The Gorgons ( / ˈ ɡ ɔːr ɡ ən z / GOR -gənz ; Ancient Greek : Γοργώνες ), in Greek mythology , are three monstrous sisters, Stheno, Euryale , and Medusa , said to be the daughters of Phorcys and Ceto . They lived near their sisters the Graeae , and were able to turn anyone who looked at them to stone. Euryale and Stheno were immortal, but Medusa was not and was slain by the hero Perseus .
165-708: Gorgons were dread monsters with terrifying eyes. A Gorgon head was displayed on Athena 's aegis , giving it the power both to protect her from any weapon, and instill great fear in any enemy. Gorgon blood was said to have both the power to heal and harm. Representations of full-bodied Gorgons and the Gorgon face, called a gorgoneion (pl. gorgoneia), were popular subjects in Ancient Greek, Etruscan and Roman iconography. While Archaic Gorgons and gorgoneia are universally depicted as hideously ugly, over time they came to be portrayed as beautiful young women. The name 'Gorgon'
330-461: A founding myth reported by Pseudo-Apollodorus, Athena competed with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens. They agreed that each would give the Athenians one gift and that Cecrops , the king of Athens, would determine which gift was better. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring sprang up; this gave the Athenians access to trade and water. Athens at its height
495-534: A "terrifying warrior goddess" and that both goddesses were closely linked with creation. Athena's birth from the head of Zeus may be derived from the earlier Sumerian myth of Inanna's descent into and return from the Underworld . Plato notes that the citizens of Sais in Egypt worshipped a goddess known as Neith , whom he identifies with Athena. Neith was the ancient Egyptian goddess of war and hunting, who
660-453: A chaste girl who outdid all her fellow athletes in both the palaestra and the race. Out of envy, the other athletes murdered her, but Athena took pity in her and transformed her dead body into a myrtle , a plant thereafter as favoured by her as the olive was. An almost exact story was said about another girl, Elaea , who transformed into an olive, Athena's sacred tree. According to Pseudo-Apollodorus's Bibliotheca , Athena advised Argos ,
825-466: A cleansing ritual within the Erechtheion , a sanctuary devoted to Athena and Poseidon. Here Athena's statue was undressed, her clothes washed, and body purified. Athena was worshipped at festivals such as Chalceia as Athena Ergane , the patroness of various crafts, especially weaving . She was also the patron of metalworkers and was believed to aid in the forging of armor and weapons. During
990-505: A connection to the Rigvedic god Trita , who was sometimes grouped in a body of three mythological poets. Michael Janda has connected the myth of Trita to the scene in the Iliad in which the "three brothers" Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades divide the world between them, receiving the "broad sky", the sea, and the underworld respectively. Janda further connects the myth of Athena being born of
1155-476: A curse. Athena Athena or Athene , often given the epithet Pallas , is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva . Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece, particularly the city of Athens , from which she most likely received her name. The Parthenon on
1320-456: A daughter named Danaë . Disappointed by not having a male heir, Acrisius consulted the Oracle at Delphi , who warned him that he would one day be killed by his own grandson. To keep Danaë childless, Acrisius imprisoned her in a room atop a bronze tower in the courtyard of his palace: This mytheme is also connected to Ares , Oenopion , Eurystheus , and others. Zeus came to her in the form of
1485-432: A daughter of Zeus ( Διός θυγάτηρ ; cfr. Dyeus ). However, the inscription quoted seems to be very similar to " a-ta-nū-tī wa-ya ", quoted as SY Za 1 by Jan Best. Best translates the initial a-ta-nū-tī , which is recurrent in line beginnings, as "I have given". A Mycenean fresco depicts two women extending their hands towards a central figure, who is covered by an enormous figure-eight shield; this may depict
1650-453: A device (an apotropaion ) to ward away unwanted things, and which was in origin a dancer-worn mask. The classic formulation of this view is that of Jane Ellen Harrison , the gorgoneion as a "ritual mask misunderstood": ... in her essence Medusa is a head and nothing more; her potency only begins when her head is severed, and that potency resides in the head; she is in a word a mask with a body later appended. The primitive Greek knew that there
1815-615: A full-bodied Gorgon) depicted in relief being displayed at the Temple of Zeus at Olympia . There has been considerable and wide-ranging speculation concerning the possible origins of the story of Perseus and the Gorgons, as well as gorgoneia, the representations of Gorgon faces. The origins of the Perseus-Gorgon story, and gorgoneia, even with respect to each other, are uncertain. The Perseus-Gorgon story might have come first inspiring
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#17327732740661980-619: A group of wearable helmet masks from Tiryns , and another group of non-wearable votive masks from the Sanctuary of Orthia at Sparta , which share some features with the typical earliest representations of Gorgon faces. If such masks were in fact intended to represent the face of a Gorgon, then they would show that Gorgons or gorgoneia played a role in some kind of ritualistic or dramatic practice or performance. The gorgonesque votive masks from Sparta have deep S-shaped furrows on either side of wide-mouthed grimaces. Such features resemble those on
2145-551: A just cause and was thought to view war primarily as a means to resolve conflict. The Greeks regarded Athena with much higher esteem than Ares. Athena was especially worshipped in this role during the festivals of the Panathenaea and Pamboeotia , both of which prominently featured displays of athletic and military prowess. As the patroness of heroes and warriors, Athena was believed to favor those who used cunning and intelligence rather than brute strength. In her aspect as
2310-644: A man injured during the construction of the gateway to the Acropolis . Mechanitis (Μηχανῖτις), meaning skilled in inventing, was one of the epithets of her. At Athens there is the temple of Athena Phratria , as patron of a phratry , in the Ancient Agora of Athens . Athena's epithet Pallas – her most renowned one – is derived either from πάλλω , meaning "to brandish [as a weapon]", or, more likely, from παλλακίς and related words, meaning "youth, young woman". On this topic, Walter Burkert says "she
2475-683: A mythological lake set somewhere in westernmost North Africa. And the fifth-century BC poet Pindar has Perseus, apparently on his quest for the Gorgon head, visit the Hyperboreans (usually considered to dwell in the far north). However, whether Pindar means to imply that the Gorgons lived near the Hyperboreans is unclear. Pherecydes notes that Medusa's face turned men to stone, and Pindar describes Medusa's severed head as "stony death". In Prometheus Bound , it says that no mortal can look at them and live. According to Apollodorus, all three of
2640-415: A recognition of her role as enforcer of rules of sexual modesty and ritual mystery. Even beyond recognition, the Athenians allotted the goddess value based on this pureness of virginity, which they upheld as a rudiment of female behavior. Kerényi's study and theory of Athena explains her virginal epithet as a result of her relationship to her father Zeus and a vital, cohesive piece of her character throughout
2805-453: A reference to Athena's aegis . In the Iliad , the aegis is a device, usually associated with Athena , which was decorated with a Gorgon head. Athena wore it in battle as a shield which neither Apollo 's spear, or even Zeus ' thunderbolt could pierce. According to the Iliad , Hephaestus made the aegis for Zeus, while according to a Hesiod fragment, Metis made it for Athena, before Athena
2970-455: A shower of gold, and fathered her child. Soon after, their child, a son, was born; Perseus-"Perseus Eurymedon, for his mother gave him this name as well". Fearful for his future, but unwilling to provoke the wrath of the gods and the Erinyes by killing the offspring of Zeus and his daughter, Acrisius cast the two into the sea in a wooden chest. Danaë's fearful prayer, made while afloat in
3135-413: A striking resemblance to a seal impression from Nuzi c. 1450 BC. This suggests the possibility that Greeks misinterpreted or reinterpreted these Mesopotamian images, giving rise, through a process that Burkert has described as a "creative misunderstanding", to the myth of the Gorgon's petrifying gaze. The consensus among classical scholars seems to be that the function of a gorgoneion was apotropaic , as
3300-445: A symbol of Athenian economic prosperity. Robert Graves was of the opinion that "Poseidon's attempts to take possession of certain cities are political myths", which reflect the conflict between matriarchal and patriarchal religions. Afterwards, Poseidon was so angry over his defeat that he sent one of his sons, Halirrhothius , to cut down the tree. But as he swung his axe, he missed his aim and it fell in himself, killing him. This
