Stymphalian Birds

The Stymphalian birds were a huge flock of man-eating birds that lived by Lake Stymphalus in Arcadia and ravaged the surrounding country. Driving them away was the sixth labour of Heracles, who frightened them from their lair with a bronze rattle and then shot them as they flew up. Apollonius places the same birds on an island of Ares, where the Argonauts met them.

The Birds

Pausanias reports the Arcadian story that man-eating birds bred on the water of Stymphalus (Pausanias 8.22.4). Diodorus says the lake held a countless multitude of birds that destroyed the fruits of the surrounding country (Diodorus 4.13.2), and Apollodorus adds that they had flocked there for refuge from the wolves (Apollodorus, Library 2.5.6). Apollonius calls them “Ares’ birds”, the dwellers of an island of Ares; they shake their wings and shoot sharp feathers like missiles at those who sail by (Apollonius, Argonautica 2.1033–1045). Hyginus describes them in the same way, as birds that shot their feathers like arrows (Hyginus, Fabulae 30). Pausanias also describes the Arabian birds that took the Stymphalian name: the size of a crane, with strong beaks that pierce bronze and iron armour but stick in a garment of thick cork (Pausanias 8.22.4–6); he did not know whether they were of the same breed as the Arcadian birds.

Apollonius calls them birds of Ares and places them on his island, and Hyginus does the same (Fabulae 30), but neither says that Ares made them. Pausanias saw the Stymphalian birds carved near the roof of the old temple of Stymphalian Artemis at Stymphalus, and white marble maidens with the legs of birds stood behind it (Pausanias 8.22.7).

The Sixth Labour of Heracles

Eurystheus ordered Heracles to chase the Stymphalian birds away (Apollodorus, Library 2.5.6). The lake lay in a deep wood, and Heracles did not know how to drive the birds from it. Athena gave him bronze castanets that she had received from Hephaestus; Heracles clashed them on a mountain that overhung the lake, and the birds, unable to bear the noise, flew up in fright, and he shot them (Apollodorus, Library 2.5.6). In Diodorus it is Heracles himself who makes a bronze rattle: with its terrible noise and a continual din he frightened the birds away (Diodorus 4.13.2). Apollonius also has Heracles standing on a high lookout and shaking a bronze rattle, so that the birds fled far off screaming with fear, and the hero Amphidamas, a son of Aleus, says he saw it himself (Argonautica 2.1052–1057).

The ancient writers differ on whether the birds were killed. Apollodorus has Heracles shoot them, while Pausanias reports that Peisander of Camirus said Heracles did not kill them but drove them away with the noise of rattles (Pausanias 8.22.4). In Apollonius, too, Amphidamas says that Heracles could not drive them off with his bow and had to use the rattle (Argonautica 2.1052–1057). Hyginus says he killed them on the island of Mars with arrows (Hyginus, Fabulae 30).

The Argonauts and the Birds

When the Argo came near the island of Ares, one of the birds shot a feather at the ship that struck Oileus in the shoulder, and another bird was shot down by Clytius with his bow (Argonautica 2.1033–1045). Amphidamas, remembering how Heracles had treated the Stymphalian birds, advised the crew to put their crested helmets on their heads, row in two groups, and raise a din with their spears and shields. The birds fled over the sea to the mountains of the mainland (Argonautica 2.1046–1089).

Stymphalian Birds Sources

Apollodorus, Library 2.5.6; Diodorus Siculus 4.13.2; Pausanias 8.22.4–7; Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 2.1030–1089; Hyginus, Fabulae 30.

See Also: Heracles, Eurystheus, Labours of Heracles, Athena, Hephaestus, Ares, Artemis, Argonauts