Some of the creatures of ancient folklore, like satyrs and centaurs, are familiar from
myths and works of art.
Less well-known are the monsters associated with the edges of the world, where some of
the most impressive products of the classical imagination lurked.
So, without any further ado, five infamous, intriguing, and downright weird mythical beasts.
Number five.
The basilisk
Greek and Roman literature crawled with unpleasant serpents.
There was the amphisbaena, which had a poisonous head on each end; the haemorrhois, which caused
blood to spout from the eyes and mouths of its victims; the iaculus, which launched itself
from trees and speared through the heads of hapless passers-by; and the seps, whose venom
liquified flesh and bone.
But the most terrible of all snakes was the basilisk.
The basilisk prowled in the Libyan desert.
Though small – no more than a foot long – it was incredibly venomous.
Its breath could wither trees, scorch grass, and shatter stones.
Its bite was so potent that even touching the snake with a spear meant death, since
the poison would race up the shaft and kill the man who held it.
Any creature that met the gaze of the basilisk died.
All other snakes feared the basilisk, which kept its head erect as it coursed through
the sands, emitting the occasional warning hiss.
According to Pliny the Elder, only one thing could slay this king of serpents: the smell
of a weasel.
If an intrepid hunter managed to toss a basilisk into a weasel den, it would be immediately
overpowered by the stench.
Another author claimed that the sound of a cock’s crow caused the basilisk to convulse
and die.
Number four.
Dog-headed men
The Kynocephaloi – a tribe of men with the heads and tails of dogs – inhabited the
mountains of India, where they hunted wild game and tended flocks of sheep and goats.
Though not especially civilized – they lived in caves, ate raw meat, and communicated with
high-pitched yelp – they were good neighbors, sending a tribute of fruit and flowers to
the local king each year.
Dog-headed society had its classes; the wealthiest members of the tribe wore linen clothes, while
the rest were clad in skins.
The men never bathed, though they did wash their hands periodically.
The women, apparently more fastidious, washed once a month.
According to late antique sources, a few dog-headed men converted to Christianity.
Two, in fact, served as bodyguards to Saint Mercurius.
Another dog-headed convert, Christopher, had a long and illustrious career as a saint in
his own right, as attested by some eye-catching Byzantine icons.
Number three.
The manticore
Despite occasional indulgence in cannibalism, dog-headed men were relatively harmless.
The same could not be said of the manticore.
Although it had the body of a blood-red lion, the manticore’s head was that of a man with
piercing gray eyes.
When it devoured its prey, that human-seeming face unhinged into a maw with three rows of
razor-sharp teeth.
A manticore had a scorpion-like tail with a fatal sting.
If attacked from a distance, it could launch poisonous darts up to a hundred feet with
deadly accuracy.
Only the elephant was immune to its venom.
Manticores had a special love of human flesh.
Although their call sounded like a shrill trumpet, they could imitate human voices,
and lured unsuspecting victims into the woods with cries for help.
It was this habit that earned them their name: in Persian, “mantichora” meant “man-eater.”
Number two.
The catoblepas
On the edge of the Libyan desert, not far from the haunts of the basilisk, herds of
strange-looking cattle grazed.
Although their bodies resembled those of normal cows, their heads were larger, and always
turned to the ground – whence the name catoblepas, “downward-looker.”
When undisturbed, they were harmless.
But if any creature dared to approach, the catoblepas shook its long mane out of its
eyes, turned its heavy head, and killed.
According to some accounts, the beast’s breath was deadly.
It fed on poisonous roots, and could exhale their venom as a pungent cloud.
Other authors claimed that it was the gaze of the catoblepas that killed, and that those
bloodshot eyes would stop the breath of any creature unwise enough to look into them.
During Marius’ expedition against Jugurtha, a group of Roman soldiers reportedly encountered
a catoblepas and – mistaking it for a wild sheep – tried to kill it.
The catoblepas glared at them, and every man dropped dead.
Undeterred, wave after wave of soldiers charged the beast and died.
The carnage only ended after some Numidian horseman managed to shoot the catoblepas from
a distance.
Number one.
The odontotyrannos
Many curious creatures lurked in the Indus River.
There was, for example, the carnivorous white worm, which grew to twenty feet long and had
jaws capable of crushing stone.
The worms wriggled up from the river at night to seize cattle from the shore, and were captured
in goat-baited traps by local hunters, who extracted flammable oil from their hides.
But no worm, however toothy and amphibious, could compare with the mighty odontotyrannos.
This gargantuan creature, large enough to devour elephants whole, had a black, horse-shaped
head that acquired three horns in medieval bestiaries.
According to later legend, an odontotyrannos attacked the camp of Alexander the Great,
devouring dozens of men, and could only be subdued by a concerted assault.
When its vast bulk was finally hauled from the river, bull-sized fish were found in its
cavernous stomach.
The odontotryannos and Indus worm were probably both inspired by the saltwater crocodile.
The basilisk was likely a misreported Egyptian cobra.
The catoblepas may have begun as a wildebeest on the horizon.
But the origins of these fantastic creatures are less interesting than their presence in
the ancient tradition, which lent a millennium and more of life – in texts, in pictures,
and in minds – to these products of the classical imagination.
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