Stymphalian birds

The Stymphalian birds (/stɪmˈfeɪliən/ stim-FAY-lee-ən; Ancient Greek: Στυμφαλίδες ὄρνιθες, Modern transliteration Stymfalídes Órnithes) are a group of voracious birds in Greek mythology. The birds' appellation is derived from their dwelling in a swamp in Stymphalia.[1][2]

Stymphalian birds
Heracles and the Stymphalian birds. Detail of a Roman mosaic from Llíria (Spain).
GroupingLegendary creature
Sub groupingBirds
CountryGreece
RegionArcadia

Characteristics

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

These fly against those who come to hunt them, wounding and killing them with their beaks. All armour of bronze or iron that men wear is pierced by the birds; but if they weave a garment of thick cork, the beaks of the Stymphalian birds are caught in the cork garment, just as the wings of small birds stick in bird-lime. These birds are of the size of a crane, and are like the ibis, but their beaks are more powerful, and not crooked like that of the ibis.

— Pausanias. Description of Greece, 8.22.5[3]

Mythology
Hercules Killing the Stymphalian Birds by Durer, 1500.

These birds were pets of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt; or had been brought up by Ares, the god of war.[4] 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 (Hercules) in his sixth labour for Eurystheus.[5][6] 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 (similar to castanets) on a certain mountain that overhung the lake and thus frightening the birds into the air.[7] Heracles then shot many of them with feathered arrows tipped with poisonous blood from the slain Hydra. The rest flew far away, never to plague Arcadia again. Heracles brought some of the slain birds to Eurystheus as proof of his success.[8][9][10]

The surviving birds made a new home on an island of Aretias in the Euxine Sea. The Argonauts later encountered them there.

According to Mnaseas,[11] 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.[12]

Classical Literature Sources

Chronological listing of classical literature sources for the Stymphalian birds:

  • Sophocles, The Philoctetes, 1092 ff with the Scholiast (trans. Jebb) (Greek tragedy C5th BC)

Regarding the Sophocles source, Jebb[13] says Brunck[14] 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 (trans. Coleridge) (Greek epic poetry C3rd BC)
  • Mnaseas, Scholiast on Apoll. Rhod. 2.1054 (trans Mehler) (Greek history C3rd BC)
  • Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 3. 30. 4 (trans. Oldfather) (Greek history C1st BC)
  • Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 13. 2
  • Lucretius, Of The Nature of Things 5. Proem 1 (trans. Leonard) (Roman philosophy C1st BC)
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses 9. 187 ff (trans. Miller) (Roman epic poetry C1st BC to C1st AD)
  • Strabo, Geography 8. 6. 8 (trans. Jones) (Greek geography C1st BC to C1st AD)
  • Philippus of Thessalonica, The Twelve Labors of Hercules (The Greek Classics ed. Miller Vol 3 1909 p. 397) (Greek epigram C1st AD)
  • Seneca, Hercules Furens 243 ff (trans. Miller) (Roman tragedy C1st AD)
  • Seneca, Medea 771 ff (trans. Miller)
  • Seneca, Phoenissae 420 ff (trans. Miller)
  • Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus 17–30 (trans. Miller).  (Roman tragedy C1st AD)
  • Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus 1237 ff
  • Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus 1813 ff
  • Statius, Thebaid 4. 100 ff (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic poetry C1st AD)
  • Statius, Thebaid 4. 292 ff
  • Plutarch, Moralia, On the Fortune of Alexander, 341. 11 ff (trans. Babbitt) (Greek philosophy C1st AD to C2nd AD)
  • Pseudo-Apollodorus, The Library 2. 5. 6 (trans. Frazer) (Greek mythography C2nd AD)
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece 5. 10. 9 (trans. Frazer) (Greek travelogue C2nd AD)
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece 8. 22. 4–5
  • Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 20 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythography C2nd AD)
  • Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 30
  • Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 6. 227 ff (trans. Way) (Greek epic poetry C4th AD)
  • Servius, In Vergilii Carmina Commentarii 8. 299 (trans. Thilo) (Greek commentary C4th AD to 5th AD)
  • Nonnos, Dionysiaca 25. 242 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic poetry C5th AD)
  • Nonnos Dionysiaca 29. 237 ff
  • Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 4. 7. 13 ff (trans. Rand & Stewart) (Roman philosophy C6th AD)
  • Tzetzes, Chiliades or Book of Histories 2. 291 ff (trans.Untila et. al.) (Greco-Byzantine history C12 AD)
  • Tzetzes, Chiliades or Book of Histories 2. 496 ff
  • Hercules and the Stymphalian Birds' by Gustave Moreau, c 1872
  • Kayseri Herakles Lahdi
  • Hercules Killing the Stymphalian Birds by Albrecht Dürer (1500)
  • Heracles and the Stymphalian birds. Attic black-figure amphora, 500-490 BC
  • Heracles killing the Stymphalian birds with his sling. Attic black-figured amphora, ca. 540 BC. Said to be from Vulci.
  • Hercules at Lake Stymphalos by Gustave Moreau
  • Heracles killing the Stymphalian birds with arrows

References
  1. Strabo. Geographica, Book 8.6.8
  2. Pausanias. Description of Greece, 8.22.4
  3. Pausanias. Description of Greece, 8.22.5
  4. Servius. ad Aeneid. Book 8.300.
  5. Tzetzes. Chiliades, Book 2.291 ff
  6. Hyginus. Fabulae, 30
  7. Scholia. ad Apollonius, Argonautica, Book 2.1053. The use of a brazen rattle to frighten the birds was mentioned both by Pherecydes and Hellanicus
  8. Pseudo-Apollodorus. Bibliotheca, Book 2.5.6
  9. Quintus Smyrnaeus. Posthomerica, Book 6.253 ff
  10. Apollonius of Rhodes. Argonautica, Book 2.1052–1057
  11. Scholia. ad Apollonius, Argonautica, Book 2.1054
  12. Pausanias. Description of Greece, 8.22.7
  13. "Appendix". Sophocles the Plays and Fragments. 4. Translated by Jebb, Sir Richard C. Cambridge: The University Press. 1908. p. 248. ark:/13960/t3tt4qq2x.
  14. "Philoctetes, 1061". Sophoclis Dramata. Translated by Brvnkii, Rich. Franc. Phil. Lipsiae. 1806. p. 652. ark:/13960/t78s5n03b.
  15. "Age of Mythology Heaven: Atlantean Myth Units". aom.heavengames.com.

Sources
  • Greece: I Ancient,” in The New Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, London 2001, vol. 10, 344–34
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