Gorgons

This article is about the Greek mythological monsters. For other uses, see Gorgon (disambiguation). The word "Gorgoneion" also leads here, though it should not be confused with Gorgoneion (astronomy).

The Gorgons are three monstrous sisters in Greek mythology: Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa. They were said to be the daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. They lived near their sisters, the Graeae. Anyone who looked at them could be turned to stone. Euryale and Stheno were immortal, but Medusa was not. The hero Perseus defeated her.

Gorgons were frightening monsters with scary eyes. A Gorgon head was shown on the aegis of Athena. This gave the aegis the power to protect her from any weapon and to fill enemies with great fear. Gorgon blood was said to have the power both to heal and to harm.

Pictures of full-bodied Gorgons and of the Gorgon face, called a gorgoneion (plural gorgoneia), were popular in the art of Ancient Greece, Etruria, and Rome. Early Gorgons were shown as very ugly. Over time, they came to be pictured as beautiful young women.

Etymology

The name "Gorgon" (also "Gorgō" and "Gorgonē") comes from the Ancient Greek word gorgós. When used about an eye or a look, it means "grim, fierce, awesome, dazzling." The word may be related to the Sanskrit stem garğ.

This stem is connected with noise. Many words in Germanic and Romance languages come from it, including words for the throat, like "gorge," and throat sounds, like "gargle" and "gurgle." The stem has been understood to mean growl, roar, or howl. Thalia Feldman suggests that its closest meaning might be the onomatopoeic grrr of a growling beast. An onomatopoeic word is one that copies a sound.

Family

According to Hesiod and Apollodorus, the Gorgons were daughters of the early sea-god Phorcys and the sea-monster Ceto. They were sisters of three other daughters of Phorcys and Ceto, the Graeae. However, according to Hyginus, they were daughters of "the Gorgon," a child of Typhon and Echidna, and of Ceto. Euripides, in his play Ion, says "the Gorgon" was a child of Gaia. Gaia helped her children, the Giants, in their fight against the Olympian gods.

Medusa had two children with Poseidon: the winged horse Pegasus and the warrior Chrysaor.

Mythology

Further information: Perseus and Medusa

Ancient writers did not agree on where the Gorgons lived. Hesiod said they lived far to the west, beyond Oceanus, near the Hesperides. The Cypria placed them on a rocky island called Sarpedon in Oceanus. Aeschylus, in Prometheus Bound, placed them far to the east. Pindar told how Perseus visited the Hyperboreans while searching for the Gorgon head. People believed that anyone who looked at a Gorgon could be turned to stone. Pherecydes said Medusa's face turned men to stone, and Pindar called her head "stony death."

Stheno and Euryale could not die, but Medusa could. Polydectes ordered Perseus to bring back Medusa's head. Hermes and Athena helped him. Perseus found the Graeae, who shared one eye and one tooth. He took them until they showed him the way to the nymphs. The nymphs gave him winged sandals and the cap of Hades, which made him invisible. Hermes gave him an adamantine sickle (harpē). Perseus looked at Medusa's reflection in his bronze shield and cut off her head. Pegasus and Chrysaor sprang from her neck. Her sisters chased him, but they could not see him. Perseus showed the head to Polydectes, who turned to stone. Then he gave it to Athena, who placed it in the middle of her aegis. In the Iliad, the aegis could not be pierced by Apollo's spear or even Zeus' thunderbolt. Hephaestus made it for Zeus, while Metis made it for Athena. In Euripides's play Ion, a character says the aegis was made from the skin of a Gorgon. She was a child of Gaia, and she had fought for her children, the Giants, in the Gigantomachy. Some accounts say Gorgon blood could both heal and harm. Athena gave Erichthonius two drops of it, one that protects against sickness and one that could cause harm. Asclepius used blood from the Gorgon's left side to harm people and blood from her right side to save them, even bringing the dead back to life.

The loud cry of the Gorgons is also part of their story. In the Shield of Heracles, the Gorgons chase Perseus with a sharp cry that seems to come from the shield itself. Pindar said Athena invented the flute to copy the Gorgons' cry, which came from their sadness over Medusa's death. Nonnus, in his Dionysiaca, describes Perseus listening for Euryale's loud cries as he fled.

