Lerna in the context of "House of the Tiles"

In Greek mythology, the naiads (/ˈnaɪædz, ˈneɪædz, -ədz/; Ancient Greek: ναϊάδες, romanized: naïádes), sometimes also hydriads, are a type of female spirit, or nymph, presiding over fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of fresh water.

They are distinct from river gods, who embodied rivers, and the very ancient spirits that inhabited the still waters of marshes, ponds and lagoon-lakes such as pre-Mycenaean Lerna in the Argolis.

The Lernaean Hydra or Hydra of Lerna (Ancient Greek: Λερναῖα ὕδρα, romanized: Lernaîa Húdrā), more often known simply as the Hydra, is a serpentine lake monster in Greek mythology and Roman mythology. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid, which was also the site of the myth of the Danaïdes. Lerna was reputed to be an entrance to the Underworld, and archaeology has established it as a sacred site older than Mycenaean Argos. In the canonical Hydra myth, the monster is killed by Heracles (Hercules) as the second of his Twelve Labors.

According to Hesiod, the Hydra was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna. It had poisonous breath and blood so virulent that even its scent was deadly. The Hydra possessed many heads, the exact number of which varies according to the source. Later versions of the Hydra story add a regeneration feature to the monster: for every head chopped off, the Hydra would regrow two heads. Heracles required the assistance of his nephew Iolaus to cut off all of the monster's heads and burn the neck using a sword and fire.

In architecture, a socle is a short plinth used to support a pedestal, sculpture, or column. In English, the term tends to be most used for the bases for rather small sculptures, with plinth or pedestal preferred for larger examples. This is not the case in French.

In the field of archaeology this term refers to a wall base, frequently of stone, that supports the upper part of the wall, which is made of a different material – frequently mudbrick. This was a typical building practice in ancient Greece, resulting in the frequent preservation of the plans of ancient buildings only in their stone-built lower walls, as at the city of Olynthos. A very early example is the two-storey fortified House of the Tiles at Lerna in the Peloponnese, built of mud-brick over a stone socle, with much use of wood, and clay for the floors and as stucco for the walls. This dates to the Early Helladic II, of four thousand years ago.

In Greek mythology, Hippomedon /hɪˈpɒmɪdən/ (Ἰππομέδων, gen.: Ἰππομέδοντος) was one of the Seven against Thebes. He lived near the lake Lerna in Peloponessus; the foundations of his house on Mount Pontinus at Lerna were shown in Pausanias' times. In Euripides' The Suppliants, he is characterized as a person uninterested in comfort and entertainments, eager to face hardships, and dedicating a lot of time to training for combat.