Cetus

 

 In ancient Greece cetus referred to sea monsters in general, as well as whales, as they didn’t see a difference between the two, and it was seen as the ocean equivalent of the draikon, or dragon. While cetus was thought of as a type of monster, rather than an individual, there are two myths about notable individual cetus, the Trojan cetus, which was killed by Heracles, and the Ethiopian cetus, which was killed by Perseus.

There were two main ways the cetus was depicted. One was as a bulky sea beast with the head of a boar and the tail of a whale, sometimes with paws. Another was a more serpentine creature, with the head of a greyhound, and it’s long serpent tail ending in a whale fluke. Even though there are two major cetus myths, both appearances were equally associated with both myths interchangeably, rather than each being a specific monster.

The Trojan Cetus was sent by Poseidon to torment King Laomedon. Laomedon had asked Poseidon to build the walls of Troy for him, which Poseidon did. Afterwards Laomedon refused to pay Poseidon, causing the slight. Once enraged, the only offering that Poseidon would accept was Laomedon’s daughter, Hesione. In desperation Laomedon followed through, and chained his daughter to a rock by the sea’s edge, where the cetus guarded over her. While returning from fighting the Amazons, Heracles saw Hesione chained to the rocks in peril and decided to save her from the cetus. In some versions of the myth Heracles kills cetus with a volley of arrows, other versions he hooked the monster on a fishing line. In the most over the top version, Heracles wrestled the cetus, was swallowed by it, and then burst out of the monster’s guts.

The Ethiopian cetus is arguably the more famous of the two in modern times. This cetus was sent to Ethiopia by Poseidon to torment queen Cassiopeia for saying her daughter Andromeda was more beautiful then the nereids. Poseidon demanded Andromeda be sacrificed to him for this insult. So Andromeda was chained to a rock by the sea to fulfill this demand, where she was then guarded by the cetus. Perseus was flying back to Greece after slaying Medusa when he saw Andromeda in peril. Perseus killed the cetus, either by slaying it with his sword Harpe, or by turning it to stone using Medusa’s severed head, or with a combination of both. The story of Perseus saving Andromeda is often sited as the archetypal hero saving a maiden from a dragon story.

The legend of the cetus, and the stories associated with it, would far outlive the practice of Greek paganism. Sea monsters in the bible would be called cetus in the Greek and Latin translations. The story of the Ethiopian cetus would continue to be depicted in art throughout history. And in modern times the cetus would lend its name to the scientific classification of whales.

Sources

https://www.theoi.com/Ther/KetosTroias.html

https://www.theoi.com/Ther/KetosAithiopios.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetus_(mythology)