For thousands of years, the Greek legends were the subject of popular culture. The main characters of these myths are gods, who used the heroes for their own sake. If these men wanted to earn the status of a hero, they had to face frightening monsters and creatures that gave the mythology of Greece a terrifying character.
The first creature was the Sphinx. It was a monster that had the head of a woman, the body of a lion and the wings of an eagle. The Sphinx is known for its role in the legend of Oedipus. In this legend, it posed him a riddle that he answered correctly. If Oedipus had not answered it correctly, the Sphinx would have devoured him like other travellers before him.
The Charybdis and Scylla, known from the Odyssey, were two different monsters that lived on the opposite sides of a narrow strait. The Charybdis was a ferocious sea monster, which lived under a rock. It swallowed vast amounts of water, creating whirlpools that could destroy an entire ship. The Scylla fed on the flesh of sailors, who travelled too close to its territory. Consequently, the sailor had no solution if he wanted to pass through this narrow strait.
The Cerberus is a popular creature in the ancient mythology of Greece. It was the loyal guard dog of Hades with three heads, guarding the entrance into the underworld. The beast had a huge appetite for human flesh and consumed the living mortals, who were foolish enough to approach the entrance. The three heads symbolised the past, the present and the future, but in other versions, it is said that they represented the youth, the adulthood and the old age. The Cerberus was the final labour that Hercules had to perform.
The Medusa was a monstrous figment that had the ability to metamorphose into stone the persons, who stared at its face. It was once a beautiful woman, who was raped by Poseidon and transformed into a hideous monster with venomous snakes as hair. Perseus came up against the Medusa, using a mirror to see its reflection and chop off its head.
Medusa
The Minotaur had the body of a man and the head of a bull. He lived in a cryptic home, deep within a twisted labyrinth, which has been constructed by Daedalus and was located under the palace of Knossos on Crete. Theseus, the hero of Athens, with the aid of Ariadne, the daughter of the King Minos of Crete, discovered the Minotaur and dispensed the monster with ease.