Echidna

Echidna joined with Typhon and bore a brood of monsters. Typhon was an enormous hybrid with prodigious strength. He had a hundred serpent heads, dark tongues, fiery eyes, and voices that sounded like many kinds of animals. In some tellings, serpents formed his feet and hair. Poison-spitting bristles covered him, and countless arms extended from his body. Echidna was described as a creature with the form of a beautiful woman above and a serpent below, and she lived in a cave.

Their brood included Cerberus, the three-headed hound of the Underworld, and Orthrus, the two-headed hound of Geryon. They also bore the Hydra, a many-headed water-serpent that lived at Lerna. The Chimaera had a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s body. It breathed fire. The lion, goat, and serpent also marked the three parts of the year, with each creature representing one season.

In one telling, Orthrus later lay with Echidna, his own mother, and fathered the Sphinx and the Nemean Lion. In another telling, Orthrus also fathered the Chimaera and the Hydra on Echidna. This gave the monstrous brood another set of family ties, while Cerberus remained the hound most closely linked with the Underworld.

The Dorians linked Cerberus with the dog-headed Egyptian god Anubis, who conducted souls to the Underworld. Another telling made Cerberus an earlier form of the death-goddess Hecate or Hecabe, who took the form of a bitch because dogs ate the flesh of corpses and howled at the Moon. Other tellings gave Echidna and Typhon further monstrous offspring, including the Caucasian Eagle, Ladon, and the Crommyonian Sow. The brood therefore extended beyond the hounds, serpents, and fire-breathing Chimaera.

Travellers passing through the Arimoi came within reach of Echidna, who lived in a cave and seized those who went by. She devoured them there. Apollodorus names her as the daughter of Tartaros and Ge, and says that she made a practice of snatching away passers-by. Her death came when Argus found her asleep.

Argus was the son of Agenor and the grandson of Ecbasos. He was called Panoptes, or All-Seeing, because eyes covered his body. He also possessed exceptional strength. Before facing Echidna, he had killed the bull that was bringing ruin to Arcadia and had worn its hide. When a Satyr mistreated the Arcadians and stole their cattle, Argus confronted and killed him. He later avenged the death of Apis by killing those responsible.

Argus watched Echidna and waited until she was asleep. He then killed her in the cave. The account presents the killing as an act of vigilance against the creature who had been taking travellers from the road. It does not describe a contest between them while she was awake. Echidna was destroyed when Argus found the moment at which she could not resist him.