Source Verification: Stymphalian Birds
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
Did Heracles kill the Stymphalian Birds or just drive them away?
Both, depending on the moment. Apollodorus describes Heracles shooting down a number of the birds with his bow once the castanets' noise forced them into the air, but the labor's real solution was driving the surviving flock away from Arcadia entirely rather than exterminating every bird - the survivors are later said to have fled across the sea.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 2.5.6
Why couldn't Heracles just walk into the marsh and fight the birds directly?
The ground around Lake Stymphalus was too thick and unstable to cross on foot, according to Apollodorus, which meant Heracles could not simply wade in and attack the birds where they nested. He needed a way to draw them out into the open instead, which is why the labor's solution depends on noise rather than a direct assault.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 2.5.6
What were the bronze castanets, and where did they come from?
They were a pair of noise-making instruments, sometimes described as rattles, that the smith-god Hephaestus had made and given to Athena. She lent them to Heracles specifically for this labor, and clashing them together on a mountain above the lake produced a sudden clatter loud enough to startle the entire flock into flight at once.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 2.5.6
What happened to the birds that survived?
According to Apollodorus and Apollonius of Rhodes, the surviving birds fled across the sea to Aretias, a deserted island in the Black Sea sacred to the war-god Ares. They did not stay gone for good: the Argonauts later encounter the same population on their own voyage and have to fend off a hail of sharp bronze feathers before they can land.
Source: Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 2.1030-1089
Were the Stymphalian Birds dangerous in ways beyond simply attacking people?
Later tradition credits them with bronze feathers sharp enough to be loosed like arrows or projectiles, a detail most vividly shown in the Argonauts' later encounter with the survivors, when the birds rain feathers down on the crew's ship and force the men to protect themselves with their shields rather than fight back directly.
Source: Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 2.1030-1089
How does this labor connect to the story of the Argonauts?
Heracles's sixth labor only drives the flock away from Arcadia rather than destroying it outright, and Apollodorus and Apollonius both place the survivors on the island of Aretias in the Black Sea. That detail resurfaces years later when Jason's crew, sailing the same waters on their own quest, has to deal with the very same birds themselves.
Source: Apollodorus, Library 2.5.6
Where Accounts Differ
- driven off vs. exterminated
- Extent of the kill: some retellings treat this labor as exterminating the birds outright, but Apollodorus's own account has a large surviving population flee intact to the Black Sea, where Apollonius of Rhodes later has the Argonauts encounter the same flock - evidence that 'driven off' fits the earliest sources better than 'wiped out.'
Sources
- Apollodorus, Library 2.5.6
- Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 2.1030-1089
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)