3465-471: A temple at Phrixa in Elis , reportedly built by Clymenus , she was known as Cydonia (Κυδωνία). Pausanias wrote that at Buporthmus there was a sanctuary of Athena Promachorma (Προμαχόρμα), meaning protector of the anchorage . The Greek biographer Plutarch describes Pericles's dedication of a statue to her as Athena Hygieia (Ὑγίεια, "Health") after she inspired, in a dream, his successful treatment of
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#17327732740663630-448: A temple was built to her at Las . In Pergamon, Athena was thought to have been a god of the cosmos and the aspects of it that aided Pergamon and its fate. She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, and emerged full-grown from his forehead. There was an alternate story that Zeus swallowed Metis, the goddess of counsel, while she was pregnant with Athena and when she was fully grown she emerged from Zeus' forehead. Being
3795-565: A warrior maiden, Athena was known as Parthenos ( Παρθένος "virgin"), because, like her fellow goddesses Artemis and Hestia , she was believed to remain perpetually a virgin. Athena's most famous temple, the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis , takes its name from this title. According to Karl Kerényi , a scholar of Greek mythology, the name Parthenos is not merely an observation of Athena's virginity, but also
3960-597: A young priestess who served in the temple of Athena in Athens. Poseidon lusted after Medusa, and raped her in the temple of Athena, refusing to allow her vow of chastity to stand in his way. Upon discovering the desecration of her temple, Athena transformed Medusa into a hideous monster with serpents for hair whose gaze would turn any mortal to stone . Perseus In Greek mythology , Perseus ( US : / ˈ p ɜː r . s i . ə s / , UK : / ˈ p ɜː . sj uː s / ; Greek : Περσεύς, translit. Perseús)
4125-425: Is Glaukopis ( γλαυκῶπις ), which usually is translated as, "bright-eyed" or "with gleaming eyes". The word is a combination of glaukós ( γλαυκός , meaning "gleaming, silvery", and later, "bluish-green" or "gray") and ṓps ( ὤψ , "eye, face"). The word glaúx ( γλαύξ , "little owl") is from the same root, presumably according to some, because of the bird's own distinctive eyes. Athena
4290-565: Is associated with the Ancient Greek adjective gorgós ( γοργός ), which, of an eye or look, means 'grim, fierce, awesome, dazzling', and is thought to derive from the Sanskrit stem garğ . The stem has connotations of noise, and Germanic and Romance languages have many derivatives from this stem referring to the throat (e.g. 'gorge') or the guttural sounds produced in the throat (e.g. 'gargle', 'gurgle'). It has been understood as meaning to growl, roar or howl, while Thalia Feldman suggests that
4455-629: Is believed to be dead, but Odysseus lies back to her, employing skillful prevarications to protect himself. Impressed by his resolve and shrewdness, she reveals herself and tells him what he needs to know to win back his kingdom. She disguises him as an elderly beggar so that he will not be recognized by the suitors or Penelope, and helps him to defeat the suitors. Athena also appears to Odysseus's son Telemachus. Her actions lead him to travel around to Odysseus's comrades and ask about his father. He hears stories about some of Odysseus's journey. Athena's push for Telemachus's journey helps him grow into
4620-604: Is first born within Zeus and then escapes from his body through his forehead. In the founding myth of Athens, Athena bested Poseidon in a competition over patronage of the city by creating the first olive tree. She was known as Athena Parthenos "Athena the Virgin". In one archaic Attic myth, the god Hephaestus tried and failed to rape her, resulting in Gaia giving birth to Erichthonius , an important Athenian founding hero. Athena
4785-616: Is generally agreed that the cult of Athena preserves some aspects of the Proto-Indo-European transfunctional goddess . The cult of Athena may have also been influenced by those of Near Eastern warrior goddesses such as the East Semitic Ishtar and the Ugaritic Anat , both of whom were often portrayed bearing arms. Classical scholar Charles Penglase notes that Athena resembles Inanna in her role as
4950-465: Is more obscure. Hofmann lists the possible root as *bher- , from which Latin ferio , "strike". This corresponds to Pokorny's *bher- (3), "scrape, cut". Ordinarily *bh- descends to Greek as ph- . This difficulty can be overcome by presuming a dissimilation from the -th- in pérthein , which the Greeks would have preferred from a putative *phérthein . Graves carries the meaning still further, to
5115-685: Is not far from the stars Betelgeuse and Sirius; his wife's constellation Andromeda is also nearby. It is southward from Cassiopeia, and to the left of Taurus. His constellation contains the most famous variable star Algol and some deep sky objects such as Messier 34, the Double Cluster, the California Nebula, and the Little Dumbbell Nebula (Messier 76). There are eight named stars in the constellation Algol, Atik, Berehinya, Menkib, Miram, Mirfak, Misam, and Muspelheim. It
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5280-402: Is occasionally referred to as "Tritonia". Another possible meaning may be "triple-born" or "third-born", which may refer to a triad or to her status as the third daughter of Zeus or the fact she was born from Metis, Zeus, and herself; various legends list her as being the first child after Artemis and Apollo, though other legends identify her as Zeus' first child. Several scholars have suggested
5445-507: Is possible that the mythology and/or the iconography of Gorgons were subject to Near-Eastern influence. In particular elements of full-bodied Gorgon iconography seem to have been borrowed from that of the Mesopotamian Lamashtu . Mesopotamian depictions of Gilgamesh slaying Humbaba , may have influenced the Perseus-Gorgon story, while gorgoneia may be connected to images of Humbaba. The Gorgon as Mistress of Animals , in
5610-603: Is the Pallas of Athens, Pallas Athenaie , just as Hera of Argos is Here Argeie ". In later times, after the original meaning of the name had been forgotten, the Greeks invented myths to explain its origins, such as those reported by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus and the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, which claim that Pallas was originally a separate entity, whom Athena had slain in combat. In one version of
5775-566: Is the legendary founder of the Perseid dynasty . He was, alongside Cadmus and Bellerophon , the greatest Greek hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles . He beheaded the Gorgon Medusa for Polydectes and saved Andromeda from the sea monster Cetus . He was the son of Zeus and the mortal Danaë , as well as the half-brother and great-grandfather of Heracles (as they were both children of Zeus, and Heracles's mother
5940-533: Is unlikely, however, that Apollodorus knew who walled in Mycenae; he was only conjecturing. Perseus took up official residence in Mycenae with Andromeda where he had a long, successful reign as king. According to the Suda , Perseus, after he married Andromeda, founded a city and called it Amandra (Ἄμανδραν). In the city there was a stele depicting the Gorgon. The city later changed the name to Ikonion because it had
6105-694: Is why Heinrich Schliemann named the largest tholos tomb the Treasury of Atreus . Apart from these more historical references, the only accounts of him are from folk-etymology: Perseus dropped his cap or found a mushroom (both named myces ) at Mycenae, or perhaps the place was named after the lady Mycene, daughter of Inachus , mentioned in a now-fragmentary poem, the Megalai Ehoiai . For whatever reasons, perhaps as outposts, Perseus fortified Mycenae according to Apollodorus along with Midea , an action that implies that they both previously existed. It
6270-495: The Bibliotheca . Pausanias asserts that the Greeks believed Perseus founded Mycenae. He mentions the shrine to Perseus that stood on the left-hand side of the road from Mycenae to Argos, and also a sacred fountain at Mycenae called Persea . Located outside the walls, this was perhaps the spring that filled the citadel's underground cistern. He states also that Atreus stored his treasures in an underground chamber there, which
6435-631: The Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae ( LIMC ). In addition to the many examples found on vase paintings, Gorgons occur in a wide variety of other contexts, including architectural ornamentation, shield devices, and coins. Some representations show full-bodied Gorgons, while others, called gorgoneia , show only the face (or head) of a Gorgon, such as those described in the Iliad as appearing on Athena 's aegis , and Agamemnon 's shield. The earliest representations of both types are found from roughly
6600-664: The Acropolis , dying instantly, but an Attic vase painting shows them being chased by the serpent off the edge of the cliff instead. Erichthonius was one of the most important founding heroes of Athens and the legend of the daughters of Cecrops was a cult myth linked to the rituals of the Arrhephoria festival. Pausanias records that, during the Arrhephoria, two young girls known as the Arrhephoroi , who lived near