Literary descriptions

The earliest stories about Gorgons come from Hesiod and Homer, who wrote around 700–650 BC. Hesiod does not describe what the Gorgons look like. He only says that the two Gorgons, Sthenno and Euryale, did not grow old. Homer mentions only "the Gorgon," who has no name, and briefly describes her head. In the Iliad, she is called a "dread monster." Her head appears, along with other frightening images, on Athena's aegis and on Agamemnon's shield. It is described as "dread and awful." Her staring eyes were already a frightening feature. Homer also says that Hector had eyes like "the eyes of the Gorgon" as he chased the fleeing Achaeans. In the Odyssey, Odysseus is so frightened by the thought of meeting "the head of the Gorgon, that awful monster" in the underworld that he leaves straight away.

The Hesiodic Shield describes the Gorgons chasing Perseus as "dreadful and unspeakable," with two snakes wrapped around their waists. Pindar says that the Gorgons had snakes for hair. The Athenian comic playwright Aristophones made fun of the women of the Athenian deme Teithras by calling them Gorgons in 405 BC. The mythographer Apollodorus gives the most detailed description. He says the Gorgons had heads covered with dragon scales, large tusks like a pig's, bronze hands, and golden wings. Pindar could also call his snake-haired Medusa "beautiful." The Roman poet Ovid says Medusa was once a beautiful maiden. Later, Minerva, the Roman version of Athena, punished her by turning her beautiful hair into snakes.

Iconography

Gorgons were a popular subject in ancient Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art. More than six hundred images are listed in the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). They appear on vases, buildings, shields, and coins. Some show full bodies. Others, called gorgoneia, show only the face or head, like those in the Iliad on Athena's aegis and Agamemnon's shield. Both types first appear around the middle of the seventh century BC. Early Gorgons had snaky hair, big staring eyes, fangs, and wide grins. Their faces always looked straight out at the viewer.

Full-bodied Gorgons are usually shown in the story of Perseus and Medusa. Early examples include a Boeotian relief pithos, where the Gorgon is shown as a female centaur, and the Eleusis Amphora. A famous image on the temple of Artemis in Corfu shows a winged Medusa in the Knielauf (kneeling-running) position, with snakes around her waist. This is like the Gorgons in the Shield of Heracles. By the end of the seventh century BC, Gorgons with human bodies, wings, and snakes had become common. From the fifth century BC, Gorgons began to be shown as beautiful young women. This became the usual style in the fourth century BC.

The gorgoneion is the most common of all ancient Greek demon images. It was likely a protective charm. It is often found on temples, antefixes, acroteria, shields, coins, and the bottoms of bowls and cups. The Medusa Rondanini is one early example of a beautiful gorgoneion. It is thought to be a Roman copy of a Greek original from the fifth century BC or the Hellenistic period. Athena, with a gorgon shield, fights the Giant Enceladus. This scene was apparently shown on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. In the play Ion by Euripides, the chorus describes this scene on the temple's walls. Pausanias also described a golden shield with a Gorgon face displayed at the Temple of Zeus at Olympia.

Possible origins

Scholars have many ideas about where the story of Perseus and the Gorgons came from, and where gorgoneia, the pictures of Gorgon faces, came from. It is not clear which came first. The story might have inspired the Gorgon faces, or the faces might have come first, and the story was created later as an origin myth to explain them. The story and the faces may also have developed separately and joined together later. Gorgon ideas may have been influenced by Near-Eastern ideas. Some Gorgon images seem to be borrowed from the Mesopotamian figure Lamashtu. Mesopotamian pictures of Gilgamesh fighting Humbaba may also have influenced the Perseus story.

Most scholars think a gorgoneion was a device meant to protect people from unwanted things. They think it began as a mask worn by dancers. The scholar Jane Ellen Harrison called it a "ritual mask misunderstood."

Gorgon faces were also used as designs on protective shields. The poet Homer describes such a design on the shield of Agamemnon. Some clay masks from Tiryns, and others from the Sanctuary of Orthia at Sparta, look like the earliest Gorgon faces. This suggests that gorgoneia may have started as masks.

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