History Characters / ClassicalMythologyMonsters

* ATasteOfTheirOwnMedicine : Heracles kills several of them with his arrows, exactly like how they killed people with their metal feathers.
* BrutalBirdOfPrey: Possibly. DependingOnTheArtist they could be birds of prey or just massive storks/ibises.

The Calydonian Boar was hunted by a great gathering of heroes, which hurt a lot of their pride when the woman Atalanta was the first one among them to wound it.

* AnimalisticAbomination: A giant boar that bred to reap vengeance for Artemis.
* BreathWeapon: Often forgotten, but there is brief mention that it in fact breathes lightning.

A boar of immense size and ferocity that lived on Mount Erymanthos and was often sent by various gods in vengeance against villages. It may well have killed Adonis, unless that was Ares (or Apollo) in the shape of a boar. Capturing it was Hercules' fourth labour.

* PalsWithJesus: While Heracles's earlier labours involved him killing monsters like the Nemean Lion and the Hydra, Eurystheus specifically required him to capture the Boar instead of killing it. Eurystheus didn't want to risk angering Apollo, who'd preveiously employed the Boar's "services."
* RevengeByProxy: Apollo sent the Boar after Adonis because he was Aphrodite's beloved and he had a grudge against the love goddess for blinding his son Erymanthus for accidentally seeing her bathing.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: It does the rampaging, the gods get the revenge.
* VictoryByEndurance: Heracles captured the Boar the same way he did the Hind of Ceryneia. He scared it with his loud shouting, then wore it out by chasing it until it got stuck in a snowdrift.

An offspring of Echidna and Typhon (Second born by Hesiod's reckoning). [[HellHound A three-headed hound with a tail and mane made of live serpents]], [[ArtisticLicense although most artists stopped reading after the word "hound"]]. Unlike his siblings, Hades took him as a guard dog of his realm. He prevents mortals from entering the underworld and keeps the dead inside. Although there is no tale where Hades actually [[PetTheDog pets him]], the king of the underworld cared about his pet dog well enough, and only allowed Heracles to take him for the twelfth labor if the hero didn't injure him. He is arguably the strongest of his siblings as in one myth he defeats an escaped ''titan'' unaided and drags them back to Tartarus and he is the FinalBoss of Hercules' labors.

Father of the Minotaur by Pasiphae, the wife of King Minos of Crete. It was sent from the oceans by Poseidon to show the god's support of Minos's claim to the Cretan throne. However, Minos soon earned the Olympian's ire by not keeping his promise to sacrifice the bull to Poseidon. Thus, the god went to Aphrodite, who already bore a grudge against Pasiphae's father Helios for revealing her affair with Ares, and had her [[LoveMakesYouCrazy curse Minos's wife with love for the king's prized but uncontrollably angry bull]]. Poseidon also passed his own anger on to the bull, resulting in it causing much damage throughout the land. Captured by Heracles as his seventh labor, when released, it became known as the Bull of Marathon after its new home. It was eventually captured by Theseus and sacrificed to the Gods.

* RevengeByProxy/RevengeThroughCorruption: This is why you don't break promises made to gods or offend [[HeartIsAnAwesomePower the goddess of love]]. Ever.

* MonsterProgenitor: They start with three. Rhe rest of the race came later.

A giant born of Gaia who acted as the loyal servant and attendant of Hera, Argus' most well-known trait was the fact that he had a hundred eyes and could sleep by only keeping two closed at a time, allowing him to be watchful at all times. He was tasked with diligently guarding Zeus' mortal lover Io when she was turned into a cow to make sure she couldn't escape from Hera's grasp. He met his end when Hermes put him to sleep and chopped off his head. To commemorate him, Hera placed his eyes upon the tail of her pet peacock, [[JustSoStory and that's why peacocks have eyes on their tails]]. In some myths, Argus had a few adventures of his own, including being the one to kill Echidna, the mother of all monsters.

* TheBigGuy: Tall and bulky, as fitting a giant. He acted as the bodyguard of Hera.

