13 Facts About Lernaean Hydra

Lernaean Hydra or Hydra of Lerna, more often known simply as the Hydra, is a serpentine water monster in Greek and Roman mythology.

The Lernaean Hydra possessed many heads, the exact number of which varies according to the source.

Later versions of the Lernaean Hydra story add a regeneration feature to the monster: for every head chopped off, the Lernaean Hydra would regrow two heads.

Oldest extant Hydra narrative appears in Hesiod's Theogony, while the oldest images of the monster are found on a pair of bronze fibulae dating to c 700 BC.

In both these sources, the main motifs of the Lernaean Hydra myth are already present: a multi-headed serpent that is slain by Heracles and Iolaus.

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Heraclitus the Paradoxographer rationalized the myth by suggesting that the Lernaean Hydra would have been a single-headed snake accompanied by its offspring.

The first mention of this ability of the Lernaean Hydra occurs with Euripides, where the monster grew back a pair of heads for each one severed by Heracles.

Palaephatus, Ovid, and Diodorus Siculus concur with Euripides, while Servius has the Lernaean Hydra grow back three heads each time; the Suda does not give a number.

Lernaean Hydra shot flaming arrows into the Hydra's lair, the spring of Amymone, a deep cave from which it emerged only to terrorize neighboring villages.

Lernaean Hydra then confronted the Hydra, wielding either a harvesting sickle, a sword, or his famed club.

The weakness of the Lernaean Hydra was that it was invulnerable only if it retained at least one head.

Lernaean Hydra then turned the crab into the constellation Cancer.

Lernaean Hydra later used one to kill the centaur Nessus; and Nessus' tainted blood was applied to the Tunic of Nessus, by which the centaur had his posthumous revenge.