page_title: Scylla
section_title: Parentage
hierarchical_section_title: Scylla / Parentage
caption_attribution_description: Sextus Pompeius. 42-40 BC. AR Denarius (3.50 gm). MAG PIVS IMP ITER, galley adorned with aquila, sceptre and trident before the Colonna Rhegina, decorated with a statue of Neptune/Poseidon PRAEF CLAS ET ORAE MARIT EX S C, the monster Scylla, her torso of dogs and fishes, wielding a rudder as a club. Crawford 511/4a; Sear, CRI 335; Sydenham 1348; RSC 2. On the reverse, the title of Sextus Pompeius, PRAEFECTUS CLASSIS ET ORAE MARITIMAE EX SENATUS CONSULTO, means "Commander of the fleet and of the coasts for decision of the Senate". It seems beyond doubt that this coin marks Pompey's "victory" over Octavian's fleet in 42 BC near Scyllaeum in the difficult waters of the Strait of Messina. Therefore the dates given for this issue in RSC and Crawford (42-40 BC) are probably right, though a second and similar disaster, which was mainly due to an unfavorable wind that drove Octavian's ships onto the rocks, happened off Rhegion in 38 BC.
context_page_description: In Greek mythology, Scylla is a legendary monster who lives on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite her counterpart Charybdis. The two sides of the strait are within an arrow's range of each other—so close that sailors attempting to avoid Charybdis would pass dangerously close to Scylla and vice versa.
  Scylla is first attested in Homer's Odyssey, where Odysseus and his crew encounter her and Charybdis on their travels. Later myth provides an origin story as a beautiful nymph who gets turned into a monster.
  The strait where Scylla dwells has been associated with the Strait of Messina between Calabria, a region of Southern Italy, and Sicily. For example, as in Book Three of Virgil's Aeneid. The coastal town of Scilla in Calabria takes its name from the mythological figure of Scylla and it is said to be the home of the nymph.
  The idiom "between Scylla and Charybdis" has come to mean being forced to choose between two similarly dangerous situations.
context_section_description: The parentage of Scylla varies according to author. 
  Homer, Ovid, Apollodorus, Servius, and a scholiast on Plato, all name Crataeis as the mother of Scylla. Neither Homer nor Ovid mentions a father, but Apollodorus says that the father was either Trienus (Triton?) or Phorcus (a variant of Phorkys). Similarly, the Plato scholiast, perhaps following Apollodorus, gives the father as Tyrrhenus or Phorcus, while Eustathius on Homer, Odyssey 12.85, gives the father as Triton.
  Other authors have Hecate as Scylla's mother. The Hesiodic Megalai Ehoiai gives Hecate and Phorbas as the parents of Scylla, while Acusilaus says that Scylla's parents were Hecate and Phorkys (so also schol. Odyssey 12.85).
  Perhaps trying to reconcile these conflicting accounts, Apollonius of Rhodes says that Crataeis was another name for Hecate, and that she and Phorcys were the parents of Scylla. Likewise, Semos of Delos says that Crataeis was the daughter of Hecate and Triton, and mother of Scylla by Deimos. Stesichorus (alone) names Lamia as the mother of Scylla, possibly the Lamia who was the daughter of Poseidon, while according to Gaius Julius Hyginus, Scylla was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna.
caption: Scylla on the reverse of a first century B.C. denarius minted by Sextus Pompeius
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