* JustSoStory: His eyes were placed on the tail of Hera's peacock after his death and this is treated as an explanation for why peacocks have eyespots on their tails. In the modern day, his name has been given to the Argus pheasant, a relative of the peacock with a lot of eyespots on its wings.

* MeaningfulName: His epithet "Panoptes" means "all-eyes" or "all-seeing", due to his many eyes.
* OffWithHisHead: By Hermes; to add insult to injury, Hermes' most famous epithet became "Argeiphontes", meaning "Argus-slayer".

Man-eating birds with metal feathers, bronze beaks and toxic poo that were driven to Lake Stymphyalia by a pack of Arab wolves where they thrived in great numbers, much to the dismay of the local inhabitants. Hercules' sixth labour was to defeat them.

* ATasteOfTheirOwnMedicine : Heracles kills several of them with his arrows, exactly like how they kill people with their metal feathers.
* BrutalBirdOfPrey: Possibly. DependingOnTheArtist they could be birds of prey, or just massive storks/ibises.

* LaterInstallmentWeirdness: An obscure later myth claims that the Stymphalian Birds weren't birds at all but ordinary mortal women whose parents were named Stymphalia and Ornis ("ornis" being Greek for "bird") and that Heracles killed them for violating ''[[SacredHospitality xenia]]'' rather than being maneating abominations. This variant on the tale is such an outlier that there's little wonder as to why it's so obscure.

Charybdis and Scylla lived on opposite sides of a narrow strait. Charybdis was a whirlpool, sometimes personified as a massive [[Film/ReturnOfTheJedi Sarlacc]]-like maw that sucked water into its many mouths three times a day and spewed it back out the rest of the time. Scylla was a drakaina with six heads on long necks, attached to a body with twelve tentacle-like legs, and a fish's tail. One or both of them may have been offspring of Typhon and Echidna, Echidna's sisters or alternately former nymphs turned monstrous.

* EldritchAbomination: Both of them, but Charybdis -- or at least some versions of her -- was a notable one.

* LesserOfTwoEvils: Odysseus opts to go against Scylla instead of Charybdis, as the worst Scylla would do is eat as many of his men as she can fit into her mouths, whereas Charybdis would swallow them all at once.
* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: It's generally agreed by modern historians that Scylla and Charybdis were said to have been located in the narrow Strait of Messina, with Scylla being a rationalization for an actually-dangerous rock shoal while Charybdis represents a legitimate whirlpool off the coast of Sicily...that is very weak and surely would have never been a threat to a full-sized ship that Odysseus would been on.

* MultipleChoicePast: Both of them have multiple origin stories. Scylla in particular is either a daughter of Phorkys and Ceto (and thus a sister to the Graeae, Gorgons, Echidna and at least some of the Sirens), a daughter of Typhon and Echidna, or a transformed Nymph.
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: Scylla had at least ten heads -- some of which were around her waist -- tentacles for legs, and a fish-like tail.

** Scylla is often described as having the upper torso of a woman, the forward ends of six to eleven wolves then emerging from bellow that (often reduced to three in visual art), and the tail of a sea serpent. Occasionally, she also has visible VaginaDentata on the serpent part. It's a small wonder why modern depictions often simplify this into something like an oceanic hydra.

** According to myth, Scylla used to a beautiful nymph and was loved by the sea god Glaucus. However, the witch Circe wanted Glaucus's affections for herself and in jealousy poisoned the waters where Scylla lived, turning her into a horrible monster. Others say that she was Poseidon's lover and was turned into a monster by his jealous wife Amphitrite, but this contradicts her otherwise turning a blind eye to her husband's affairs.

* OurDragonsAreDifferent: She's sometimes described as having a dragon's tail instead of a snake. More thematically, Bellerophon slaying the Chimera is the visual inspiration for a lot of later European dragon slaying motifs, including most of those of St. George and the dragon.

