Ladon’s Family Tree

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Family

• Echidna(parent),Typhon(parent),Cerberus(sibling),Chimera(sibling),Colchian Dragon(sibling),Lernaean Hydra(sibling),Nemean Lion(sibling),Orthrus(sibling),Sphinx(sibling)— Consort

  Typhon and Echidna produced a brood of monsters including Cerberus, the Chimera, the Lernaean Hydra, the Nemean Lion, the Sphinx, Orthrus, Ladon, and the Colchian Dragon — terrors that defined Greek heroic mythology.

• Ceto(parent),Phorcys(parent),Echidna(sibling),Euryale(sibling),Gorgons(sibling),Graeae(sibling),Medusa(sibling),Stheno(sibling)— Consort

  Phorcys and Ceto, ancient sea deities, produced a brood of monsters: the Gorgons (Medusa, Euryale, Stheno), the Graeae, Echidna, Scylla, and the dragon Ladon.

  ⚠ Hesiod Theogony 295-303 does not explicitly name Echidna's parents; the antecedent of 'she' is debated. Apollodorus (Bibliotheca 2.1.2) gives Tartarus and Gaia as Echidna's parents instead.

Slain by

• Heracles

  Heracles slew Ladon, the hundred-headed dragon guarding the golden apples, with a poisoned arrow shot over the garden wall during his eleventh labor.

  ⚠ Apollodorus 2.5.11 has Heracles slay Ladon; other versions (Apollonius, Argonautica 4.1396) have the Argonauts find Ladon already dead. Diodorus 4.26 has Atlas fetch the apples instead.

Associated with

• Atlas

  The serpent Ladon coiled around the tree of golden apples in Atlas's garden at the western edge of the world. When Heracles came for the apples, Atlas walked past the deathless dragon to pluck them himself while the hero bore the sky in his stead.

• Gaia

  Gaia gave Hera a tree bearing golden apples as a wedding gift when she married Zeus. The serpent Ladon coiled around the tree to guard them in the Garden of the Hesperides.

  ⚠ Hyginus (Astronomica 2.3) names Gaia as Ladon's mother rather than Typhon and Echidna (Hesiod's tradition).

• Hera

  Hera appointed Ladon as guardian of the golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides. After Heracles slew him, she honored the faithful dragon by placing him among the stars as the constellation Draco.