6765-487: The Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. Her major symbols include owls , olive trees , snakes, and the Gorgoneion . In art, she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear. From her origin as an Aegean palace goddess , Athena was closely associated with the city. She was known as Polias and Poliouchos (both derived from polis , meaning "city-state"), and her temples were usually located atop
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6930-526: The Athenai , a sisterhood devoted to her worship. In ancient times, scholars argued whether Athena was named after Athens or Athens after Athena. Now scholars generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city; the ending - ene is common in names of locations, but rare for personal names. Testimonies from different cities in ancient Greece attest that similar city goddesses were worshipped in other cities and, like Athena, took their names from
7095-571: The Atlas mountains . On the way back to Seriphos, Perseus stopped in the kingdom of Aethiopia . This mythical Ethiopia was ruled by King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia . Cassiopeia, having boasted that her daughter Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids , drew the vengeance of Poseidon, who sent an inundation on the land and a sea serpent, Cetus , which destroyed man and beast. The oracle of Ammon announced that no relief would be found until
7260-666: The Graeae , the Gorgons' sisters, for the snake-haired women's whereabouts (in other versions, it was the Hesperides nymphs who gave Perseus the weapons after he sought out the Graeae). Following Athena's guidance, Perseus found the Graeae, who were three old swan -shaped witches sharing a single eye and a single tooth. As the witches passed their eye from one to another, Perseus snatched it from them, holding it for ransom in return for
7425-526: The Iliad , the Gorgon's "glaring" eyes were a notably fearsome feature. As Hector pursues the fleeing Achaeans, "exulting in his might" ... ever slaying the hindmost", Homer describes the Trojan hero as having eyes like "the eyes of the Gorgon". And in the Odyssey , Odysseus , although determined "steadfastly" to stay in the underworld , so as to meet other great men among the dead, is seized by such fear at
7590-664: The Laconian towns of Mantineia and Tegea . The temple of Athena Alea in Tegea was an important religious center of ancient Greece. The geographer Pausanias was informed that the temenos had been founded by Aleus . Athena had a major temple on the Spartan Acropolis , where she was venerated as Poliouchos and Khalkíoikos ("of the Brazen House", often latinized as Chalcioecus ). This epithet may refer to
7755-760: The Linear B tablets from the Late Minoan II-era "Room of the Chariot Tablets"; these comprise the earliest Linear B archive anywhere. Although Athana potnia is often translated as "Mistress Athena", it could also mean "the Potnia of Athana", or the Lady of Athens . However, any connection to the city of Athens in the Knossos inscription is uncertain. A sign series a-ta-no-dju-wa-ja appears in
7920-626: The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus . The temple was dedicated by Alexander the Great and an inscription from the temple declaring his dedication is now held in the British Museum . She was worshipped as Athena Asia in Colchis -- supposedly on an account of a nearby mountain with that name -- from which her worship was believed to have been brought by Castor and Pollux to Laconia , where
8085-615: The Perse- in Persephone , goddess of death. Ventris & Chadwick speculate about a Mycenaean goddess pe-re-*82 ( Linear B : 𐀟𐀩𐁚 ), attested on tablet PY Tn 316, and tentatively reconstructed as *Preswa . A Greek folk etymology connected Perseus to the name of the Persian people , whom they called the Pérsai (from Old Persian Pārsa "Persia, a Persian"). However,
8250-468: The Renaissance , Athena has become an international symbol of wisdom, the arts , and classical learning . Western artists and allegorists have often used Athena as a symbol of freedom and democracy. Athena is associated with the city of Athens . The name of the city in ancient Greek is Ἀθῆναι ( Athȇnai ), a plural toponym , designating the place where—according to myth—she presided over
8415-562: The Temple of Apollo at Delphi (latter part of the sixth century BC). In Euripides 's Ion (c. 412–412 BC), the Chorus describes seeing, on the temple's stone walls, Athena "brandishing her gorgon shield" against Enceladus. Pausanias describes seeing a votive golden shield dedicated by the Spartans and their allies after the Battle of Tanagra (457 BC), with a gorgoneion (or possibly
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#17327732740668580-641: The Trojan war , make Athena instead the daughter of Cronus , a king of Byblos who visited "the inhabitable world" and bequeathed Attica to Athena. In Homer's Iliad , Athena, as a war goddess, inspired and fought alongside the Greek heroes; her aid was synonymous with military prowess. Also in the Iliad, Zeus, the chief god, specifically assigned the sphere of war to Ares, the god of war, and Athena. Athena's moral and military superiority to Ares derived in part from
8745-480: The homonymous sea-deity was her parent according to some early myths. One myth relates the foster father relationship of this Triton towards the half-orphan Athena, whom he raised alongside his own daughter Pallas . Kerényi suggests that "Tritogeneia did not mean that she came into the world on any particular river or lake, but that she was born of the water itself; for the name Triton seems to be associated with water generally." In Ovid 's Metamorphoses , Athena
8910-471: The quoit and was making a public display of them when Acrisius, who happened to be visiting, stepped into the trajectory of the quoit and was killed: thus the oracle was fulfilled. This is an unusual variant on the story of such a prophecy, as Acrisius's actions did not, in this variant, cause his death. In the Bibliotheca , the inevitable occurred by another route: Perseus did return to Argos, but when Acrisius learned of his grandson's approach, mindful of
9075-486: The semen off using a tuft of wool , which she tossed into the dust, impregnating Gaia and causing her to give birth to Erichthonius . Athena adopted Erichthonius as her son and raised him. The Roman mythographer Hyginus records a similar story in which Hephaestus demanded Zeus to let him marry Athena since he was the one who had smashed open Zeus's skull, allowing Athena to be born. Zeus agreed to this and Hephaestus and Athena were married, but, when Hephaestus
9240-462: The Athenian orator Isocrates helps to date Perseus approximately. He said that Heracles was four generations later than Perseus, which corresponds to the legendary succession: Perseus, Electryon , Alcmena , and Heracles , who was a contemporary of Eurystheus . Atreus was one generation later, a total of five generations. The replacement of Bellerophon as the tamer and rider of Pegasus by
9405-454: The Athenians sometimes simply called Athena "the Goddess", hē theós (ἡ θεός), certainly an ancient title. After serving as the judge at the trial of Orestes in which he was acquitted of having murdered his mother Clytemnestra , Athena won the epithet Areia (Αρεία). Some have described Athena, along with the goddesses Hestia and Artemis as being asexual, this is mainly supported by
9570-527: The Elder writes that Hera "rejoices" at Athena's birth "as though Athena were her daughter also". The second-century AD Christian apologist Justin Martyr takes issue with those pagans who erect at springs images of Kore , whom he interprets as Athena: "They said that Athena was the daughter of Zeus not from intercourse, but when the god had in mind the making of a world through a word ( logos ) his first thought
9735-552: The Gorgon and, when a fireball fell from the sky, he took the fire and gave it to the people to guard and revere it. Later, during a war, he tried to use Medusa's head again, but because he was old and could not see well, the head did not work. Because he thought that it was useless, he turned it toward himself and he died. Later his son Merros (Μέρρος) burned the head. Perseus and Andromeda had seven sons: Perses , Alcaeus , Heleus , Mestor , Sthenelus , Electryon , and Cynurus , and two daughters, Gorgophone and Autochthe . Perses
9900-574: The Gorgon being beheaded on the Boeotian pithos is depicted as a female centaur , with neither wings nor snakes present, and the Gorgons on the Eleusis Amphora, have wingless, wasp-shaped bodies with cauldron-like heads, by the end of the seventh century BC, humanoid bodies, with wings, and snakes around their head, necks, or waist, such as depicted on the Medusa pediment, become typical. Unlike
10065-471: The Gorgons chasing Perseus also had "horrible snaky hair", so too in Prometheus Bound where all three Gorgons are described as "winged" as well as "snake-haired". The Gorgon's reputation for ugliness was such that the Athenian comic playwright Aristophones could, in 405 BC, ridicule the women of the Athenian deme Teithras by referring to them as Gorgons. The mythographer Apollodorus gives
