| Abstrakt: |
If one descends to the Underworld, one can expect to encounter δράκοντες there (Aristophanes affirms this point explicitly, but already in the Odyssey Odysseus fears that Persephone may confront him with a Gorgon-head). This is not surprising. Under some circumstances the dead can mutate into δράκοντες. The δράκων Typhon is born in the earth and emerges therefrom to threaten the gods, and is then trapped within it again by them. In art Cerberus, the guard-dog of the Underworld, often possesses multiple δράκων heads, and this is because of his nature as a δράκων that his spittle contains the venom that creates the aconite. Just as snakes live in holes in the ground, so too the great δράκοντες of myth live in caves, and these caves can be assimilated to or identified as thresholds of the Underworld. Beyond this, Underworld entrances can in turn be assimilated to the pestilential gaping maws of great δράκοντες. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
