Ceto

A gigantic snake’s body, with a woman’s arms and breasts, gives Ceto her monstrous form. She is a female sea monster who belongs to the deep ocean. With Phorcys, her husband and consort, she personifies the hidden perils and terrors of the sea. One source names her as a daughter of Pontos. Another gives her parentage as Nereus and Doris, or Pontus and Gaia.

Ceto is the mother of the Gorgons, the Graea, and the dragon that guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides. Another account also names Echidna and Ladon among her offspring. In that account, she lays eggs and carries the Grey Ones, her blind and toothless daughters, north through cold water before leaving them on an ice floe. Ceto appears in the myths of this monstrous brood rather than in a separate story of her own. Her place is among the ancient sea beings from which several dangerous creatures of Greek myth were born.