In classical Greece, Lerna (Greek: Λέρνη) was a region of
springs and a former lake near the east coast of the
Peloponnesus, south of Argos. Its site near the village Mili at
the Argolic Gulf is most famous as the lair of the Lernaean
Hydra, the chthonic many-headed water snake, a creature of great
antiquity when Heracles killed it, as the second of his labors.
The strong Karstic springs remained; the lake, diminished to a
silt lagoon by the 19th century, has vanished. The secret of the
Lernaean spring was the gift of Poseidon when he lay with the
"blameless" daughter of Danaus, Amymone. The geographer Strabo
attests that the Lernaean waters were considered healing: Lake
Lerna, the scene of the story of the Hydra, lies in Argeia and
the Mycenaean territory; and on account of the cleansings that
take place in it there arose a proverb, 'A Lerna of ills.' Now
writers agree that the county has plenty of water, and that,
although the city itself lies in a waterless district, it has an
abundance of wells. These wel