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#173277327406610230-495: The Gorgons could turn to stone anyone who saw them. Stheno and Euryale were immortal, whereas Medusa was mortal. According to Apollodorus' version of their story, Perseus was ordered by Polydectes (his enemy) to bring back the head of Medusa. So guided by Hermes and Athena , he sought out the sisters of the Gorgons, the Graeae who had only one eye and one tooth which they shared. Perseus managed to steal their eye and tooth, and refused to return them, unless they would show him
10395-467: The Gorgons' location. The Graeae informed Perseus that the Gorgons lived on the Island of Sarpedon. Perseus then gave the Graeae their eye back and proceeded to the island. On the Island of Sarpedon, Perseus came across a cave where Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa lay sleeping. Using Athena's reflective shield, Perseus overcame the looking taboo , walked into the cave backwards, safely observing and approaching
10560-476: The Gorgons, other than to say that the two Gorgons, Sthenno, and Euryale did not grow old. Homer mentions only "the Gorgon" (otherwise unnamed) giving brief descriptions of her, and her head. In the Iliad she is called a "dread monster" and the image of her head, which appears—along with several other terrifying images—on Athena 's aegis , and Agamemnon 's shield, is described as "dread and awful", and "grim of aspect, glaring terribly". Already in
10725-471: The Greek verb πέρθειν ( pérthein , "to waste, ravage, sack, destroy") some form of which is familiar in Homeric epithets. According to Buck , the -eus suffix is typically used to form an agent noun, in this case from the aorist stem, pers- . Pers-eus therefore is a "sacker [of cities]"; that is, a soldier by occupation, a fitting name for the first Mycenaean warrior. The further origin of perth-
10890-518: The Lesser violently tore her away from it and dragged her over to the other captives. Athena was infuriated by this violation of her protection. Although Agamemnon attempted to placate her anger with sacrifices, Athena sent a storm at Cape Kaphereos to destroy almost the entire Greek fleet and scatter all of the surviving ships across the Aegean. In Homer 's epic works , Athena's most common epithet
11055-641: The Medusa pediment from the temple of Artemis in Corfu (Fig. 6) shows affinities with images of Lamashtu. As Walter Burkert has noted, Lamashtu has several characteristic iconographic elements which include an animalistic head atop a humanoid body, often in the Knielauf (kneeling-running) position, with the presence of snakes, a horse or ass, animal offspring, and sometimes in the Mistress of Animals configuration. All of these elements are present, for example, in
11220-472: The Medusa pediment. Images which show Perseus, with head turned away, decapitating Medusa (Figs. 1, 7), resemble Mesopotamian depictions of Gilgamesh slaying the wild man Humbaba . Such depictions can show Gilgamesh with head turned away looking behind him for a goddess to pass him a weapon. In particular, a bronze shield strap from Olympia (mid-sixth century BC), which shows Perseus with his head turned away about to decapitate Medusa, assisted by Athena, bears
11385-415: The Perseus-Medusa story. The earliest representations (mid-seventh century BC) of such Gorgons are a Boeotian relief pithos (Fig. 1), which depicts Perseus, with head turned away, decapitating a Gorgon, and the Eleusis Amphora (Fig. 2), which shows two Gorgons chasing Perseus fleeing with a severed Gorgon head. That the Perseus on the pithos averts his gaze shows that already in these earliest images it
11550-447: The Sanskrit garğ , with its connotations of a growling beast—was also part of their mythology. The Hesiodic Shield of Heracles (c. late seventh–mid-sixth century BC), which describes Heracles' shield, has the Gorgons depicted on it chasing Perseus, with their shrill cry seemingly being heard emanating from the shield itself: The Gorgons, dreadful and unspeakable, were rushing after him, eager to catch him; as they ran on
11715-415: The aegis as an apology. In another version of the story, Pallas was a Giant ; Athena slew him during the Gigantomachy and flayed off his skin to make her cloak, which she wore as a victory trophy. In an alternative variation of the same myth, Pallas was instead Athena's father, who attempted to assault his own daughter, causing Athena to kill him and take his skin as a trophy. The palladium
11880-462: The aegis, or breastplate, that Athena wore when she went to war: fear, strife, defense, and assault. Athena appears in Homer's Odyssey as the tutelary deity of Odysseus, and myths from later sources portray her similarly as the helper of Perseus and Heracles (Hercules). As the guardian of the welfare of kings, Athena became the goddess of good counsel, prudent restraint and practical insight, and war. In
12045-436: The ages. This role is expressed in several stories about Athena. Marinus of Neapolis reports that when Christians removed the statue of the goddess from the Parthenon , a beautiful woman appeared in a dream to Proclus , a devotee of Athena, and announced that the "Athenian Lady" wished to dwell with him. Athena was also credited with creating the pebble-based form of divination. Those pebbles were called thriai , which
12210-492: The ancient Greek philosopher Plato (428–347 BC) gives some rather imaginative etymologies of Athena's name, based on the theories of the ancient Athenians and his etymological speculations: That is a graver matter, and there, my friend, the modern interpreters of Homer may, I think, assist in explaining the view of the ancients. Most of these in their explanations of the poet, assert that he meant by Athena "mind" [ νοῦς , noũs ] and "intelligence" [ διάνοια , diánoia ], and
12375-526: The arts and handicrafts. Athena was known as Atrytone ( Άτρυτώνη "the Unwearying"), Parthenos ( Παρθένος "Virgin"), and Promachos ( Πρόμαχος "she who fights in front"). The epithet Polias (Πολιάς "of the city"), refers to Athena's role as protectress of the city. The epithet Ergane (Εργάνη "the Industrious") pointed her out as the patron of craftsmen and artisans. Burkert notes that
12540-405: The author of it wished to identify this Goddess with moral intelligence [ εν έθει νόεσιν , en éthei nóesin ], and therefore gave her the name Etheonoe; which, however, either he or his successors have altered into what they thought a nicer form, and called her Athena. Thus, Plato believed that Athena's name was derived from Greek Ἀθεονόα , Atheonóa —which the later Greeks rationalised as from
12705-456: The blade to behead Medusa, Athena guided it, allowing the blade to cut the Gorgon's head clean off. According to Pindar's Thirteenth Olympian Ode , Athena helped the hero Bellerophon tame the winged horse Pegasus by giving him a bit . In ancient Greek art , Athena is frequently shown aiding the hero Heracles . She appears in four of the twelve metopes on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia depicting Heracles's Twelve Labors , including
12870-644: The bottoms of bowls and cups. As with full-bodied Gorgons the earliest representations are found from the mid-sixth century BC. The earliest example of a "beautiful" gorgoneion is the Medusa Rondanini (Fig. 19), which is thought to be a Roman copy of a Greek original dated to either the fifth-century BC or the Hellenistic period. Athena's victory over the Giant Enceladus —with a gorgoneion on her shield—was apparently depicted on
13035-636: The builder of the Argo , the ship on which the hero Jason and his band of Argonauts sailed, and aided in the ship's construction. Pseudo-Apollodorus also records that Athena guided the hero Perseus in his quest to behead Medusa . She and Hermes , the god of travelers, appeared to Perseus after he set off on his quest and gifted him with tools he would need to kill the Gorgon. Athena lent Perseus her polished bronze shield to view Medusa's reflection without becoming petrified himself. Hermes lent Perseus his harpe to behead Medusa with. When Perseus swung
13200-441: The chest, but did not explain to them why or what was in it. Aglauros, and possibly one of the other sisters, opened the chest. Differing reports say that they either found that the child itself was a serpent, that it was guarded by a serpent, that it was guarded by two serpents, or that it had the legs of a serpent. In Pausanias's story, the two sisters were driven mad by the sight of the chest's contents and hurled themselves off
13365-576: The cities where they were worshipped. For example, in Mycenae there was a goddess called Mykene, whose sisterhood was known as Mykenai , whereas at Thebes an analogous deity was called Thebe, and the city was known under the plural form Thebai (or Thebes, in English, where the 's' is the plural formation). The name Athenai is likely of Pre-Greek origin because it contains the presumably Pre-Greek morpheme *-ān- . In his dialogue Cratylus ,
13530-484: The closest meaning for the stem might be the onomatopoeic grrr of a growling beast. According to Hesiod and Apollodorus , the Gorgons were daughters of the primordial sea-god Phorcys and the sea-monster Ceto , and the sisters of three other daughters of Phorcys and Ceto, the Graeae . However, according to Hyginus , they were daughters of "the Gorgon", an offspring of Typhon and Echidna , and Ceto, while Euripides , in his tragedy Ion , has "the Gorgon" being
