go back tomain page

It’s got to be tough, being a younger sibling of famous monsters. Your brother and other siblings get all the attention, the best jobs, and all the limelight in the big myths. To make it that much worse, they also get far more dramatic—and tragic—death scenes. Is there no justice for little brothers? Today’s exploration into the lesser-known creatures of Greco-Roman mythology looks at the younger brother of a very famous couple of monsters. As we learn what little is known about him, it’s worth keeping in mind that there isn’t a whole lot of concrete information left in the historical record about this monster. That’s both a plus and a minus for you monster-loving fantasy writers (a new creature to play with! that you’ll never be sure you were historically accurate with, but neither will your readers!) as well as for you readers, because you’ll finally have another “real” multi-headed dog to add to your imagination vault.

Ah, family monsters. I can almost guarantee you’ve heard of Cerberus. Who hasn’t? A huge, multi-headed hellhound guarding the gates of Hades…ooh, scary! In his final labor, Heracles was the only one able to subdue the beast and pass by, slinging the giant dog over his back and eventually using Cerberus to terrify his enemies. And what about the Hydra? Everyone loves a nearly invincible, multi-headed water beast! Cut off one head, two more grow…or get too close, and its poisonous breath and blood will slay you where you stand. Good thing Heracles was on the job, because his second labor involved slaying the Lernean Hydra—which he did, in an extremely dramatic and gory scene found in the Pseudo-Apollodorean Bibliotheca.

Orthrus is perhaps best known in relationship to his brother Cerberus, likely because…well, they’re both dogs. But unlike his brother, whose number of heads changes depending on the ancient source, everyone seems to agree that Orthrus had two heads and a serpent-headed tail. And like any good dog, Orthrus had a master. In this case, it was the three-bodied, winged Titan named Geryon. Geryon employed Orthrus and Eurytion—the son of Ares and the nymph Erytheia—to guard his herd of beautiful, red-skinned cattle. What does Orthrus’ story tell us? (Besides the fact that Heracles is a complete jerk, that is.) Not a whole lot, to be quite honest. And his lineage isn’t all that clear either. The majority of ancient sources specify that he, along with the siblings mentioned above, was the offspring of the Earth deities Typhon and Echidna. However, as expected in Greek mythology, genealogy gets a little bizarre depending on who’s explaining it. Hesiod seems to think that Orthrus and Echidna (his mother) or Chimera (his sister) may have, ahem, “created” the Sphinx and the Nemean Lion. As per usual, it’s best to take the lineage with a grain of salt.

In Ancient Greek, Orthrus’ name means “morning twilight,” which is quite the delicate name for a two-headed monster dog. Although Orthrus’ place in mythology took an extreme back seat to the notoriety and exploits of his siblings—to the point where he has become virtually absent from common knowledge, as opposed to creatures like Cerberus and the Sphinx—this ignored “little brother” of a huge monster family is worth remembering today. For one, he’s the original two-headed dog of fantasy literature. Since accounts of Cerberus can’t agree on how many heads he has (one? three? fifty?) we can confidently say that it’s Orthrus’ consistent description in the ancient sources that has influenced the dual-headed dog trope that occasionally appears in fantasy fiction. This monster also has the benefit of slight anonymity when it comes to using him in modern fantasy. Because there isn’t a great deal of familiarity with him, there isn’t a whole lot of baggage or expectation associated with Orthrus as a monster (again, unlike the Sphinx or even the Hydra). Writers have more freedom to work with this creature from a historical basis that can then be branched out upon.