Cerbĕrus
（
Κέρβερος). The famous dog of Hades, the fruit of
Echidna's union with Typhon. He was
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Cerberus. (From a Bronze Statue.)
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stationed at the entrance of hell, as a watchful keeper, to prevent the living from
entering the infernal regions, and the dead from escaping from their confinement. Orpheus
lulled him to sleep with his lyre; and Heracles dragged him from hell in the performance of
his twelfth and last labour. (See
Heracles.) The
poets differ in their descriptions of this fabled animal. Hesiod assigns him fifty heads,
calling him
κύων πεντηκοντακάρηνος. Sophocles (
Trach. 1114) styles him
Ἅιδου τρίκρανον
σκύλακα, “the three-headed dog of Pluto,” and in this last
account the Latin poets generally coincide, describing him also as having serpents coiled
about his neck. Horace, however, calls him
belua centiceps (
Od. ii. 13, 14), either by poetic amplification, or else in accordance
with some Greek authority. Champollion traces a curious analogy between the Egyptian and the
Grecian mythology as regards the dog of Hades.
