Stymphalian birds


The Stymphalian birds are a group of voracious birds in Greek mythology. The birds' appellation is derived from their dwelling in a swamp in Stymphalia.

Characteristics

The Stymphalian birds are man-eating birds with beaks of bronze, sharp metallic feathers they could launch at their victims, and poisonous dung.

Mythology

These birds were pets of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt; or had been brought up by Ares, the god of war. They migrated to a marsh in Arcadia to escape a pack of wolves. There they bred quickly and swarmed over the countryside, destroying crops, fruit trees, and townspeople.

The Sixth Labour of Heracles

The Stymphalian birds were defeated by Heracles in his sixth labour for Eurystheus. Heracles could not go into the marsh to reach the nests of the birds, as the ground would not support his weight. Athena, noticing the hero's plight, gave Heracles a rattle called krotala, which Hephaestus had made especially for the occasion. Heracles shook the krotala on a certain mountain that overhung the lake and thus frightening the birds into the air. Heracles then shot many of them with feathered arrows tipped with poisonous blood from the slain Hydra. In some versions of this story this labour was discounted because of the help of Athena. The rest flew far away, never to plague Arcadia again. Heracles brought some of the slain birds to Eurystheus as proof of his success.
The surviving birds made a new home on the island of Aretias in the Euxine Sea. The Argonauts later encountered them there.
According to Mnaseas, they were not birds, but women and daughters of Stymphalus and Ornis, and were killed by Heracles because they did not receive him hospitably. In the temple of the Stymphalian Artemis, however, they were represented as birds, and behind the temple, there were white marble statues of maidens with birds' feet.

Classical literature sources

Chronological listing of the main classical literature sources for the Stymphalian birds :
  • Sophocles, The Philoctetes, 1092 ff with the Scholiast
Regarding the Sophocles source, Jebb says Brunck reads "πτωκάδες" as "πλωάδες" which is an epithet given by Apollonius Rhodius to the Stymphalian birds in Argonautica 2. 1054.
  • Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2. 1054 ff
  • Mnaseas, Scholiast on Apoll. Rhod. 2.1054
  • Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 3. 30. 4
  • Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 13. 2
  • Lucretius, Of The Nature of Things 5. Proem 1
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses 9. 187 ff
  • Strabo, Geography 8. 6. 8
  • Philippus of Thessalonica, The Twelve Labors of Hercules
  • Seneca, Hercules Furens 243 ff
  • Seneca, Medea 771 ff
  • Seneca, Phoenissae 420 ff
  • Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus 17–30.
  • Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus 1237 ff
  • Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus 1813 ff
  • Statius, Thebaid 4. 100 ff
  • Statius, Thebaid 4. 292 ff
  • Plutarch, Moralia, On the Fortune of Alexander, 341. 11 ff
  • Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library 2. 5. 6
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece 5. 10. 9
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece 8. 22. 4–5
  • Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 20
  • Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 30
  • Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 6. 227 ff
  • Servius, In Vergilii Carmina Commentarii 8. 299
  • Nonnos, Dionysiaca 25. 242 ff
  • Nonnos Dionysiaca 29. 237 ff
  • Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 4. 7. 13 ff
  • Tzetzes, Chiliades or Book of Histories 2. 291 ff
  • Tzetzes, Chiliades or Book of Histories 2. 496 ff

    General sources

  • Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4. .
  • Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica translated by Robert Cooper Seaton, R. C. Loeb Classical Library Volume 001. London, William Heinemann Ltd, 1912.
  • Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica. George W. Mooney. London. Longmans, Green. 1912. .
  • Gaius Julius Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies.
  • "Greece: I Ancient", in The New Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, London 2001, vol. 10, pp. 344–34
  • Maurus Servius Honoratus, In Vergilii carmina comentarii. Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii; recensuerunt Georgius Thilo et Hermannus Hagen. Georgius Thilo. Leipzig. B. G. Teubner. 1881. .
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918..
  • Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. ''3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. .
  • Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy translated by Way. A. S. Loeb Classical Library Volume 19. London: William Heinemann, 1913.
  • Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of Troy. Arthur S. Way. London: William Heinemann; New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. 1913. .
  • Strabo, The Geography of Strabo. Edition by H.L. Jones. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.
  • Strabo, Geographica edited by A. Meineke. Leipzig: Teubner. 1877.
  • Tzetzes, John, Histories or Chiliades'' unedited translation by Ana Untila, Gary Berkowitz, Konstantinos Ramiotis, Vasiliki Dogani, Jonathan Alexander, Muhammad Syarif Fadhlurrahman, and Nikolaos Giallousis, with translation adjustments by Brady Kiesling affecting about 15 percent of the total. These translations are based on the 1826 Greek edition of Theophilus Kiesslingius.