Chapter 13: Herakles
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♠ Diodoros Siculus, Description of Greece 4.13.2
Heracles then received a Command to drive the birds out of the Stymphalian Lake, and he easily accomplished the Labour by means of a device of art and by ingenuity. The lake abounded, it would appear, with a multitude of birds without telling, which destroyed the fruits of the country roundabout. Now it was not possible to master the animals by force because of the exceptional multitude of them, and so the deed called for ingenuity in cleverly discovering some device. Consequently he fashioned a bronze rattle whereby he made a terrible noise and frightened the animals away, and furthermore, by maintaining a continual din, he easily forced them to abandon their siege of the place and cleansed the lake of them. Greek Text
♠ Pherekydes 3F72 – Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 1, p. 80, ed. F. Jacoby, 2d ed. Leiden 1957.
♠ Hellanikos 4F104 – Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 1, p. 133, ed. F. Jacoby, 2d ed. Leiden 1957.
♠ ApB 2.5.6 – Apollodoros, Bibliotheke (Library)
The sixth labour he enjoined on him was to chase away the Stymphalian birds. Now at the city of Stymphalus in Arcadia was the lake called Stymphalian, embosomed in a deep wood. To it countless birds had flocked for refuge, fearing to be preyed upon by the wolves. So when Hercules was at a loss how to drive the birds from the wood, Athena gave him brazen castanets, which she had received from Hephaestus. By clashing these on a certain mountain that overhung the lake, he scared the birds. They could not abide the sound, but fluttered up in a fright, and in that way Hercules shot them. Greek Text
♦ London, British Museum 3204: Boiotian fibula with a figure (Herakles?) and a companion holding up a dead bird in their left hands (see the fibula’s left side); to the left, three more birds
H.B. Walters, Catalogue of the bronzes, Greek, Roman, and Etruscan, in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum (1899), p. 372 fig. 86
♦ Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek 3153: Attic Geometric jug with Herakles? holding rattle? in his right hand and a bird in his left hand, while nine birds are walking? to the right
Digital LIMC (with photo)
♦ London, British Museum B163: Attic black-figure amphora by Group E with Herakles in lionskin shooting with his slingshot at sixteen swans; one swan flies behind Herakles’ quiver, while ten more are also airborne; the remaining five swans are still on the ground
E. Gerhard, Auserlesene Griechische Vasenbilder, hauptsächlich Etruskischen Fundorts (Band 4): Griechisches Alltagsleben (1858), pl. 324.1
Beazley Archive Pottery Database
♦ Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum 1841: Attic black-figure white ground lekythos with kneeling Herakles in lionskin and quiver; he shoots at eight swans, some of whom are perched on branches of a tree in the center of the composition
“Neuere Erwerbungen der Antikensammlung des österreichischen Kaiserhauses in Wien,” Archäologischer Anzeiger 1892, p. 172 fig. 184
Beazley Archive Pottery Database (no photo)
♦ Munich, Antikensammlungen 1842: Attic black-figure lekythos with Herakles? (without lionskin) with club in left hand and neck of bird in right hand, and second bird over his head; on the right, small Iolaos? or pygmy? with club raised in right hand and neck of Stymphalian bird or crane? in left hand; fourth bird on upper right
E. Gerhard, Auserlesene Griechische Vasenbilder, hauptsächlich Etruskischen Fundorts (Band 2): Heroenbilder (1843) pls. 105-6.7-8
C.H.E. Haspels, Attic Black-Figured Lekythoi (1936), pl. 9.2
Beazley Archive Pottery Database
♦ Olympia Museum: metope from the Temple of Zeus with Athena in aegis, who is seated on a rock, and who receives one or more birds (to be restored) from a standing Herakles (who seems to have held a bow in his lowered left hand)
♠ Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.10.9
Above the doors of the rear chamber…[of the temple of Zeus] there are the affairs… of the Stymphalian birds. Greek Text
E. Curtius [Editor] and F. Adler [Editor] and G. Treu, Olympia: die Ergebnisse der von dem Deutschen Reich veranstalteten Ausgrabung (Tafelband 3): Die Bildwerke von Olympia in Stein und Thon (1894) pl. 45.3
Reconstruction from M. Lahanas, Hellenica World
Perseus Art and Archaeology Artifact Browser
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Tags:
#Herakles, #Stymphalian+Birds, #pygmy, #crane, #Athena
Artistic sources edited by Frances Van Keuren, Prof. Emerita, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Univ. of Georgia, July 2023
Literary sources edited by Elena Bianchelli, Retired Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, January 2021
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