Such classical explanations of Cerberus' shape as I have seen are feeble
and foolishly reasonable. Heraclitus, [Greek: Peri apistôn] 331, states
that Kerberos had two pups. They always attended their father, and
therefore he appeared to be three-headed. The mythographer
Palaephatos(39) states that Kerberos was considered three-headed from
his name [Greek: Trikarênos] which he obtained from the city Trikarenos
in Phliasia. And a late Roman rationalistic mythographer by the name of
Fulgentius[11] tells us that Petronius defined Cerberus as the lawyer of
Hades, apparently because of his three jaws, or the cumulative glibness
of three tongues. Fulgentius himself has a _fabula_ in which he says
that Cerberus means _Creaboros_, that is, "flesh-eating," and that the
three heads of Cerberus are respectively, infancy, youth, and old age,
through which death has entered the circle of the earth--_per quas
introivit mors in orbem terrarum_.[12]