13695-424: The darkness, has been expressed by the poet Simonides of Ceos . Mother and child washed ashore on the island of Seriphos , where they were taken in by the fisherman Dictys ("fishing net"), who raised the boy to manhood. The brother of Dictys was Polydectes ("he who receives/welcomes many"), the king of the island. When Perseus was grown, Polydectes came to lust for the beautiful Danaë. Perseus believed Polydectes
13860-517: The deity's ( θεός , theós ) mind ( νοῦς , noũs ). The second-century AD orator Aelius Aristides attempted to derive natural symbols from the etymological roots of Athena's names to be aether , air , earth , and moon . Athena was originally the Aegean goddess of the palace, who presided over household crafts and protected the king. A single Mycenaean Greek inscription 𐀀𐀲𐀙𐀡𐀴𐀛𐀊 a-ta-na po-ti-ni-ja appears at Knossos in
14025-576: The depiction (ἀπεικόνισμα) of the Gorgon. Then he fought the Isaurians and the Cilicians and founded the city of Tarsus because an oracle told him to found a city in the place where after the victory, the flat (ταρσός) of his foot will touch the earth while he is dismounting from his horse. Then he conquered the Medes and changed the name of the country to Persia. At Persia, he taught the magi about
14190-621: The depictions of gods and heroes, which are usually shown in profile, Archaic Gorgons, even when their bodies are presented in profile (usually running), their heads are (as noted above) always turned frontally displaying their full face, directly gazing at the viewer. Of the depictions of ancient Greek demons, the gorgoneion is, by far, the most frequently occurring. Thought to have had an apotropaic (protective) function, gorgoneia are often found on architectural elements such as temple pediments, and ornamental antefixes and acroteria , or decorating various round objects, such as shields, coins, and
14355-601: The development of gorgoneia, or gorgoneia might have come first, in which case the Perseus story might have served an etiological function, as an origin myth , developed as a way to explain where gorgoneia had come from. It is also possible that the Perseus story and gorgoneia developed independently, but later converged. Since the earliest literary and iconographic evidence of both the Perseus story and gorgoneia are roughly contemporaneous, such evidence seems unable to definitively distinguish between any of these three scenarios. It
14520-468: The edge of night where the Hesperides (and the Graeae?) live. The Cypria apparently had the Gorgons living in Oceanus on a rocky island named Sarpedon. Aeschylus 's Prometheus Bound places them in the far east "across the surging sea" on the "Gorgonean plains of Cisthene", where the Graeae live, while his lost play Phorkides (another name for the Graeae) apparently placed them at "Lake Tritonis",
14685-496: The episode of Perseus and Andromeda the subject of tragedies, and its incidents were represented in many ancient works of art. As Perseus was flying in his return above the sands of Libya , according to Apollonius of Rhodes , the falling drops of Medusa's blood created a race of toxic serpents, one of whom was to kill the Argonaut Mopsus . Upon returning to Seriphos and discovering that his mother had to take refuge from
14850-593: The eve of the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, the serpent did not eat the honey cake and the Athenians interpreted it as a sign that Athena herself had abandoned them. Another version of the myth of the Athenian maidens is told in Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – 17 AD); in this late variant Hermes falls in love with Herse. Herse, Aglaulus, and Pandrosus go to
15015-482: The fact that cult statue held there may have been made of bronze, that the walls of the temple itself may have been made of bronze, or that Athena was the patron of metal-workers. Bells made of terracotta and bronze were used in Sparta as part of Athena's cult. An Ionic-style temple to Athena Polias was built at Priene in the fourth century BC. It was designed by Pytheos of Priene , the same architect who designed
15180-552: The fact that in the Homeric Hymns, 5, To Aphrodite , where Aphrodite is described as having "no power" over the three goddesses. Athena was sometimes given the epithet Hippia (Ἵππια "of the horses", "equestrian"), referring to her invention of the bit , bridle , chariot , and wagon . The Greek geographer Pausanias mentions in his Guide to Greece that the temple of Athena Chalinitis ("the bridler") in Corinth
15345-510: The fact that she represented the intellectual and civilized side of war and the virtues of justice and skill, whereas Ares represented mere blood lust. Her superiority also derived in part from the vastly greater variety and importance of her functions and the patriotism of Homer's predecessors, Ares being of foreign origin. In the Iliad, Athena was the divine form of the heroic, martial ideal: she personified excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. The qualities that led to victory were found on
15510-501: The favorite child of Zeus, she had great power. In the classical Olympian pantheon, Athena was regarded as the favorite child of Zeus, born fully armed from his forehead. The story of her birth comes in several versions. The earliest mention is in Book V of the Iliad , when Ares accuses Zeus of being biased in favor of Athena because " autos egeinao " (literally "you fathered her", but probably intended as "you gave birth to her"). She
15675-400: The first part of the poem, however, she largely is confined to aiding him only from afar , mainly by implanting thoughts in his head during his journey home from Troy. Her guiding actions reinforce her role as the "protectress of heroes", or, as mythologian Walter Friedrich Otto dubbed her, the "goddess of nearness", due to her mentoring and motherly probing. It is not until he washes up on
15840-534: The first, in which she passively watches him slay the Nemean lion , and the tenth, in which she is shown actively helping him hold up the sky. She is presented as his "stern ally", but also the "gentle ... acknowledger of his achievements". Artistic depictions of Heracles's apotheosis show Athena driving him to Mount Olympus in her chariot and presenting him to Zeus for his deification. In Aeschylus 's tragedy Orestes , Athena intervenes to save Orestes from
16005-546: The fortified acropolis in the central part of the city. The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is dedicated to her, along with numerous other temples and monuments. As the patron of craft and weaving, Athena was known as Ergane . She was also a warrior goddess , and was believed to lead soldiers into battle as Athena Promachos . Her main festival in Athens was the Panathenaia , which was celebrated during
16170-411: The fourth century BC. One of the earliest such "beautiful" Gorgons (mid-fifth century BC) is a red-figure pelike (Fig. 11), which shows Perseus, with head turned away, about to behead a sleeping Medusa. While gorgoneia continue to be ubiquitous through the end of antiquity, after the fourth century BC full-bodied Gorgons ceased to be represented. Full-bodied Gorgons are usually shown in connection with
16335-503: The gift; he would not refuse it. Polydectes held Perseus to his rash promise and demanded the snake-haired Medusa 's head. Medusa and her two immortal older sisters, Stheno and Euryale , were Gorgons , monsters with snakes for hair, sharp fangs and claws , wings of gold , and gazes that turned people to stone . Before setting out on his quest, Perseus prayed to the gods and Zeus answered by sending two of his other children – Hermes and Athena – to bless their half-brother with
16500-554: The god of the sun, stopped his chariot in the sky. Pindar, in his "Seventh Olympian Ode", states that she "cried aloud with a mighty shout" and that "the Sky and mother Earth shuddered before her". Hesiod states that Hera was so annoyed at Zeus for having given birth to a child on his own that she conceived and bore Hephaestus by herself , but in Imagines 2. 27 (trans. Fairbanks), the third-century AD Greek rhetorician Philostratus
16665-520: The head (i. e. the uppermost part) of Zeus, understanding Trito- (which perhaps originally meant "the third") as another word for "the sky". In Janda's analysis of Indo-European mythology, this heavenly sphere is also associated with the mythological body of water surrounding the inhabited world ( cfr. Triton's mother, Amphitrite ). Yet another possible meaning is mentioned in Diogenes Laertius ' biography of Democritus , that Athena
16830-449: The king sacrificed his daughter, Andromeda, to the monster, and so she was fastened naked to a rock on the shore. Wearing the winged sandals given to him by Hermes, Perseus reached Andromeda and used the harpe to behead the monster (in other versions, Perseus used Medusa's head to petrify Cetus). By rescuing Andromeda, Perseus claimed her in marriage. Perseus married Andromeda in spite of Phineus , to whom she had been previously engaged. At
