Hydra

Origin

The earliest literary reference is Hesiod's Theogony lines 313-318 (eighth century BCE), where the Hydra appears as offspring of Typhon and Echidna alongside Cerberus, the Chimera, and Orthrus, reared by Hera for the express purpose of testing Heracles. The canonical narrative of the Second Labour rests on the Library (Bibliotheca) of pseudo-Apollodorus II.5.2 (first to second century CE), which fixes nine heads, the torch-bearing Iolaus, Hera's gift of a giant crab (Karkinos), and the burial of the immortal head. Diodorus Siculus IV.11, Hyginus Fabulae 30 and 151, Pausanias II.37.4, and Virgil Aeneid VI all elaborate the legend. Variations in head count run from Alcaeus' nine through Simonides' fifty to Euripides' hundred in his Heracles, evidencing that the proliferation of heads is itself a structural motif. Vase painting from the sixth century BCE onward shows the encounter as a fixed Heraclean iconography.

Features

• Many serpentine heads, canonically nine, with variants from seven to a hundred
• Regenerative: two heads grow where one is severed
• A single central head that is immortal
• Venomous breath and blood, lethal to any creature
• Massive serpentine body amphibious in the swamps of Lerna
• Personally reared by Hera as a test for Heracles

Stories

The Hydra is the iconic adversary of Heracles' Second Labour and a fixture of Greek art. Black-figure vases from the sixth century BCE, the metopes of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, and Pompeian wall paintings all depict the combat. In astronomy the constellation Hydra, listed by Ptolemy in his Almagest, is the largest of the modern 88 IAU constellations; the southern constellation Hydrus shares the name. In biology, the freshwater cnidarian genus Hydra, first observed by Leeuwenhoek in 1702 and shown by Abraham Trembley in 1744 to regenerate from cut fragments, bears the mythic name directly. In popular culture the metaphor 'hydra-headed problem' is ubiquitous, and the Marvel Comics secret society HYDRA, created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in Strange Tales No. 135 (1965), carries the myth straight into modern pop iconography.

Weakness

Each severed neck must be cauterised with fire immediately to prevent regeneration. The pseudo-Apollodorus account has Iolaus stationed with a torch as Heracles severs each head, the partnership solving the regeneration paradox. The central immortal head cannot be killed and was instead buried beneath a great rock by the hero. Some depictions show the Hydra growing sluggish when drawn out of its swamp onto dry ground. Hera's giant crab Karkinos attacks Heracles' foot during the combat and is crushed underfoot; Hera elevates its soul into the constellation Cancer in compensation, a frequent companion-myth.

Cultural Significance

Beyond myth the Hydra is the archetype of 'evil that grows when struck', the single most powerful trope of regenerative threat in Western letters. Dante's seven-headed beast in Inferno and the seven-headed beast of Revelation 13 share Hydra-imagery; Shakespeare's Coriolanus calls the mob a 'many-headed hydra'. Eighteenth-century English political cartooning rendered corruption and tyranny as hydras, and the historians Marcus Rediker and Peter Linebaugh recast Atlantic slavery and proletarian revolt under the title The Many-Headed Hydra (2000). The IAU constellation Hydra, spanning 1303 square degrees, is the largest in the sky. The Marvel secret society HYDRA, with its slogan 'cut off one head, two more shall take its place', keeps the myth in twenty-first century cinema. The cnidarian genus Hydra, used in biology textbooks worldwide, bears the name through Trembley's eighteenth-century regeneration experiments.

In Popular Culture

Hesiod, Theogony 313-318 (8th c. BCE) — Lernaean Hydra as Typhon and Echidna's offspringPseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca II.5.2 (1st-2nd c. CE) — canonical Second Labour narrativeDiodorus Siculus IV.11 and Hyginus, Fabulae 30 — full elaboration of the combatOvid, Metamorphoses Book IX — the poisoned arrows and their consequencesEuripides, Heracles — Hydra of a hundred headsVirgil, Aeneid Book VI — the Hydra at the gates of the underworldDante, Inferno — seven-headed beast as Hydra descendant in medieval Christian allegory