Python
Python was the enormous serpent that guarded the oracle at Delphi before Apollo arrived, slew it, and claimed the site for his own.
The Myth of Python
Python was a monstrous serpent born from the mud left after Deucalion's great flood, or from Gaia herself as guardian of the ancient earth-oracle at Delphi. The young Apollo, only four days old, tracked Python to the sacred site and slew it with silver arrows forged by Hephaestus — his first great act. He claimed Delphi's oracle as his own, establishing the Pythia (named for Python) as his prophetess. To atone for killing a child of Gaia, Apollo founded the Pythian Games at Delphi, one of the four great Panhellenic festivals. The serpent's remains rotted beneath the temple, giving Delphi its older name, Pytho (from the Greek "to rot"). Hermes, Apollo's half-brother, later served as a guide to pilgrims visiting the oracle.
Parents
Gaia (or born from flood-mud)
Symbols
Fun Fact
The Python programming language was not named after this serpent — but the actual snake species python WAS named after it.
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth. See our full guide to English words from Greek mythology.
Explore Further
Hydra
🐉 creatureMulti-headed serpent of Lerna
A monstrous water serpent with multiple heads that grew two more whenever one was cut off. Slaying the Hydra was Heracles's second labor.
Sybaris
🐉 creaturemonsters
A monstrous serpent-dragon that terrorised the region around Delphi until slain by a young hero
Ophiotaurus
🐉 creaturehybrid creatures
A creature half bull and half serpent whose entrails, if burned, could grant power to overthrow the gods
Lernaean Hydra
🐉 creatureMany-headed water serpent
The Hydra was a gigantic water serpent with multiple heads — when one was severed, two more grew in its place, making it seemingly impossible to kill.
Colchian Dragon
🐉 creatureSleepless guardian of the Golden Fleece
The Colchian Dragon was an enormous, ever-wakeful serpent that guarded the Golden Fleece in the sacred grove of Ares in Colchis.
Iolaus Serpent
🐉 creatureserpents,regeneration
The multi-headed water serpent of Lerna whose heads regenerated when cut — the Hydra — whose blood Heracles used to poison his arrows, causing indirect deaths for generations afterward.
Drakon Hesperios
🐉 creatureserpents,guardian
The immortal serpent that never slept, coiled around the tree of golden apples in the garden of the Hesperides at the western edge of the world.
Ladon
🐉 creatureguardian, treasure
The hundred-headed serpent-dragon that guarded the golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides, slain or tricked by Heracles during his eleventh labour.
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🐉 creatureMother of all monsters
Echidna was half woman, half serpent — called the Mother of All Monsters for bearing the most fearsome creatures of Greek mythology.
Typhon
🐉 creatureMost powerful monster who challenged Zeus
Typhon was the most fearsome monster in Greek mythology — a giant with serpent heads who nearly overthrew Zeus and would have ruled the cosmos.
Ophis
🐉 creatureserpents
The great cosmic serpent in Orphic tradition that encircled the primordial egg at the dawn of creation
Aspis
🐉 creatureserpents,death
A legendary venomous serpent of ancient Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean, noted in Greek sources for a bite that caused painless death through sleep.