another post–suffice to say that monotremes have been here for an extraordinarily long time. The surviving monotremes, however, are not primitive atavists, but extraordinarily advanced descendants of those ancient progenitor mammals. They have evolved and survived in varying fashions over the long eons. Over those millions and millions of years, the echidna developed a very interesting brain.
Echidnas have the largest neocortex relative to bodymass of any creature. The neocortex (which Hercule Poirot always creepily referred to as “the little grey cells”) is involved in higher brain functions such as spacial cognition, logic, and problem solving. This special tool has taken the echidna far: like humans, and unlike almost all other creatures, echidnas live in very diverse habitats. Actually it is the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) which lives in different habitats—the other two extant species live in tropical New Guinea and are little known to science. Although all three species seem to share most traits, I am really writing solely about Tachyglossus aculeatus which ranges from the hot dry desert scrub, to the tropical rainforest, to the coast, to the cold snows of the Australian Alps (where they can lower their body temperature a few degrees above freezing and hibernate). Echidnas live on termites and ants, omnipresent social insects which are evolutionary winners in their own right. Echidnas dig up these insects with powerful razor claws and gobble them down using a long sticky tongue which zips in and out of a toothless tube-like mouth. Echidnas are not known to fight each other or other animals. In the great evolutionary battle they are pacifists (provided you are not an ant or termite) and if approached aggressively they will curl into a ball and trust their sharp spine-like hairs to keep them safe. They are also phenomenal burrowers and can quickly tunnel down through anything other than solid stone.
An orphaned puggle being handraised.
Because of their cleverness, relatively little is known about echidnas. They are difficult to capture since they disdain baits and can figure out most traps. Similarly, in zoos, echidnas have proven extremely gifted at escape. Their mating habits are largely mysterious to us but seem to involve non-confrontational competition. The female echidna is followed for an extended period of time by a train of interested males. In response to an unknown signal, the male echidnas begin frantically digging, trying to nudge one another out of the way. Just how the victor emerges from this competition is unknown, but one the female has chosen, the other males walk away with no obvious rancor. After laying her egg, the female immediately rolls it into a pouch-like fold on her abdomen. Once the puggle has hatched, the mother echidna solicitously tends it for seven months, after which it roams off free and solitary.
Echidnas have an extra sense, electoreceptivity, but for them it is much weaker than it is in their close cousins the platypuses. It has also been noted that echidnas vibrate. Water placed near captive echidnas shows distinct ripples in the surface. Perhaps they vocalize on frequencies beneath the range of human hearing (as do elephants). Speaking of captivity, Echidnas have survived for up to 30 years in zoos even though it is a difficult environment for the blithesome free-roaming animals. It is believed they live twice that long in the wild—but, again, nobody really knows.
Agh! Get away from there! I though you had a large neocortex!
Likewise nobody knows the echidnas’ total population numbers or how healthy the species is. What is known is that, sadly, even the intelligent and peaceful echidnas are running into problems in the modern world. Like other good-hearted pedestrians, echidnas are often killed by careless drivers. Echidnas face increasing habitat destruction from human houses, farms, and roads. Likewise they must deal with new predators, the dingos, which have discovered that urinating on balled-up echidnas will cause the latter to uncurl for a moment in stunned disgust (giving the ruthless dogs a chance to rip into their guts).
I wonder what echidnas think of us. They know of our traps, our radio-tracking devices, and they know how to avoid aborigine hunters. They are becoming wise to our deadly cars and to the dirty tricks of dingos. Still they remain curious about people and will sometimes come out of the wilderness in groups to examine our suburbs and cities before melting back into the wild. Humankind took a long while to understand that echidnas are not dim-witted reptilian pincushions but rather clever and highly developed generalists. Do they generously think the same of us, or do they put humankind from their mind as something foul when they head back to the ancient, open outback?
Jason and the Argonauts faced one of Echidna’s children, the Colchian Dragon, which was guarding the golden fleece. Taking a page out of Dashiell Hammett’s playbook, they slipped the monster a mickey and made off with the fleece while the dragon slumbered (pausing only to draw a mustache on the creature). Not exactly a proud moment…but it was probably the least morally ambiguous thing they did during their dark quest.
Here is a painting of a very very fancy Jason, administering the potion to the dragon. The fact that the monster is about the size of a terrier makes the whole scene even more hilarious but hey, that’s eighteenth century art for you.
Charming the Sleepless Dragon of the Golden Fleece (Giovanni Battista Crosato, 1697-1756)
Thanks MS Paint!
