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
Dragons in Greek mythology which he calls absurd; only Typhon's Near Eastern origins are, in his view, plausible. Dracaena or Drakaina called the she-dragon. Typhon was the most fearsome monster of Greek mythology. The last son of Gaia, Typhon was, with his mate Echidna, the father of many other monsters. He is usually envisioned as humanoid from the waist up, serpentine below. Ladon was the serpent-like drakon (dragon, a word more commonly used) that twined round the tree in the Garden of the Hesperides and guarded the golden apples. Ladon was also said to have as many as one hundred heads. He was overcome