Erymanthian Boar
Heracles, Eurystheus and the Erymanthian Boar. Side A from an Ancient Greek black-figured amphora, painted by Antimenes, ca. 525 BC, from Etruria. Louvre Museum, Paris.
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| Grouping | Legendary creature |
|---|---|
| Mythology | Greek mythology |
| Country | Greece |
| Habitat | Mount Erymanthos |
In Greek mythology, the Erymanthian Boar (Greek: ὁ Ἐρυμάνθιος κάπρος; Latin: aper Erymanthius) is remembered in connection with The Twelve Labours, in which Heracles, the (reconciled) enemy of Hera, visited in turn "all the other sites of the Goddess throughout the world, to conquer every conceivable 'monster' of nature and rededicate the primordial world to its new master, his Olympian father," Zeus.
In the primitive highlands of Arcadia, where old practices lingered, the Erymanthian Boar was a giant fear-inspiring creature of the wilds that lived on Mount Erymanthos, a mountain that was apparently once sacred to the Mistress of the Animals, for in classical times it remained the haunt of Artemis (Homer, Odyssey, VI.105). A boar was a dangerous animal: "When the goddess turned a wrathful countenance upon a country, as in the story of Meleager, she would send a raging boar, which laid waste the farmers' fields." In some accounts, Apollo sent the boar to kill Adonis, a favorite of Aphrodite, as revenge for the goddess blinding Apollo's son Erymanthus when he saw her bathing. Robert Graves suggested that Aphrodite had been substituted for Artemis in this retelling of the mytheme of the eponymous Erymanthus. The most commonly accepted version, however, states that Ares turned himself into a boar and killed Adonis out of jealousy.
Heracles' fourth labour—by some counts, for there is no single definitive telling—was to capture the Boar. On the way there, Heracles visited Pholus ("caveman"), a kind and hospitable centaur and old friend. Hercules ate with him in his cavern—though the centaur devoured his meat raw—and asked for wine. Pholus had only one jar of wine, a gift from Dionysus to all the centaurs on Mt. Erymanthos. Heracles convinced him to open it, and the smell attracted the other centaurs. They did not understand that wine needs to be tempered with water, became drunk, and attacked. Heracles shot at them with his poisonous arrows, and the centaurs retreated all the way to Chiron's cave.
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