To celebrate the spooky season, we have been recounting the various fates of the brood of monsters descended from Echidna. While doing so, one aspect of the story has become glaringly apparent: more than half of the family of monsters was defeated by Hercules. Cerberus, Ladon, Orthrus, the Nemean Lion, the Hydra, the great Caucasian Eagle…the demigod bested them all as he bludgeoned and ripped his shining path through the world. (I haven’t told the tale of Orthrus, the two headed dog who was best friend to the three-headed monster Geryon: suffice to say, during his tenth labor, Hercules killed the poor pooch.) One would expect a devoted mother to be enraged and thirst for vengeance. However there is a story about Hercules and Echidna meeting, and it seems the mother of monsters desired something very different from revenge. I’ll turn the storytelling over to Herodotus. It is worth remembering that while people call Herodotus “the father of history”, historians call him “the father of lies”. He tells a great many thrilling stories but he probably made them up while he was binge drinking in his library…. Anyway, here is the passage from Book IV of the Histories of Herodotus (translated by George Rawlinson):
Hercules came from thence into the region now called Scythia, and, being overtaken by storm and frost, drew his lion’s skin about him, and fell fast asleep. While he slept, his mares, which he had loosed from his chariot to graze, by some wonderful chance disappeared. On waking, he went in quest of them, and, after wandering over the whole country, came at last to the district called “the Woodland,” where he found in a cave a strange being, between a maiden and a serpent, whose form from the waist upwards was like that of a woman, while all below was like a snake. He looked at her wonderingly; but nevertheless inquired, whether she had chanced to see his strayed mares anywhere. She answered him, “Yes, and they were now in her keeping; but never would she consent to give them back, unless he took her for his mistress.” So Hercules, to get his mares back, agreed; but afterwards she put him off and delayed restoring the mares, since she wished to keep him with her as long as possible. He, on the other hand, was only anxious to secure them and to get away. At last, when she gave them up, she said to him, “When thy mares strayed hither, it was I who saved them for thee: now thou hast paid their salvage; for lo! I bear in my womb three sons of thine. Tell me therefore when thy sons grow up, what must I do with them? Wouldst thou wish that I should settle them here in this land, whereof I am mistress, or shall I send them to thee?” Thus questioned, they say, Hercules answered, “When the lads have grown to manhood, do thus, and assuredly thou wilt not err. Watch them, and when thou seest one of them bend this bow as I now bend it, and gird himself with this girdle thus, choose him to remain in the land. Those who fail in the trial, send away. Thus wilt thou at once please thyself and obey me.”
Two of Echidna’s human children by Hercules proved to be disappointments and were sent away, but Skythes, the youngest son was indeed capable of wielding Hercules’ bow. Skythes stayed in the land, became its king, and fathered the race of the Scythians, a (real) tribe of people whom the ancient Greeks regarded as being descended from union of the the greatest Greek hero and a primordial monster! People who are familiar with the Scythians will be yelling and punching the air right now (because Scythians are just completely awesome), however, to quickly summarize; the fearsome Scythians were nomads of the Pontic-Caspian steppe. They were renowned for their formidable prowess at mounted warfare and for being general badasses. Roman historians described the Goths as Scythians. The Scottish even called themselves Scythians! in the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath, an open letter to the pope, the elite aristocrats of Scotland claim Scythia as their former homeland. It goes without saying they were binge-drinking in a library when they wrote that puppy.
Scythian Warriors on the steppes (Painting by Angus McBride)
Speaking of puppies, tomorrow, we wrap up this series with everyone’s favorite child of Echidna…
Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra, with the sign of Cancer (by Baldassare Peruzzi, 1481-1536)
According to myth, the Lernaean hydra was a nine headed chthonic water monster which guarded the entrance to the underworld which lay beneath the waters of Lake Lerna. The creature was so profoundly poisonous that even its footprints were toxic–to say nothing of its blood, bite, and breath. When one of the hydra’s heads was cut off, two more would sprout in its place. The hydra did have a weakness of sorts—only one of its heads was immortal.
Hercules’ second labor was to kill this fearsome monster. After the trouble the Nemean Lion had given the hero, Hercules adhered more closely to the Boy Scout motto before facing the hydra: he prepared thoroughly for the confrontation by covering his face and eyes against the monster’s poison. He donned his impervious lionskin and took with him his club, a golden sickle-sword given to him by Athena, and, most importantly, an ally–his nephew (and lover), Iolaus.
