Cybele is the Latin name of the goddess called by the Greeks Rhea and Ops.  She was the wife of Cronos and mother of Zeus.  In works of art she exhibits the matronly air which distinguishes Juno and Ceres.  Sometimes she is veiled, and seated on a throne with lions at her side, at other times riding in a chariot drawn by lions.  She wears a mural crown, that is, a crown whose rim is carved in the form of towers and battlements.  Her priests were called Corybantes.

Byron, in describing the city of Venice, which is built on a low island in the Adriatic Sea, borrows an illustration from Cybele: 

    “She looks a sea-Cybele fresh from ocean,
     Rising with her tiara of proud towers
     At airy distance, with majestic motion,
     A ruler of the waters and their powers.”

    —­Childe Harold, iv.

In Moore’s “Rhymes on the Road,” the poet, speaking of Alpine scenery, alludes to the story of Atalanta and Hippomenes thus: 

    “Even here, in this region of wonders, I find
     That light-footed Fancy leaves Truth far behind,
     Or at least, like Hippomenes, turns her astray
     By the golden illusions he flings in her way.”

CHAPTER XIX

HERCULES—­HEBE AND GANYMEDE

HERCULES

Hercules was the son of Jupiter and Alcmena.  As Juno was always hostile to the offspring of her husband by mortal mothers, she declared war against Hercules from his birth.  She sent two serpents to destroy him as he lay in his cradle, but the precocious infant strangled them with his own hands.  He was, however, by the arts of Juno rendered subject to Eurystheus and compelled to perform all his commands.  Eurystheus enjoined upon him a succession of desperate adventures, which are called the “Twelve Labors of Hercules.”  The first was the fight with the Nemean lion.  The valley of Nemea was infested by a terrible lion.  Eurystheus ordered Hercules to bring him the skin of this monster.  After using in vain his club and arrows against the lion, Hercules strangled the animal with his hands.  He returned carrying the dead lion on his shoulders; but Eurystheus was so frightened at the sight of it and at this proof of the prodigious strength of the hero, that he ordered him to deliver the account of his exploits in future outside the town.

His next labor was the slaughter of the Hydra.  This monster ravaged the country of Argos, and dwelt in a swamp near the well of Amymone.  This well had been discovered by Amymone when the country was suffering from drought, and the story was that Neptune, who loved her, had permitted her to touch the rock with his trident, and a spring of three outlets burst forth.  Here the Hydra took up his position, and Hercules was sent to destroy him.  The Hydra had nine heads, of which the middle one was immortal.  Hercules struck off its heads with his club, but in the place of the head knocked off, two new ones grew forth each time.  At length with the assistance of his faithful servant Iolaus, he burned away the heads of the Hydra, and buried the ninth or immortal one under a huge rock.