** According to myth, Scylla used to a beautiful nymph and was loved by the sea god Glaucus. However, the witch Circe wanted Glaucus' affections for herself and in jealousy poisoned the waters where Scylla lived, turning her into a horrible monster. Others say that she was Poseidon's lover and was turned into a monster by his jealous wife Amphitrite, but this contradicts her otherwise turning a blind eye to her husband’s affairs.
** Charybdis was also a nymph in some myths, but Zeus threw her into the sea for stealing Heracles’ cattle and turned her into a monster. Another version claims that she was a daughter of Poseidon who flooded coastal towns as a way to wage war on Zeus, resulting in the latter turning her into the toothy bladder/sea anemone creature she's famous as.

One of the oldest monsters in Myth/ClassicalMythology, Ladon was an offspring of Typhon and Echidna (or of the sea gods Phorcys & Ceto, depending on which version you listen to). His form was that of a dragon, but one unlike either traditional European or Asian dragons, and indeed his own form is not even consistent in the different versions of the story. His job was to guard the golden apples of the Garden of Hesperides. Though tasked with retrieving them in his eleventh labor, Ladon was so fearsome an opponent that Hercules had to enlist the help of Atlas who was a relative of the Hesperide Nymphs to complete the task. Ladon was later seen by the passing Argonauts as well.

* AndIMustScream: He was ''still agonizing'' from Heracles' arrows by the time the Argonauts saw him.

* InformedAttribute: Many artworks portray Ladon as a small, one-headed, two-eyed serpent[=/=]dragon, rather than the hundred-headed or hundred-eyed dragon portrayed in the story. LazyArtist may have contributed to those portrayals.

* OurDragonsAreDifferent: His form is inconsistently depicted, but he is always described as a dragon, albeit an extremely different one to the ones modern fantasy depicts: very different, and different in so many ways. In addition to speaking human language, he could have as many as one hundred heads or just one with one hundred eyes, depending on the description. Others say his head was half his total length.

* TheUnfought: Ladon was so mighty that not even Hercules dared challenge him. This is averted in some versions, however: Hercules shoots and kills Ladon with his arrows dipped in Hydra blood.

A magical dog that would catch anything that it chased and a giant fox destined never to be caught. The fox was also one of Echidna and Typhon's children. Zeus turned them into the constellations Canis Major (the dog) and Canis Minor (the fox) when Laelaps was set to chase the Teumessian Fox.

* CuttingTheKnot: One of the solutions for Heracles' to kill an animal with an invulnerable hide - just choke it to death with his bare hands.

* PuzzleBoss: Its unbreakable hide needs to be circumvented in order to kill it. Hercules either fired an arrow into it's unarmored mouth or whacked it over the head with his club and strangled it while stunned.

** According to myth, Scylla used to a beautiful nymph and was loved by the sea god Glaucus. However, the witch Circe wanted Glaucus' affections for herself and in jealousy poisoned the waters where Scylla lived, turning her into a horrible monster. Others say that she was Poseidon's lover and was turned into a monster by his jealous wife Amphitrite.
** Charybdis was also a nymph in some myths, but Heracles threw her into the sea for stealing his cattle and asked his father Zeus to turn her into a monster. Though most versions claim she was a daughter of Poseidon who flooded costal towns as a way to wage war on Zeus, resulting in the latter turning her into the toothy bladder/sea anemone creature she's famous as.

Father of the Minotaur by the king of Crete's, King Minos, wife, Pasiphae, who had angered Aphrodite and was thus [[HeartIsAnAwesomePower cursed with love]] for the king's prized but uncontrollably angry bull. The bull was a gift from Poseidon, and its anger was the result of Poseidon later becoming displeased with King Minos. Captured by Hercules as his seventh labour, when released it became known as the Marathon Bull after its new home until it was captured by Theseus and sacrificed to the Gods.

* BestialityIsDepraved: Why else would Aphrodite curse Minos' wife to be in love with a bull?

* GypsyCurse: Aphrodite's used it as part of one.

* RevengeThroughCorruption: This is why you don't claim to be [[HeartIsAnAwesomePower more beautiful than]] [[VainSorceress the Goddess of Love]]. Ever.

* BarbarianTribe: Cyclopes fathered by Poseidon were rather barbaric, Polyphemos even had a taste for humans.
* TheBlacksmith: The original immortal trio. They were the ones who forged Zeus' lightning bolts, Poseidon's trident and Hades' Helm of Darkness. In other myths, they also made Apollo's bow.
* HairTriggerTemper: They were described as being very foul-mooded.