Attic Black Figure on White Ground from Funeral Lekythos (Attributed to the Diosphos Painter, ca 500 - 480 BC)
But for all of his physical preparations, Hercules attacked the monster with a characteristic lack of tactics. First he fired flaming arrows into the hydra’s favorite lair, the unquenchable well of Amymone until the creature emerged. Then Hercules started lopping off heads and bashing away with his club. Soon a veritable forest of poisonous serpentine monster heads was striking at him, and all seemed lost until Athena stole up beside Iolaus and gifted him with a flaming brand and the idea of cauterizing each neck before new heads could sprout. With the combined efforts of Iolaus, the ever-victorious goddess Athena, brute strength, the golden sickle-sword, and good ol’ fire, Hercules gradually cut and cauterized his way through the beast. But, the Hydra was not lacking for allies either: Hera sent a great crab to reinforce the wounded creature. Using superhuman strength Hercules crushed the crab with a mighty foot and at last faced only the Hydra’s immortal head. With one mighty slice he finished decapitating the monster and he placed the still living head beneath an immense rock on the sacred roadway between Lerna and Elaius. Hercules then dipped his arrows in the Hydra’s blood so that they would be lethal to all mortal things –a cruel stroke of genius which was to ultimately prove his downfall. Hera placed her defeated hydra and crab in the night sky.
Of all of Echidna’s offspring, the hydra seems to have the most resonance with contemporary artists. Painters, sculptors, and draftspeople are attracted to a theme which so elegantly exemplifies the hopelessness of struggling against a multi-headed entity capable of renewing itself exponentially. The hydra is emblematic of viruses, invasive animals, crabgrass, terrorists, crooked politicians, and corporations. Such a contest clearly presents the fundamental nature of individual striving. Hercules’ victory thus resounds as the ultimate triumph of the individual over the many…except…well, he had Iolaus, a magic weapon, magic armor, and the goddess Athena (as well as a sanction from his omnipotent father). In fact, his great accomplishment was deemed unacceptable as a “labor” because he utilized so much help.
I’ll leave you to contemplate the fact that even great Hercules needed a support team. In the mean time, enjoy this crazy gallery of amazing contemporary artworks depicting the hydra:
Hydra (Sculpture by Elford Bradley Cox)
A performance art troop, Fluid Movement, presents "The Dance of the Hydra"
Figure 24.3: Hydra (by Richard Oden)Hydra (Installation piece made from muslin and transistor radios by Kelley Bell, 2002)
Hydra 1 (ironwood sculpture by Cody Powell & Ben Carpenter)
A hydra drawn on a styrofoam cup with marker by Cheeming Boey aka Boy Obsolete
Hydra (painting by Travis Lampe for "Beasts 2)
The Hydra of Madison Avenue, (by Todd Schorr, 2001): a vivid nightmare of corporate mascots run amok
The Chimera
I have a special affection for the next monster on my list. Of all of Echidna’s brood, the Chimera seems like the most fanciful: she was a mixed-up creature with three heads from completely different animals. The Chimera had the body and head of a lioness, but a goat head protruded from her back, and she had a live snake instead of a tail. The Chimera breathed fire and haunted the volcanic mountains of Lycia. Even in mythology, this was an improbable beast, and therefore, since classical times, writers and poets have called unbelievable fabrications “chimeras.”
Zoomorphs! The chimerical building toy
I am fond of the Chimera because I designed a line of toys, the Zoomorphs, which is a kind of do-it-yourself chimera kit. The toy consists of a set of plastic animal parts which can be snapped together to make an actual creature like a Tyrannosaurus, a dog, a goldfish, or a parrot (to name only a few). The user can also pop the different pieces together to make crazy fantasy creatures such as a dino-dog with parrot’s wings and a fish tail. You can find them for sale at finer independent toy stores. Here’s a link to the company site. Sorry for the shameless plug—but it was germane to the subject. Anyway…back to mythology….
Like a surprising number of the monsters born of Echidna, the Chimera was slain for no good reason–thanks to a sequence of events which had nothing to do with her. Bellerophon, prince of Corinth (and the grandson of wily Sisyphus) fled from his father’s court after committing murder. He took refuge in Tiryns, where he was a favorite guest until the queen accused him of ravishing her. The king of Tiryn sent Bellerophon to his father-in-law with a sealed note to kill the bearer (coincidentally, do such death warrants ever work properly in fiction?). The father-in-law also had qualms about murdering a guest, and so he dispatched Bellerophon on a suicide mission to kill the Chimera. With assistance from Athena and Poseidon, Bellerophon tamed the magnificent winged horse Pegasus. In order to deal with the Chimera’s fiery breath, Bellerophon attached a hunk of lead to a spear. When the Chimera breathed on the lead the soft metal melted down the creature’s throat causing the poor animal to suffocate.
