.

In Eleusis he killed Cercyon, the Arcadian, in a wrestling match. And going on a little farther, in Erineus, he slew Damastes, otherwise called Procrustes, forcing his body to the size of his own bed, as he himself was used to do with all strangers; this he did in imitation of Hercules, who always returned upon his assailants the same sort of violence that they offered to him; sacrificed Busiris, killed Antaeus in wrestling, and Cycnus in single combat, and Termerus by breaking his skull in pieces (whence, they say, comes the proverb of “a Termerian mischief”), for it seems Termerus killed passengers that he met, by running with his head against them. And so also Theseus proceeded in the punishment of evil men, who underwent the same violence from him which they had inflicted upon others, justly suffering after the manner of their own injustice. Plutarch Theseus

Greek Mythology

Theseus killing Procrustes with his axe, kylix 450 BC [Source]

Kodros Painter

In Greek mythology, Procrustes ("the stretcher") was a bandit from Attica killed by Theseus. In Eleusis, he had a bed which he invited passersby to lie down in. When they did so, he either stretched them or cut off body parts to make them fit into the bed. He continued this until he encountered Theseus and ended up in his own bed.

Killing Procrustes is the last adventure of Theseus. Theseus pushed Procrustes on his own bed and chopped off his head and feet.

Greek Mythology

Theseus killing Procrustes [Source]

Procrustes was a nickname for Damastus, Procoptas, or Polypemon.

Any attempt to reduce people to one standard, one way of thinking, or one way of acting, is called placing them on Procrustes' bed, and the person who makes the attempt is called Procrustes.

The word Procrustean refers to an attempt to provide conformity through violent means.

Ovid VII, 438.

Greek Mythology

Theseus and Procrustes .The kline with "walking" legs. Amphora Munich Alkimachos Painter

Other meanings

Procrustes analysis is the name for the process of performing a shape preserving Euclidean transformation to a set of shapes. This removes variations in translation, rotation and scaling across the dataset, so to move them into a common frame of reference. This is generally the precursor to further statistical analysis.

A Procrustean string in computer science is a fixed length string into which can be placed strings of varying lengths. If the string inserted is too short, then it is padded out, usually with spaces or null characters. If the string inserted is too long, it is truncated. This term was made somewhat popular by its use and explanation in the Sinclair ZX81 user manual. Although the term did not catch on in wider usage, it appears in some references, notably FOLDOC.

Greek Mythology