A distortion of God’s statement concerning the seed of promise may possibly be noted in the mythological accounts that tell of the god Apollo’s killing the serpent Python, and of the infant Hercules’ (the son of Zeus and an earthly woman, Alcmene) strangling two serpents.

For example, the satyr Marsyas, who challenged the god Apollo to a musical contest, was attached by the latter to a tree trunk and skinned alive.