* MonsterProgenitor: Starts with three, the rest of the race came later.

* MusicSoothesTheSavageBeast: In some myths, Jason obtained the Fleece after the Wyrm was put to sleep by Orpheus' lyre music.

* AngryGuardDog: Orthrus, Cerberus' two-headed brother.

* NauseaFuel: {{Invoked}} Literally. What food they didn't eat off of Phineus' table was left with a smell so foul even a starving person wouldn't touch it.

* CanonImmigrant: Allegedly. Ctesias claimed that it was an Indian story he heard in Persia, but it hasn’t been recorded from either of those countries.

* HalfHumanHybrid: He was the son of the Cretan Bull and Minos' wife Pasiphae.
* HiddenDepths: He seems to have good (or at least amicable) relationship with his mother Pasiphae. He was named after Minos's step father - which considering Minos's attitude towards him make it likely it is Pasiphae's idea; he seemed to enjoy some normalcy during his infant years (even being breastfed by his mother) and some painting and vases made by cultures less antagonistic toward Minoan Crete depicts him and his mother in a loving context.

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: In some versions of the story, baby Asterion was a victim of parental abuse and neglect by his step father Minos, which created his bloodthirsty nature. Being locked in a lonely prison didn't help.

* BoltOfDivineRetribution: Zeus use him to carry his thunderbolt.

A serpentine dragon born to Gaia. Python was claimed to have been sent by Hera to chase after Leto when she was pregnant with Artemis and Apollo, to make absolutely sure the babies are never born. [[ForegoneConclusion Obviously this failed]], so he took up residence in Delphi, where he was eventully killed by Apollo to avenge his torment of his mother and his corpse used to decorate his temple, the fumes of his decomposing flesh helping to fuel the Oracle's visions. In some tellings, he also helped Typhon in the battle with Zeus, guarding the cavern Zeus was thrown into after having his tendons ripped off, though in others this was Delphyne, his mate.

* DrivenToSuicide: Some say that when Orpheus played his song, the sirens were so heartbroken at being outdone that they threw themselves from their island, died and [[TakenForGranite turned into rocks]]. There is something similar in the Odyssey: after Odysseus heard their song, and lived to tell about it, the Sirens flung themselves in the water and perished.

* NoNameGiven: Ultimately subverted--''The Odyssey'', their first known appearance, never mentions the names or origins of the two Sirens Odysseus encountered. Hesiod would later give the Sirens the names Thelxinoe (or Thelxinope), Aglaophonus and Molpe and bumped their number up to [[TerribleTrio three]].

* HiddenDepth: He seems to have good (or at least amicable) relationship with his mother Pasiphae. He was named after Minos's step father - which considering Minos's attitude towards him make it likely it is Pasiphae's idea; he seemed to enjoy some normalcy during his infant years (even being breastfed by his mother) and some painting and vases made by cultures less antagonistic toward Minoan Crete depicts him and his mother in a loving context.

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: In some versions of the story, baby Asterion was a victim of parental abuse and neglect, which created his bloodthirsty nature. Being locked in a lonely prison didn't help.

* ForcedTransformation: In one of his many tales of the gods doling these out, the poet Ovid re-invents the Sirensas Persephone's former handmaidens. When they failed to find her after her kidnapping, [[MamaBear a furious Demeter]] transformed them into bird-women, either as punishment or to assist in the search.

Prince Asterion (meaning "Starry One"); the half-man half-bull, this beast the offspring of the Cretan Bull and King Minos' wife Pasiphae in an odd combination of punishments from different gods. Fearing that it would anger the gods further to kill the beast, King Minos sealed it away in a Labyrinth beneath the city and fed its man-eating appetite with the flesh of slaves taken as tribute from Athens. That is, until an Athenian prince named Theseus took the place of one of the slaves, seduced the king's daughter Ariadne into helping him find his way out of the labyrinth and killed it with his bare hands.

