Agrios and Oreios

Agrios and his brother Oreios are characters from Greek mythology , two giants, half bear, half human, sons of Polyphonte with a bear for whom they had been inflamed in love by Aphrodite's vengeance.

Both brothers were immensely big and strong, completely disrespectful to gods and men, and when they met a stranger they lured him into their home and ate him up. Zeus, full of hatred towards them, wanted to punish them and sent Hermes with the authority to determine the sentence at his own discretion.

He wanted to cut off their hands and feet, but Ares intervened because those to be punished were of his own gender. With Hermes' help, he turned the two into birds of prey, Agrios in particular into a vulture, which they instilled an insatiable greed for human blood and flesh.

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• Antoninus Liberalis , Metamorphoses , 21