16995-403: The late fifth century BC, the role of goddess of philosophy became a major aspect of Athena's cult . As Athena Promachos , she was believed to lead soldiers into battle. Athena represented the disciplined, strategic side of war, in contrast to her brother Ares , the patron of violence, bloodlust, and slaughter—"the raw force of war". Athena was believed to only support those fighting for
17160-463: The later writings of the Roman poet Ovid , Athena was said to have competed against the mortal Arachne in a weaving competition, afterward transforming Arachne into the first spider; Ovid also describes how Athena transformed her priestess Medusa and the latter's sisters, Stheno and Euryale , into the Gorgons after witnessing the young woman being raped by Poseidon in the goddess's temple. Since
17325-628: The maidens ... she created the many-voiced song of flutes so that she could imitate with musical instruments the shrill cry that reached her ears from the fast-moving jaws of Euryale. Nonnus , in his Dionysiaca , also has the fleeing Perseus "listening for no trumpet but Euryale's bellowing". The desire to evoke this Gorgon cry may account for the typical distended mouth seen in Archaic Gorgon iconography. The earliest literary accounts of Gorgons occur in works by Hesiod and Homer (c. 700–650 BC). Hesiod provides no physical description of
17490-434: The maker of names appears to have had a singular notion about her; and indeed calls her by a still higher title, "divine intelligence" [ θεοῦ νόησις , theoũ nóēsis ], as though he would say: This is she who has the mind of God [ ἁ θεονόα , a theonóa ]. Perhaps, however, the name Theonoe may mean "she who knows divine things" [ τὰ θεῖα νοοῦσα , ta theia noousa ] better than others. Nor shall we be far wrong in supposing that
17655-418: The man role, that his father once held. She also plays a role in ending the resultant feud against the suitors' relatives. She instructs Laertes to throw his spear and to kill Eupeithes , the father of Antinous . The Gorgoneion appears to have originated as an apotropaic symbol intended to ward off evil. In a late myth invented to explain the origins of the Gorgon, Medusa is described as having been
17820-507: The mere thought that he might encounter there the "head of the Gorgon, that awful monster", leaves "straightway". The Hesiodic Shield describes the Gorgons chasing Perseus as being "dreadful and unspeakable" with two snakes wrapped around their waists, and that "upon the terrible heads of the Gorgons rioted great Fear", perhaps a reference to snakes writhing about their heads. Pindar makes snakes for hair explicit, saying that Perseus' Gorgon head "shimmered with hair made of serpents", and that
17985-465: The middle". He also mentions Athena's "Gorgon-faced shield" in his tragedy Electra . In vase-painting, Athena is often shown wearing her aegis, fringed with snake-heads. In some accounts, the blood of "the Gorgon" (any Gorgon?) was said to have both the power to heal and harm. According to Euripides' Ion , Athena gave two drops of blood from the Gorgon she slew for her aegis to Erichthonius , one of which "wards off diseases and nourishes life", while
18150-488: The monster is begotten to account for it; then the hero is supplied to account for the slaying of the monster. That gorgoneia were used as apotropaic shield devices, at least, seems evident from Agamemnon's gorgoneion-shield, which Homer describes in the Iliad as displaying "the Gorgon, grim of aspect, glaring terribly, and about her were Terror and Rout". Supporting the view that gorgoneia originated as masks, are two groups of seventh-century BC terracotta gorgonion-like masks:
18315-443: The month of Hekatombaion in midsummer and was the most important festival on the Athenian calendar. In Greek mythology , Athena was believed to have been born from the forehead of her father Zeus . In some versions of the story, Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus' forehead by parthenogenesis . In others, such as Hesiod 's Theogony , Zeus swallows his consort Metis , who was pregnant with Athena; in this version, Athena
18480-752: The more familiar culture hero Perseus was not simply an error of painters and poets of the Renaissance . The transition was a development of Classical times which became the standard image during the Middle Ages and has been adopted by the European poets of the Renaissance and later: Giovanni Boccaccio 's Genealogia deorum gentilium libri (10.27) identifies Pegasus as the steed of Perseus, and Pierre Corneille places Perseus upon Pegasus in Andromède . Various modern representations of Pegasus depict
18645-403: The most detailed description: ... the Gorgons had heads twined about with the scales of dragons, and great tusks like swine's, and brazen hands, and golden wings, by which they flew". While such descriptions emphasize the hideous physical features of the Gorgon, by the fifth century BC, Pindar can also describe his snake-haired Medusa as "beautiful". And the Roman poet Ovid tells us that Medusa
18810-468: The most distinctive feature of archaic representations of Gorgons is that the head is always facing frontally (en face) with its large fierce eyes glaring directly at the viewer. Consistent with the change in literary descriptions seen in the works of Pindar and Ovid mentioned above, beginning in the fifth century BC, representations of Gorgons and gorgoneia transition from hideous monsters to beautiful young women, with such representations becoming typical in
18975-422: The much earlier terracotta plaques depicting Humbaba . Medusa and the other Gorgon sisters, Stheno and Euryale , have been featured in art and culture spanning from the days of ancient Greece to present day. Medusa is the most well-known of the three mythological monsters, having been variously portrayed as a monster, a protective symbol, a rallying symbol for liberty, and a sympathetic victim of rape and/or
19140-433: The myth, Pallas was the daughter of the sea-god Triton , and she and Athena were childhood friends. Zeus one day watched Athena and Pallas have a friendly sparring match. Not wanting his daughter to lose, Zeus flapped his aegis to distract Pallas, whom Athena accidentally impaled. Distraught over what she had done, Athena took the name Pallas for herself as a sign of her grief and tribute to her friend and Zeus gave her
19305-550: The native name of the Persians – Pārsa in Persian – has always been pronounced with an -a- . Herodotus recounts this story, devising a foreign son of Andromeda and Perseus, Perses , from whom the Persians took the name. Apparently the Persians also knew that story, as Xerxes tried to use it to suborn the Argives during his invasion of Greece, but ultimately failed to do so. King Acrisius of Argos had only one child,
19470-585: The offspring of Gaia , spawned by Gaia to be an ally for her children the Giants in their war against the Olympian gods. Medusa had two offspring by Poseidon , the winged-horse Pegasus and the warrior Chrysaor . Where the Gorgons were supposed to live varies in the ancient sources. According to Hesiod, the Gorgons lived far to the west beyond Oceanus (the Titan, and world-circling river) near its springs, at
19635-467: The oracle he went into voluntary exile in Pelasgiotis ( Thessaly ). There Teutamides, king of Larissa , was holding funeral games for his father. Competing in the discus throw, Perseus's throw veered-and struck Acrisius, killing him instantly. In a third tradition, Acrisius had been driven into exile by his brother Proetus . Perseus petrified the brother with Medusa's head and restored Acrisius to
19800-506: The other "kills, as it is poison from the Gorgon serpents". While according to Apollodorus, Athena gave Asclepius some of the blood the Gorgon, "and while he used the blood that flowed from the veins on the left side for the bane of mankind, he used the blood that flowed from the right side for salvation, and by that means he raised the dead." The loud cry that came from the Gorgons—;perhaps related to 'Gorgon' being derived from
19965-409: The pallid adamant, the shield resounded sharply and piercingly with a loud noise. Pindar tells us that the cry of the Gorgons, lamenting the death of Medusa during their pursuit of Perseus, was the reason Athena invented the flute. According to Pindar, the goddess: wove into music the dire dirge of the reckless Gorgons which Perseus heard pouring in slow anguish from beneath the horrible snakey hair of
20130-452: The passage of young women into marriage. These cults were portals of a uniform socialization, even beyond mainland Greece. Athena was frequently equated with Aphaea , a local goddess of the island of Aegina , originally from Crete and also associated with Artemis and the nymph Britomartis . In Arcadia , she was assimilated with the ancient goddess Alea and worshiped as Athena Alea . Sanctuaries dedicated to Athena Alea were located in
20295-419: The pebbles useless. Apollo's words became the basis of an ancient Greek idiom. Athena was not only the patron goddess of Athens, but also other cities, including Pergamon , Argos , Sparta , Gortyn , Lindos , and Larisa . The various cults of Athena were all branches of her panhellenic cult and often proctored various initiation rites of Grecian youth, such as the passage into citizenship by young men or
