Mair) (Greek astronomical poem C3rd B.C.) : the bow and arrows with which he shot our monster here.’'Īratus, Phaenomena 45 ff (trans. ‘There was a man here yesterday, an evil man, who killed the watching snake, stole our golden apples, and is gone. His blood had been poisoned by arrows steeped in the gall of the Lernaian Hydra, and flies perished in the festering wounds. Only the tip of his tail was still twitching from the head down, his dark spine showed not a sign of life. But now the snake, struck down by Herakles, lay by the trunk of the apple-tree. 'They found the sacred plot where, till the day before, the serpent Ladon, a son of the Libyan soil, had kept watch over the golden apples in the Garden of Atlas, while close at hand and busy at their tasks the Hesperides sang their lovely song.

'Some say, however, that he did not take the apples from Atlas, but killed the snake that guarded them, and picked them himself.'Īpollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4. 'An immortal serpent guarded them, the child of Typhon and Ekhidna (Echidna), with one hundred heads which spoke with voices of various types.' Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.) : ' ‘The black hearted Stygian rock and the crag of Akheron (Acheron) dripping with gore can hold you and the circling hounds of Kokytos (Cocytus) and the hundred-headed serpent ( ekhidna) shall tear your entrails your lungs will be attacked by the Myraina Tartesia (the Tartesian Eel), your kidneys bleeding with your very entrails the Gorgones Teithrasiai (Tithrasian Gorgons) will rip apart.’' O'Neill) (Greek comedy C5th to 4th B.C.) : 'Keto (Ceto), joined in love with Phorkys (Phorcys), mothered the youngest of the deadly Drakones (Dragon-Serpents), that one who at the gloomy great hidden limits of the earth guards the all-golden apples. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.) : Heracles, Hesperian Dragon and Atlas, Athenian red-figure krater C5th B.C., The J. Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. He had been appointed to watch in the gardens of the Hesperides by Juno, and never slept but he was slain by Heracles and the image of the fight was placed by Zeus among the stars.

He is said to have been able to assume various tones of voice, and to have been the offspring of Typhon and Echidna but he is also called a son of Ge, or of Phorcys and Ceto.

The dragon, who was believed to guard the apples of the Hesperides. TYPHOEUS & EKHIDNA (Apollodorus 2.113, Hyginus Fabulae 151) Therefore, the hundred-headed serpent, whose name means 'Strong Flow', might have represented dangerous sea currents. In Hesiod, the parents and siblings of Ladon represent the various dangers of the sea. It was afterwards placed amongst the stars by the gods as the Constellation Draco encircling the north pole. The creature was slain by Herakles when he was sent to recover the golden apples as one of his twelve labours.

THE DRAKON HESPERION (Hesperian Dragon) was a hundred-headed serpent named Ladon tasked with guarding the golden apples of the Hesperides and tormenting the heavens-bearing Titan Atlas. Dragon of the West Ladon the Hesperian Dragon, Athenian red-figure amphora C5th B.C., State Hermitage Museum

Atlas and the hesperides