Cerberus is a hero of ancient and medieval literature

In Greek and Roman myths, there is often a character like Cerberus. This is a three-headed dog with a wriggling tail and a snake's body. In the encyclopaedic dictionary of allegorical expressions and words it is stated that by this name is meant an alert and fierce guard. What so guarded Cerberus so vigilantly? What kind of character is this? Where did he come from in ancient mythology? Why did his name become a household name? In order to understand all this, you need to go deeper than in the mythology of ancient Greece, and into the cosmogony of this ancient civilization. Which we will do in this article.

The origin of uranides

The genesis of the Olympic gods can be learned from the ancient Greek poet Hesiod. By the way, in his work "Theogony" for the first time and mentioned dog Cerberus. God of Heaven Uranus and the Lady of the Earth, Gaia, gave birth to the first supernatural beings. They were immortal. The God of Time Kronos learned that his own son would interrupt his eternal existence, so he killed all his children. However, one of them, Zeus, managed to escape. He killed his father and began to conquer power, overthrowing the Uranids in Hades. There these creatures acquired the appearance of monsters. Mother Cerberus, Echidna, was a beautiful girl with the body of a snake. She lured the travelers and killed them. And Cerberus' father was Typhon, brother of Echidna. Both parents, in turn, were children of Tartarus (god of the underworld) and Gaia. This is how Hesiod asserts. According to other sources, Echidna was the daughter of Keto and Forkia, or Styx and Perantha, or Fannet. Everyone agrees that this giant half-woman-half-marriage combined charm and cruelty.

"Beautiful" family

Cerberus is not the only son of Echidna. She also gave her husband, and at the same time her brother, the two-headed dog Orff, the Nemean lion, the Lernaean Hydra, the Chimera, the Colchis dragon, the Sphing and the Ephon. This last character of the myths of Ancient Greece was an eagle in the service of Zeus, it was he who pecked the liver of the titan of Prometheus. As you can see, the beautiful snake-like uranide was a real mother-heroine. But all her children were monsters driven to hell. Therefore, Jesus Christ, who lived in the Hellenistic period and is very knowledgeable about the myths, told the Pharisees: "You are the creatures of the vipers", hinting that they are the creatures of evil. However, almost the whole family was destroyed by the hero Hercules. He killed the two-headed dog Orff to steal Herion's flocks, which he guarded. He beheaded Hydra, and also killed the Chimera, who had three heads: snakes, goats and lionesses. According to one version, Hercules killed Echidna herself.

The story of the hero and Cerberus

Hesiod is not the only author who describes Cerberus. Other poets also represent him as a monster, but they disagree about more precise assumptions. According to one source, the dog had three heads, but of different ages. He had a long tail of a lizard, and on the back grew the heads of snakes. Poisoned saliva dripped from the languages. According to other sources, Cerberus is a hundred-headed monster. They sleep in turn. Always one of the heads is awake. But other myths portray this monster as a man with the face of a fierce dog. What guarded Cerberus? Gateway to the realm of the dead, Hades. Inside the entrance was open to everyone, but it was not allowed to go back to anyone. King Evrisfey ordered Hercules to bring him to the guard of the underworld. What a hero did. How? In myths on this account, there is also no consensus. According to one version, just using your physical strength. According to another - he was helped in this by the gods Athena and Hermes. On the third - the priestess gave him a cake with sleeping pills. But it was after this heroic deed that Hercules was released.

The modern meaning of the word "Cerberus"

The image of the hellish dog was so strong that it struck the imagination of people of other civilizations. In the Middle Ages, the myth of the Cerberus did not disappear, like the belief in the Olympic gods. This monster with three dog heads and a long tail guards the entrance to Hell in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. The mankind did not forget about the poisonous saliva of Cerberus. Karl Linnaeus, having discovered a genus of unusually toxic flowering plants in the tropics, named him by the name of the mythical character Cerbera. The astronomers Cerberus is a satellite of the planet Pluto. In the modern world, the image of a vigilant guard is also actively exaggerated. So, in the sensational epic of J. Rowling "Harry Potter" in a terrible dog named Pushosh guesses none other than Cerberus. Finally, it should be said that the name itself became allegorical. If someone wants to be called an evil chain dog, faithfully serving his master, then they say about him "Cerberus."