20460-628: The priestess, knew what the objects were. The serpent in the story may be the same one depicted coiled at Athena's feet in Pheidias's famous statue of the Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon. Many of the surviving sculptures of Athena show this serpent. Herodotus records that a serpent lived in a crevice on the north side of the summit of the Athenian Acropolis and that the Athenians left a honey cake for it each month as an offering. On
20625-523: The same time period, the mid-seventh century BC. Archaic Gorgons typically have snaky hair either with snake-like curls (Figs. 8, 9), or actual snakes protruding from their heads (Figs. 2, 5, 6, 10). The faces of Archaic Gorgons are particularly distinctive, typically with large menacing eyes, tripartite scroll-like ( volute ) noses, wide mouths with rictus-like grins or grimaces, lolling tongues, fangs and/or tusks (Figs. 4, 5, 6), and sometimes beards (Figs. 3, 4, 13, 15). Aside from its particular monstrousness,
20790-428: The second century AD, makes Metis Zeus's unwilling sexual partner, rather than his wife. According to this version of the story, Metis transformed into many different shapes in effort to escape Zeus, but Zeus successfully raped her and swallowed her. After swallowing Metis, Zeus took six more wives in succession until he married his seventh and present wife, Hera . Then Zeus experienced an enormous headache. He
20955-554: The shore of the island of the Phaeacians , where Nausicaa is washing her clothes that Athena arrives personally to provide more tangible assistance. She appears in Nausicaa's dreams to ensure that the princess rescues Odysseus and plays a role in his eventual escort to Ithaca. Athena appears to Odysseus upon his arrival, disguised as a herdsman; she initially lies and tells him that Penelope, his wife, has remarried and that he
21120-514: The sleeping Gorgons. With Athena guiding the sword, Perseus beheaded Medusa. From Medusa's neck sprang her two children with Poseidon : the winged horse Pegasus ("he who sprang") and the giant Chrysaor ("sword of gold"). To avenge their sister's death, Stheno and Euryale flew after Perseus, but he escaped them by wearing Hades's invisibility helm. From here he proceeded to visit King Atlas who had refused him hospitality; in revenge Perseus petrified him with Medusa's head and King Atlas became
21285-483: The still undeciphered corpus of Linear A tablets, written in the unclassified Minoan language . This could be connected with the Linear B Mycenaean expressions a-ta-na po-ti-ni-ja and di-u-ja or di-wi-ja ( Diwia , "of Zeus" or, possibly, related to a homonymous goddess ), resulting in a translation "Athena of Zeus" or "divine Athena". Similarly, in the Greek mythology and epic tradition, Athena figures as
21450-463: The swap that Perseus was ashamed to have become king of Argos by inflicting death. In any case, early Greek literature reiterates that manslaughter, even involuntary, requires the exile of the slaughterer, expiation and ritual purification. The exchange might well have proved a creative solution to a difficult problem. The two main sources regarding the legendary life of Perseus—for the Greeks considered him an authentic historical figure—are Pausanias and
21615-413: The temple of Athena Polias, would be given hidden objects by the priestess of Athena , which they would carry on their heads down a natural underground passage. They would leave the objects they had been given at the bottom of the passage and take another set of hidden objects, which they would carry on their heads back up to the temple. The ritual was performed in the dead of night and no one, not even
21780-490: The temple to offer sacrifices to Athena. Hermes demands help from Aglaulus to seduce Herse. Aglaulus demands money in exchange. Hermes gives her the money the sisters have already offered to Athena. As punishment for Aglaulus's greed, Athena asks the goddess Envy to make Aglaulus jealous of Herse. When Hermes arrives to seduce Herse, Aglaulus stands in his way instead of helping him as she had agreed. He turns her to stone. Athena gave her favour to an Attic girl named Myrsine ,
21945-429: The third and second millennia". The "Black Athena" hypothesis stirred up widespread controversy near the end of the twentieth century, but it has now been widely rejected by modern scholars. Athena was also the goddess of peace. In a similar manner to her patronage of various activities and Greek cities, Athena was thought to be a "protector of heroes" and a "patron of art" and various local traditions related to
22110-479: The throne. Then, accused by Acrisius of lying about having slain Medusa, Perseus proves himself by showing Acrisius the Gorgon's head, thus fulfilling the prophecy. Having killed Acrisius, Perseus, who was next in line for the throne, gave the kingdom to Megapenthes ("great mourning"), son of Proetus , and took over Megapenthes's kingdom of Tiryns . The story is related in Pausanias, who gives as motivation for
22275-572: The violent advances of Polydectes, Perseus killed him with Medusa's head, and made Dictys the new king of Seriphos. Perseus then returned his magical loans and gave Medusa's head as a votive gift to Athena, who set it on her aegis (which Zeus gave her) as the Gorgoneion . The fulfillment of the oracle was told several ways, each incorporating the mythic theme of exile. In Pausanias he did not return to Argos, but went instead to Larissa , where athletic games were being held. He had just invented
22440-751: The warrior-goddess with her palladium , or her palladium in an aniconic representation. In the " Procession Fresco " at Knossos , which was reconstructed by the Mycenaeans, two rows of figures carrying vessels seem to meet in front of a central figure, which is probably the Minoan precursor to Athena. The early twentieth-century scholar Martin Persson Nilsson argued that the Minoan snake goddess figurines are early representations of Athena. Nilsson and others have claimed that, in early times, Athena
22605-504: The way to the nymphs, which they did. Perseus got from the nymphs, winged sandals, which allowed him to fly, and the cap of Hades , which made him invisible. He also received an adamantine sickle ( harpē ) from Hermes. Perseus then flew to Oceanus, found the Gorgons asleep. And when Perseus managed to behead Medusa by looking at her reflection in his bronze shield, Pegasus and Chrysaor sprang from Medusa's neck, and Stheno and Euryale chased after him, but were unable to see him because he
22770-495: The weapons needed to defeat Medusa. Hermes gave Perseus his own pair of winged sandals to fly with and lent him his harpe sword to slay Medusa with, and Hades 's helm of darkness to become invisible with. Athena lent Perseus her polished shield for him to view Medusa's reflection without becoming petrified, and gave him a kibisis , a knapsack to safely contain the Gorgon's head which the goddess warned could still petrify even in death. Lastly, Athena instructed Perseus to seek out
22935-610: The wedding, a quarrel took place between the rivals, and Phineus was petrified by the sight of Medusa's head. Andromeda ("queen of men") followed her husband to Tiryns in Argos , and became the ancestress of the family of the Perseidae who ruled at Tiryns through her son with Perseus, Perses . After her death she was placed by Athena among the constellations in the northern sky, near Perseus and Cassiopeia. Sophocles and Euripides (and in more modern times Pierre Corneille ) made
23100-509: The winged horse with Perseus, including the fantasy film Clash of the Titans and its 2010 remake . Male Female Deity Perseus has a constellation named after him . The legend says that because he was so brave fighting Cetus for someone else he was given a place in the stars forever. It is located in the east in the winter at about the Latitude 10-N. It
23265-420: The wrath of the Erinyes and presides over his trial for the murder of his mother Clytemnestra . When half the jury votes to acquit and the other half votes to convict , Athena casts the deciding vote to acquit Orestes and declares that, from then on, whenever a jury is tied, the defendant shall always be acquitted. In The Odyssey , Odysseus ' cunning and shrewd nature quickly wins Athena's favour. For
23430-640: Was Athena." According to a version of the story in a scholium on the Iliad (found nowhere else), when Zeus swallowed Metis , she was pregnant with Athena by the Cyclops Brontes. The Etymologicum Magnum instead deems Athena the daughter of the Daktyl Itonos . Fragments attributed by the Christian Eusebius of Caesarea to the semi-legendary Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon , which Eusebius thought had been written before
23595-492: Was a significant sea power, defeating the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis —but the water was salty and undrinkable. In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil 's Georgics , Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse. Athena offered the first domesticated olive tree . Cecrops accepted this gift and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens. The olive tree brought wood, oil, and food, and became
