Reptile or the fantastic, as in the monster movies of the 1950s and 1960s. The snake or serpent has played a powerful symbolic role in different cultures. In Egyptian history, the Nile cobra adorned the crown of the pharaoh. It was worshipped as one of the gods and was also used for sinister purposes: murder of an adversary and ritual suicide (Cleopatra). In Greek mythology snakes are associated with deadly antagonists, as a chthonic symbol, roughly translated as "earthbound". The nine-headed Lernaean Hydra that Hercules defeated and the three Gorgon sisters are children of Gaia, the earth. Medusa was one of
Theban kings in Greek mythology Theban kings in Greek mythology The dynastic history of Thebes in Greek mythology is crowded with a bewildering number of kings between the city's new foundation (by Cadmus) and the Trojan War (see Ogyges). This suggests several competing traditions, which mythographers were forced to reconcile. The first kings of the Boeotia region (before Cadmus and the flood of Deucalion) were Calydnus and Ogyges (Ogygos). The first king of the settlement that would become Thebes was Cadmus, after whom the city was originally called Cadmeia. It only became known as Thebes during the reign of Amphion and Zethus, after the latter's