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Cerberus

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This article is about the mythical three-headed guard dog. For other uses, see Cerberus (disambiguation).
Cerberus - Watercolor by William Blake
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Cerberus - Watercolor by William Blake

In Greek mythology, Cerberus or Kerberos (Greek Κέρβερος, Kerberos, demon of the pit), was the hound of Hades—a monstrous three-headed dog (sometimes said to have 50 or 100 heads) with a snake for a tail and innumerable snake heads on his back.

He guarded the gate to Hades (the Greek underworld) and ensured that the dead could not leave and the living could not enter. His brother was Orthrus. He is the offspring of Echidna and Typhon.

He was overcome several times:

Cerberus has become an archetype for a protector, particularly the protector of a gate, door or boundary (as opposed to a personal protector). In this guise Cerberus features widely in fiction and cultural works from the Middle Ages (in Dante's Divine Comedy, in Canto VI of Inferno (third circle)) to the modern time (J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in the character of Fluffy) and a number of modern security and warfare-related artifacts named after it.

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Heracles' capturing of Cerberus

Heracles' final labour was to capture Cerberus. After having been set the task, Heracles went to Eleusis to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries so that he could learn how to enter and exit the underworld alive, and in passing absolve himself for killing centaurs. He found the entrance to the underworld at Tanaerum, and Athena and Hermes helped him to traverse the entrance in each direction. He passed Charon thanks to Hermes' insistence, and his own heavy and fierce frowning.

Whilst in the underworld, Heracles freed Theseus but the earth shook when he attempted to liberate Pirithous, so he had to leave him behind. They had been imprisoned by Hades, by magically binding them to a bench, because they had attempted to kidnap Persephone. The magic was so strong that when Heracles pulled Theseus free, part of Theseus' thighs remained on the bench, explaining why his descendants had notably lean thighs.

In some versions, Heracles merely asks Hades for permission to take Cerberus, to which Hades agrees as long as Heracles does not harm the hound, though in other versions Heracles shot Hades with an arrow. In some versions, Heracles wrestles the dog into submission and drags it out of Hades, passing through the cavern Acherusia, but in other versions, Heracles treats the vicious dog with the first kindness it has seen, and easily walks out with it. When he returned with Cerberus to the palace of his uncle Euristheus, the man who had assigned the task to Heracles, Euristheus was so afraid of the fearsome beast that he jumped into a big jar in order to hide.

Theories of origin

The constellation of Pisces was not always associated with two fish. The original sky fish was Piscis Austrinus. It was to represent the underworld. So the ecliptic cuts through the bond. The western one has mostly escaped, but is still bound, whereas the eastern one appears to still be bound to the ecliptic and heading downwards.

That Theseus is named as the person Heracles released from being bound in the underworld marks an awareness that myths surrounding Theseus connect him to the queen of the Amazons, and that he thus had to appear in the following story as a companion of Heracles. This emphasis on continuity is possibly connected to the fact that the constellation which features in the subsequent story also partly exists in Pisces.

Under Pisces is the constellation Cetus, usually considered as a sea monster, or a whale. However, it is equally possible to view it as two closed gates with their gateposts, with a set of three stars behind the centre of the gate. Since they face the ecliptic, and are extremely close to it, such gates would be gates to the underworld (which was below the ecliptic). The guard of the gates to the underworld was traditionally Cerberus, who had three heads, an association requiring use of the three main (but comparatively faint) stars, in the modern constellation Fornax, as a tail.

Since Cerberus was considered a permanent fixture of Hades, nothing much could happen to him that was damaging. There being no other constellations in this region, little more story could be given other than doing something non permanent to Cerberus, such as moving him to the other side of the gates.

Alternately, an earlier version may not have featured the tale of Theseus being bound, which may have been a later reapplication of the constellations to the story. In such a case, the non-escaping branch of Pisces may have been taken to represent the usual patrol of Cerberus on a leash, whereas the other branch being taken to represent Cerberus' subsequent ascent (still on the leash, thus still having to eventually return).

References to Cerberus in modern culture and literature

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