* ToServeMan: While eating people is pretty standard for monsters in Classical Myth (some traditions even make it a defining trait of all monsters), the Nemean Lion is usually stated to be a man eater and pervious victims even named.
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: At least one version of the myth gives it the ability to shape shift into a beautiful maiden. The lion would then pretend to be a damsel in distress to lure would be heroes into its den, where it would then change back into a lion to kill and eat them wihtout outside iterference.

* DeathWail: As mentioned above, Euryale's response to Medusa's demise.

* BalefulPolymorph: One or both of them, depending on the legend you're reading.

* BalefulPolymorph: In one of his many tales of the gods doling these out, the poet Ovid re-invents the Sirensas Persephone's former handmaidens. When they failed to find her after her kidnapping, [[MamaBear a furious Demeter]] transformed them into bird-women, either as punishment or to assist in the search.

* ForTheEvulz: They didn't seem to have a reason to drown and eat all of those people. They just did. Although BalefulPolymorph above gives the possibility of a FreudianExcuse, in later, Roman mythology, as least.

* CryCute: Euryale was said to have let out a mournful wail when Medusa was killed, which serves to humanize her a little.

* TheScream: Euryale's most noteworthy trait was her bellowing cry. [[CryCute She let out a particularly loud one when Medusa died]].

Eurymedon was their king. The brothers Ephialtes and Otus of Aloadae were either caused to kill each other by accident by Artemis after they captured her in an attempt to take her and Hera for their wives, or else slain by the arrows of Apollo and Hercules. Alcyoneus and Porphyrion were among the strongest of them and slain by Hercules in the Gigantomachy, the latter being first wounded by Zeus' lightening bolt before taking Hercules' arrow. Athena killed Pallas and Enceladus, burying the latter under Mt. Etna like Typhon. Artemis killed Gration with her arrows. Poseidon crush Polybotes under an island. Hephestus killed Mimas with molten iron. Hermes turned invisible to kill Hippolytus with a sword. Dionysus killed Eurytus with his [[SimpleStaff thyrsus]]. Hecate immolated Clytius. Even the Moirae joined in, beating Agrios and Thoon to death with [[CarryABigStick bronze clubs]].

* WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer: Some tellings have her use her firery breath and three heads to create a sort of point defense system by incinerating any arrows aimed at her midiflight. The three heads prevented any blind spots. This unconventional use of her flames rendered her functionally unassailable from the ground.

* OurDragonsAreDifferent: She's sometimes described as having a dragon's tail instead of a snake.

* VoluntaryShapeshifting: At least one version of the myth gives it the ability to shape shift into a beautiful maiden. The lion would then pretend to be a damsel in distress to lure would be heroes into its den, where it would then change back into a lion to kill and eat them wihtout outside iterference.

* StoryboardingTheApocalypse: In Nonnus' ''Dionysiaca'', Typhon proclaims to Zeus all the horrible things he plans on doing to his family when he defeats him, including chaining up Poseidon with the same chains binding the Titan Iapetus, sending a stronger eagle to feast on Hephaestus' liver as revenge for Prometheus' punishment, trapping Hermes in a bronze jar, enslaving Ares and Apollo and having Hera, Artemis and Athena raped.

** The story remained that way largely unchanged until Ovid came along and changed the narrative completely by claiming Medusa was instead a human priestess who was assaulted by Poseidon in Athena's temple and Athena, in a moment of pettiness, turned her into a monster to punish her for something she didn't even do (and possibly did the same to her sisters just out of spite). Over the course of several thousand years, the Gorgons had gone from nameless, generic monsters, antagonists of a hero's journey and finally tragic victims of a cruel, uncaring pantheon.

** Another Greek version says they were once beautiful, but she started sleeping with Poseidon despite having a vow of chastity and even doing the deed in Athena's temple, right on the altar. Because of this, she was cursed with the monstrous form and petrification ability (which she couldn't control btw.)

* WeaksauceWeakness: Their petrifying powers only work with a direct look, meaning reflections of their stare do nothing. Similarly, their powers only work if their victims look at them, meaning anyone who is blind or just able to keep their eyes closed will be immune.