Source Verification: Sphinx
Every claim below is either what a named ancient source attests, in its own line or section, or a point where the sources themselves disagree.
What the Sources Attest
What was the Sphinx's riddle?
Apollodorus records it as: what has one voice and yet becomes four-footed, two-footed, and three-footed? She put the same question to every traveler passing near Thebes and killed anyone who could not answer it.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 3.5.8
What is the answer to the Sphinx's riddle?
A human being. Apollodorus explains the logic behind the answer directly: a person crawls on all fours as an infant, walks upright on two feet as an adult, and in old age adds a cane as a third support, matching all three counts in a single life.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 3.5.8
How did the Sphinx die?
By her own hand. Once Oedipus correctly solved her riddle, Apollodorus reports that the Sphinx threw herself from the Theban citadel rather than live with her defeat, ending the killings she had carried out on everyone who failed before him.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 3.5.8
Who were the Sphinx's parents?
Hesiod's Theogony names Echidna as her mother, in union with Orthus - Echidna's own son by Typhon - rather than with Typhon directly. The underlying Greek text is genuinely ambiguous at this point, and some readings instead make the Chimera, not Echidna, the mother meant in the passage.
Source: Hesiod, Theogony 326-329
Is the Sphinx related to other Greek monsters?
Yes, by way of her mother. Hesiod's catalogue places her immediately after Echidna's other children, Cerberus, the Hydra, and the Chimera, making her a half-sister of sorts to all three even though a different father is named for her specifically.
Source: Hesiod, Theogony 319-332
Why did the Sphinx come to Thebes in the first place?
Apollodorus attributes her arrival to the anger of Hera at the Theban royal house, without spelling out the full original offense in detail. Whatever the exact cause, the effect was the same: a monster stationed at the city's edge, killing anyone who could not answer her riddle, until Oedipus solved it.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 3.5.8
Where Accounts Differ
- Echidna or Chimera as the Sphinx's mother
- The Sphinx's parentage is uncertain: Hesiod's Greek is ambiguous about whether Echidna or the Chimera is the mother who mated with Orthus to produce the Sphinx and the Nemean lion; this entry follows the Echidna reading used in the standard English translation, but the alternative is a genuine, unresolved textual crux.
- Oedipus, the hero whose riddle-solving ends the Sphinx's life, is not yet a character in this corpus.
Sources
- Apollodorus, Library 3.5.8
- Hesiod, Theogony 326-332
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)