Ladon

Ladon (; Ancient Greek: Λάδων; gen.: Λάδωνος Ladonos) was a monster in Greek mythology, the dragon that guarded the golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides. Family According to Hesiod's Theogony, Ladon was the last of the progeny of Phorcys and Ceto. A scholion on Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica, however, cites Hesiod as calling him the son of Typhon, and the same scholion on Apollonius of Rhodes claims that one "Peisandros" called Ladon born of the earth. The mythographer Apollodorus calls Ladon the offspring of the monstrous Typhon and Echidna, a parentage repeated by Hyginus and Pherecydes; similarly, Ladon is called the son of Typhon in Tzetzes' Chiliades. According to Ptolemy Hephaestion's New History, as recorded by Photius in his Bibliotheca, Ladon was the brother of the Nemean lion. Mythology Ladon was the serpent-like dragon that twined and twisted around the tree in the Garden of the Hesperides and guarded the golden apples. In pursuance of his eleventh labour, Heracles killed Ladon with a bow and arrow and carried the apples away. The following day, Jason and the Argonauts passed by on their chthonic return journey from Colchis, hearing the lament of "shining" Aegle, one of the four Hesperides, and viewing the still-twitching Ladon. In an alternate version of the myth, Ladon is never slain, and Heracles instead gets the Titan god Atlas to retrieve the apples. At the same time, Heracles takes Atlas’ place, holding up the sky.