Campe

Campe was a monstrous female guardian of Tartarus in Greek mythology, the jailer of the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handers. Zeus killed her to free his allies in the war against the Titans. She is named in Apollodorus’ Library and described at length in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca.

Campe the Jailer

Apollodorus explains how the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handers came to be in Tartarus. Uranus bound the Cyclopes and cast them into Tartarus (Library 1.1.2); when Cronus overthrew him, he released them but then bound them again and shut them up in the same place (Library 1.1.4–5). When Zeus was fighting the Titans, Earth prophesied that he would be victorious if he had as allies those who had been thrown down into Tartarus. So he killed their jailer Campe and loosed their bonds. The Cyclopes then gave Zeus thunder, lightning and the thunderbolt, Pluto a helmet and Poseidon a trident, and with these weapons the gods overcame the Titans, shut them up in Tartarus, and appointed the Hundred-Handers as their guards (Apollodorus, Library 1.2.1).

Appearance

Nonnus describes her in a speech urging Dionysus to fight the Indians as boldly as his father fought. She was a woman to the middle of her body, with clusters of poisonous snakes for hair. A thousand vipers crawled from her feet, fifty heads of wild beasts – lions, boars and dogs – grew around her neck, and her body from the chest to the thighs was covered with the scales of sea monsters. Her hands ended in curved claws, a scorpion with a poisonous sting curled from her neck over her shoulders, and she flew on dark wings, stirring up storms, with sparks flying from her eyelids (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 18.238–262). Nonnus calls her the “black-winged nymph of Tartarus” and says that Zeus struck down high-headed Campe with a thunderbolt and so conquered the snaky champion of Cronus (Dionysiaca 18.236–237, 18.261–264).

Another Version

Hesiod does not mention Campe. In the Theogony Zeus frees his father’s brothers, the sons of Uranus, from their baneful bonds, and they give him thunder, lightning and the thunderbolt (Theogony 501–506). The Hundred-Handers Cottus, Briareus and Gyes, who were bound by Uranus, were brought back to the light by Zeus and the other gods on Earth’s advice, when she told them that with the Hundred-Handers they would win victory (Theogony 617–628). After the war Cottus, Gyes and Briareus live in Tartarus as the loyal guards of Zeus (Theogony 734–735).

Campe Sources

Apollodorus, Library 1.1.2, 1.1.4–5, 1.2.1; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 18.236–264; Hesiod, Theogony 501–506, 617–628, 734–735.

See Also: Hekatonkheires, Cyclopes, Typhon, Uranus, Cronus, Zeus, Titanomachy, Tartarus