Bellerophon fighting the Chimera (watercolor by Walter Crane, 1895)
Bellerophon performed a few other heroic deeds and ultimately became king. However the dark shadows in his character did not vanish with a crown. After a few years of increasingly tyrannical behavior, he resolved to fly Pegasus to Mount Olympos and join the gods as an equal. Zeus sent a blowfly to sting the winged horse, and Bellerophon was thrown down into a thorn bush. Maimed and blinded, he wondered Greece as a beggar, while former subjects pretended not to recognize him. The moral of the story is that Greek gods can tolerate murder, rape, chimeracide, and despotism, but woe to those guilty of hubris! And thus does Bellerophon’s troubling story come to a stupid end.
Fortunately modern biologists do not agree with nonexistent gods (or their adherents) as to what constitutes hubris. This is relevant because the creation and study of “chimeras” in biology has become widespread. In the context of biology, a chimera is an organism (or a part of an organism) with tissues created from more than one distinctive sets of genetic information. Such an organism can come about through organ transplant, grafting, or genetic engineering. Some chimerical organisms have a long history and are familiar–like grafted rose bushes or organ-transplant recipients. Other chimeras, particularly those created by genetic tinkering, are rather more apt to stir up passion among the traditionally-minded. For example, in 2003, Chinese biologists created an early stage embryo which combined rabbit and human parts. Bio-ethics and our transgenic future merit further writing, however splicing the genes of organisms together is about to become more frequent. Why not join the wave of the future with some delightful, high-quality morphing toys!
You are not getting off this merry-go-round!
Theseus Fiighting the Crommyon Sow and Phaea (Attic red-figured kylix, ca. 440-430 BC. From Vulci)
In Greek myth, the Crommyonian sow was a great she-pig which lived on the Isthmus of Corinth and tormented travelers until the Athenian hero Theseus came along and killed her. In some tales the sow was a lone wild animal, but in other stories she had a human woman named Phaea associated with her: it is unclear whether this woman was young or old, lovely or haggard, a rude swineheard or a great sorceress. A few sources indicate she herself might have been a shapeshifter who became the pig. Whatever the case, Theseus slew her in addition to her sow. The Borghese Gallery has a very strange relief sculpture by Vincenzo Pacetti which portrays Theseus handling Phaea’s nude (human) corpse and looking perplexed.
It’s kind of unclear what happened here. Of all the children of Echidna, the Crommyonian sow seems to get the shortest shrift in art and literature. The sow vanishes from almost everything made after the fifth century BC. There are numerous red and black vases depicting Theseus fighting the great pig and/or her associated sorceress, so it seems like the story was important to Athenians. However the full version of this myth seems to have been lost in the mists of time and all we have are allusions and brief conflicting accounts [this sentence could apply to just about everything—ed]. Strabo asserts that the sow was the mother of the great Calydonian boar, whose mythical life and death engendered much strife, chauvinism, murder, and grief in the pantheon of Classical heroes. So perhaps, like Echidna, the sow found her greatest fame through her descendants.
A Wild Sow with her Shoats
I am going to go with Strabo and assume that the Calydonian Boar has a place in my musings about Echidna (being her grandson and all). The boar was sent by Artemis to obtain revenge on King Oeneus the winemaker who forgot to honor the goddess with ritual sacrifices. The monster destroyed the king’s vineyards and murdered his subjects, but it was only when Oeneus gathered the heroes of his age and sent them out (with his beloved son Meleager) to kill the boar that the virgin goddess obtained her true and terrible revenge. The machinations behind the story are long and complicated (and sad), but the story of the hunt of the Calydonian boar suits my Halloween theme for an entirely different reason. This was a favorite theme of sarcophagus makers who enjoyed sculpting beautiful armed nudes in the passion of the hunt. Beneath is a gallery of Calydonian boar themed sarcophagi from the lost classical world. The makers knew the story’s terrible fatalist tragedy (which I am not telling you) and they found it a most fitting subject for funerary art:
Roman marble sarcophagus from Vicovaro (municipality northeast of Rome), carved with the Calydonian Hunt (Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome)
Attic sarcophagos. Pentelic marble. Found at Ayios Ioannis, Patras.
Greek Sarcophagus of the Calydonian Boar Hunt (Piraeus Archeological Museum, Athens)
Sculpted neo attic sarcophagus representing the Calydonian boar hunt with Atalanta and Meleager in the Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum (Second quarter of the 3rd c. AD)
A Sarcophagus with the Calydonian Boar Hunt (provenance unknown)
Etruscan cinerary urn with boar hunt, 2nd C BCE, Volterra Museo Guarnacci
