Hercules slay the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra by Sylvester0102 on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Sylvester0102 on DeviantArthttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/https://www.deviantart.com/sylvester0102/art/Hercules-slay-the-nine-headed-Lernaean-Hydra-955702637Sylvester0102

Deviation Actions

Published: Mar 29, 2023

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This is a gorgeous painting, save for one nitpick: the sword is ridiculous. It has a hilt for two hands and a blade that is roughly 1/3 the length that a two-handed sword should have. Also, the hilt has a guard for just a single hand which makes even less sense. The ancient Greeks used the Xiphos, a one-handed short sword with a blade shaped more or less like a leaf to give it strength and weight to a blow. They didn't have the technology to forge functional longer blades because they would easily bend if made from bronze or snap if made from iron, as their swords predated steel. They didn't forge short swords with two-handed hilts either because a longer hilt would waste valuable weight at the wrong end of the sword and it wouldn't be effective at slicing through a target. I'll grant that this could be some kind of divine weapon sent down by Zeus to aid his son, but even so: it should still look like this: https://imgur.com/a/WMSRoyh