Greek Mythology is a collection of stories about the gods, heroes, the birth, operation and development of the world and the universe in the ancient belief of the Greeks.
Not only that, one of the things that makes Greek Mythology so famous around the world and timeless is the strange monsters and mythical creatures described by the ancients so vividly and honestly. , often associated with the feats of heroes. Here, readers, along with us, take a look at the most famous monsters in this massive Mythology series.
Sphinx
Sphinx, also known as the Sphinx, this creature makes many people think of the Sphinx in Egypt, but it is also a famous monster of intelligence in Greek Mythology. The Sphinx is depicted as having the face and breasts of a woman, the body of a lion with the wings of an eagle and a snake’s tail. Many documents claim that the Sphinx is the son of the demon God Typhon.
The Sphinx is the gatekeeper of Thebes in Greece, if anyone wants to enter the city, they must answer its questions, otherwise they will be strangled and eaten by it. Sphinx’s question is the famous riddle that almost everyone has heard today: “Which creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, three legs in the evening, and the more legs it has, the weaker it is?” Oedipus later gave the correct answer as “human”.
Some versions say that the Sphinx once asked another question: “There are two sisters, one gives birth to the other and the other also gives birth to this one, who is it?” – The answer is “Day” and “Night”. After the question was solved, the Sphinx felt ashamed, so he rushed down the mountain to commit suicide, there is also another version that it eats itself.
Minotaur
The Minotaur is an extremely fierce and powerful bull-headed monster that has caused terror to the people of Crete. The king of this island, Minos, ordered a talented architect to build a maze and trick the Minotaur into it. Although unable to escape, the Minotaur day and night roared with terrible sounds that also shook the whole island of Crete.
King Minos was a cruel and selfish man, because in order to avoid the Minotaur’s harassment, he made a covenant to give him seven boys and seven girls each year to eat, in exchange that he would not roar to cause he was scared again. The name Minotaur (King Minos’ bull) of this monster also comes from here.
The Minotaur was later destroyed by the warrior Theseus. This young man wore a red thread and stormed into the labyrinth, fighting and beheading the Minotaur’s head. Thanks to the guiding thread, he was able to get out safely. And King Minos was later tricked by Cocalus into bathing in a boiling water, so he was boiled to death, as a payment for his cruel actions.
Medusa
This is a very famous female demon in Greek Mythology, since ancient times has been included in various works of art or sculpture. At first, Medusa was an extremely beautiful girl with bouncy hair that was admired and praised by many boys, so this girl became arrogant, thinking that she was even more beautiful than the goddess Athena. so he said a lot of insults to the goddess.
As punishment for this, Athena transformed the beautiful hair that Medusa was proud of into a head full of disgusting snakes, her nails were sharper than a bronze sword, and made her eyes sparkle. the ability to turn everyone she sees to stone. From here on, no boy dared to keep an eye on Medusa anymore.
Medusa became a female demon who turned men and living creatures to stone, however she did not harm women. Later, the hero Perseus, thanks to the guidance of the goddess Athena and the helmet of invisibility given by the god Hades, destroyed Medusa.
Cerberus
Cerberus is a three-headed mastiff with a snake’s tail, always walking beside Hades. It was originally the son of the demon God Typhon, assigned by God Hades to guard the gates of hell to prevent the living from entering, as well as prevent the dead souls from escaping and returning to earth.
“Capturing Cerberus with his bare hands” is the last of the 12 great feats of the hero Hercules, in which he is asked not to use any weapons. But then Hercules asked to bring with him the skin of the giant Nemea lion he had killed, a skin so tough that nothing except the thunder of Zeus could destroy it.
After crossing the River Styx into the underworld of ghosts, Hercules confronted Cerberus head-on. This is a very fierce fight, the claws of this monster are extremely scary, all three heads with long white teeth, and one more venomous snake in the tail, all aim at the same time. Hercules that attacked. Fortunately, he had a protective lion skin, so he was not injured.
Finally, Hercules successfully captured Cerberus and brought him to earth to the horror of everyone, completing his final feat. Since then, Hercules became famous everywhere, becoming one of the most famous heroes of Greek Mythology.
