[1] First Hesiod and
next Stesichorus discover his name to be Kerberos. The latter seems to
have composed a poem on the dog. Hesiod[2] mentions not only the name
but also the genealogy of Kerberos. Of Typhaon and Echidna he was born,
the irresistible and ineffable flesh-devourer, the voracious,
brazen-voiced, fifty-headed dog of hell.
Plato in the _Republic_ refers to the composite nature of Kerberos.[3]
Not until Apollodorus (2. 5. 12. 1. ff.), in the second century B. C.,
comes the familiar description: Kerberos now has three dog heads, a
dragon tail, and his back is covered with the heads of serpents. But
his plural heads must have been familiarly assumed by the Greeks; this
will appear from the evidence of their sculptures and vase-paintings.
CERBERUS IN CLASSIC ART.
Classic art has taken up Cerberus very generously; his treatment,
however, is far from being as definite as that of the Greek and Roman
poets. Statues, sarcophagi, and vase paintings whose theme is Hades, or
scenes laid in Hades, represent him as a ferocious Greek collie, often
encircled with serpents, and with a serpent for a tail, but there is no
certainty as to the number of his heads.
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