23760-499: Was a statue of Athena that was said to have stood in her temple on the Trojan Acropolis. Athena was said to have carved the statue herself in the likeness of her dead friend Pallas. The statue had special talisman-like properties and it was thought that, as long as it was in the city, Troy could never fall. When the Greeks captured Troy, Cassandra , the daughter of Priam , clung to the palladium for protection, but Ajax
23925-424: Was about to consummate the union, Athena vanished from the bridal bed, causing him to ejaculate on the floor, thus impregnating Gaia with Erichthonius. The geographer Pausanias records that Athena placed the infant Erichthonius into a small chest ( cista ), which she entrusted to the care of the three daughters of Cecrops : Herse , Pandrosos , and Aglauros of Athens. She warned the three sisters not to open
24090-750: Was also associated with weaving; her worship began during the Egyptian Pre-Dynastic period. In Greek mythology, Athena was reported to have visited mythological sites in North Africa, including Libya's Triton River and the Phlegraean plain . Based on these similarities, the Sinologist Martin Bernal created the " Black Athena " hypothesis, which claimed that Neith was brought to Greece from Egypt, along with "an enormous number of features of civilization and culture in
24255-406: Was also the collective name of a group of nymphs with prophetic powers. Her half-brother Apollo, however, angered and spiteful at the practitioners of an art rival to his own, complained to their father Zeus about it, with the pretext that many people took to casting pebbles, but few actually were true prophets. Zeus, sympathizing with Apollo's grievances, discredited the pebble divination by rendering
24420-675: Was associated with the owl from very early on; in archaic images, she is frequently depicted with an owl perched on her hand. Through its association with Athena, the owl evolved into the national mascot of the Athenians and eventually became a symbol of wisdom. In the Iliad (4.514), the Odyssey (3.378), the Homeric Hymns , and in Hesiod 's Theogony , Athena is also given the curious epithet Tritogeneia (Τριτογένεια), whose significance remains unclear. It could mean various things, including "Triton-born", perhaps indicating that
24585-468: Was born. However, Euripides , in his tragedy Ion , has a character say that Athena's aegis was made from the skin of the Gorgon, the offspring of Gaia , who Gaia had brought forth as an ally for her children the Giants and who Athena had killed during the Gigantomachy . In the same play, Euripides has Creusa describe a weaving she made "like an aegis, bordered with serpents" with a "Gorgon in
24750-555: Was called "Tritogeneia" because three things, on which all mortal life depends, come from her. In her aspect of Athena Polias , Athena was venerated as the goddess of the city and the protectress of the citadel. In Athens, the Plynteria , or "Feast of the Bath", was observed every year at the end of the month of Thargelion . The festival lasted for five days. During this period, the priestesses of Athena, or plyntrídes , performed
24915-423: Was cataloged in the 2nd century by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy and is known for the famous Perseid Meteor Shower. There is in fact a whole family of constellations based on the myth of Perseus, which includes Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, and Cetus. There is also a molecular cloud in the constellation that is 600 light years from our solar system. There is also a cluster of galaxies called the Perseus cluster. There
25080-459: Was descended from Perseus). Because of the obscurity of the name "Perseus" and the legendary character of its bearer, most etymologists presume that it might be pre-Greek; however, the name of Perseus's native city was Greek and so were the names of his wife and relatives. There is some idea that it descended into Greek from the Proto-Indo-European language . In that regard Graves proposed the only Greek derivation available: Perseus might be from
25245-502: Was either an owl herself or a bird goddess in general. In the third book of the Odyssey , she takes the form of a sea-eagle . Proponents of this view argue that she dropped her prophylactic owl mask before she lost her wings. "Athena, by the time she appears in art," Jane Ellen Harrison remarks, "has completely shed her animal form, has reduced the shapes she once wore of snake and bird to attributes, but occasionally in black-figure vase-paintings she still appears with wings." It
25410-414: Was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. In the version recounted by Hesiod in his Theogony , Zeus married the goddess Metis , who is described as the "wisest among gods and mortal men", and engaged in sexual intercourse with her. After learning that Metis
25575-464: Was in his ritual a horrid thing called a Gorgoneion, a grinning mask with glaring eyes and protruding beast-like tusks and pendent tongue. How did this Gorgoneion come to be? A hero had slain a beast called the Gorgon, and this was its head. Though many other associations gathered round it, the basis of the Gorgoneion is a cultus object, a ritual mask misunderstood. The ritual object comes first; then
25740-412: Was in such pain that he ordered someone (either Prometheus , Hephaestus , Hermes , Ares , or Palaemon, depending on the sources examined) to cleave his head open with the labrys , the double-headed Minoan axe . Athena leaped from Zeus's head, fully grown and armed. The "First Homeric Hymn to Athena" states in lines 9–16 that the gods were awestruck by Athena's appearance and even Helios ,
25905-624: Was left in Aethiopia and was believed to have been an ancestor of the Persians . The other descendants ruled Mycenae from Electryon to Eurystheus , after whom Atreus got the kingdom. However, the Perseids included the great hero, Heracles , stepson of Amphitryon , son of Alcaeus . The Heraclides, or descendants of Heracles, successfully contested the rule of the Atreids. A statement by
26070-409: Was less than honorable, and protected his mother from him; then Polydectes plotted to send Perseus away in disgrace. He held a large banquet where each guest was expected to bring a gift. Polydectes requested that the guests bring horses, under the pretense that he was collecting contributions for the hand of Hippodamia , daughter of Oinomaos. Perseus had no horse to give, so he asked Polydectes to name
26235-528: Was located near the tomb of Medea 's children. Other epithets include Ageleia , Itonia and Aethyia , under which she was worshiped in Megara . She was worshipped as Assesia in Assesos . The word aíthyia ( αἴθυια ) signifies a "diver", also some diving bird species (possibly the shearwater ) and figuratively, a "ship", so the name must reference Athena teaching the art of shipbuilding or navigation. In
26400-598: Was originally a beautiful maiden, but because of a sexual encounter with Neptune (the Roman equivalent of the Greek Poseidon ) in Minerva 's temple (Minerva being the Roman equivalent of the Greek Athena ), Minerva punished Medusa by transforming her beautiful hair into horrible snakes. Gorgons were a popular subject in ancient Greek, Etruscan and Roman art, with over six hundred representations cataloged in
26565-419: Was pregnant, however, he became afraid that the unborn offspring would try to overthrow him, because Gaia and Ouranos had prophesied that Metis would bear children wiser than their father. In order to prevent this, Zeus tricked Metis into letting him swallow her, but it was too late because Metis had already conceived. A later account of the story from the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, written in
26730-626: Was supposedly the origin of calling Athena's sacred olive tree moria , for Halirrhotius's attempt at revenge proved fatal ( moros in Greek). Poseidon in fury accused Ares of murder, and the matter was eventually settled on the Areopagus ("hill of Ares") in favour of Ares, which was thereafter named after the event. Pseudo-Apollodorus records an archaic legend, which claims that Hephaestus once attempted to rape Athena, but she pushed him away, causing him to ejaculate on her thigh. Athena wiped
26895-533: Was the patron goddess of heroic endeavor; she was believed to have aided the heroes Perseus , Heracles , Bellerophon , and Jason . Along with Aphrodite and Hera , Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War . She plays an active role in the Iliad , in which she assists the Achaeans and, in the Odyssey , she is the divine counselor to Odysseus . In
27060-472: Was understood that looking directly at the Gorgon's face was deadly. Of particular interest is the famous Medusa pediment (early sixth century BC) from the temple of Artemis in Corfu (Fig. 6), which shows a winged-Medusa in the characteristic Knielauf (kneeling-running) position, with two snakes wrapped around her waist, like the Gorgons described in the Hesiodic Shield of Heracles . Although
27225-426: Was wearing Hades' cap of invisibility. When Perseus brought back the Gorgon head, as ordered, with averted eyes he showed the head to Polydectes who was turned to stone. Perseus returned the things he had acquired from the nymphs and Hermes, but gave the Gorgon head to Athena. According to Apollodorus, after Perseus gave the Gorgon head to Athena, she "inserted the Gorgon's head in the middle of her shield", apparently
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