Chimera
According to the descriptions, Chimera is a giant monster with a lion’s head, a snake’s tail, and a goat’s head and a dragon’s head on its back, all three of these heads can breathe fire and love to eat raw meat. . This monster is also the son of the demon God Typhon.
Later the brave Bellerophon fought against Chimera. Thanks to riding on the back of the winged god horse Pegasus, Bellerophon was able to fly in the air to avoid the poisonous fire that was spewed from the Chimera’s mouth. However, he was still not strong enough to defeat this giant monster with skin as hard as iron, the arrows released by him were completely unable to hurt it.
At last Bellerophon had an idea, and while Chimera was spewing fire, he shot bronze arrows into its mouth. The fire caused the copper arrow to instantly melt into liquid and flow rapidly into Chimera’s mouth, shutting off its airway, eventually causing the monster to collapse and die.
Hydra
This must be one of the most powerful and dangerous monsters of Greek Mythology. Hydra is a giant snake with many heads, there is also a version that says it is a dragon with many heads. It is extremely aggressive, bloodthirsty and warlike, only its breath carries a deadly poison, and its blood is so poisonous that it can kill even immortal Gods. In terms of background, Hydra is related by blood to Chimera and Cerberus, both of whom are children of the demon God Typhon.
One of the 12 feats of the hero Hercules was to defeat the monster Hydra. However, this is extremely difficult, because not only is it iron skin, extremely poisonous breath, but Hydra is also almost immortal. When one of its snake heads was cut off, two more snake heads grew on that spot. For a long time this monster was considered invincible.
After many arduous battles, Hercules also thought of a way to completely destroy the Hydra: every time he cut down a snake’s head, he immediately burned the rest of the body so that it could not regenerate. create. Just like that, Hercules cut off the head and burned all of the Hydra’s bodies in turn. Finally Hercules cut off the snake’s head in the center of Hydra, this monster that was considered immortal and invincible was completely annihilated.
Typhon
The title of “father” of all monsters in Greek Mythology belongs to the demon God Typhon, this is the most terrible and powerful monster. Even its children like Cerberus, Chimera, Hydra, etc. are already notorious monsters for their strength and ferocity, from here you can imagine how terrifying Typhon is!
Typhon is a half-god monster, it was originally the son of the two supreme Primordial Gods in Greek Mythology, the Earth Mother Gaia and the bottomless Hell God Tartarus. Typhon is described as having a larger body… Europe and Asia, his head reaching to the sky, his body is immense, his body is covered with countless snake heads or dragon heads, each eye on those heads has an eye. It can release fire and poison, and its entire body is covered with fierce storms.
Greek mythology tells that after the chaotic world was brought to order, Typhon rebelled against the supreme Gods on Mount Olympus, wanting to take the throne of Zeus. Even the Gods were afraid to fight Typhon. In the end, Zeus had to personally take action. The battle between Zeus and Typhon is perhaps the most intense battle in Greek Mythology.
Typhon was absolutely not inferior to Zeus, after many days of inconclusive fighting, once the monster pretended to be injured and fell dead. Zeus stopped, Typhon took the opportunity to immediately jump up to attack extremely fiercely, causing Zeus to fall. However, Typhon was still afraid of the power of Zeus, so he quickly pulled out all the tendons in his arms and legs. It couldn’t kill Zeus because he was immortal, but by taking away his tendons it made him unable to move.
Later, God Hermes and God Pan used music to fascinate Typhon, thereby tricking him into regaining Zeus’ tendons. After restoring his divine power, Zeus began to counterattack, sending countless lightning bolts to Typhon, severely wounding it. Typhon ran away, Zeus took the advantage of carrying Mount Etna and threw it on Typhon, finishing the monster. Although dead, but the fire emitted from Typhon’s body was still enough to turn Etna into a volcano, still causing harm to humanity to this day.
Although he was eventually destroyed, Typhon was able to defeat Zeus, something that no other God, hero or monster in Greek Mythology could do. Therefore, Typhon truly deserves the title of the most powerful monster in this Mythology.
