Gorgons
The Gorgons, 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.
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, 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.
Etymology
The name 'Gorgon' is associated with the Ancient Greek adjective , 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 or the guttural sounds produced in the throat. It has been understood as meaning to growl, roar or howl, while Thalia Feldman suggests that the closest meaning for the stem might be the onomatopoeic grrr of a growling beast.Family
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 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.Mythology
Dwelling place
Where the Gorgons were supposed to live varies in the ancient sources. According to Hesiod, the Gorgons lived far to the west beyond Oceanus near its springs, at the edge of night where the Hesperides 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 apparently placed them at "Lake Tritonis", 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. However, whether Pindar means to imply that the Gorgons lived near the Hyperboreans is unclear.Petrification
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 the Gorgons could turn to stone anyone who saw them.Perseus
Stheno and Euryale were immortal, whereas Medusa was mortal. According to Apollodorus' version of their story, Perseus was ordered by Polydectes 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 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 from Hermes. Perseus then flew to Oceanus, where he found the Gorgons asleep. 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 was wearing Hades' cap of invisibility. When Perseus brought back the Gorgon head, as ordered, 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.Athena's Gorgon aegis
According to Apollodorus, after Perseus gave the Gorgon head to Athena, she "inserted the Gorgon's head in the middle of her shield", apparently 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 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 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.
Gorgon blood
In some accounts, the blood of "the 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 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."Gorgon cry
The loud cry that came from the Gorgons—perhaps related to 'Gorgon' being derived from the Sanskrit garğ, with its connotations of a growling beast—was also part of their mythology.The Hesiodic Shield of Heracles, which describes Heracles' shield, has the Gorgons depicted on it chasing Perseus, with their shrill cry seemingly being heard emanating from the shield itself:
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:
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.
Literary descriptions
The earliest literary accounts of Gorgons occur in works by Hesiod and Homer. Hesiod provides no physical description of the Gorgons, other than to say that the two Gorgons, Sthenno, and Euryale did not grow old. Homer mentions only "the Gorgon" 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 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 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 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 the most detailed description:
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 was originally a beautiful maiden, but because of a sexual encounter with Neptune in Minerva's temple, Minerva punished Medusa by transforming her beautiful hair into horrible snakes.
Iconography
Gorgons were a popular subject in ancient Greek, Etruscan and Roman art, with over six hundred representations cataloged in the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. 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 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 the same time period, the mid-seventh century BC.Archaic Gorgons typically have snaky hair either with snake-like curls, or actual snakes protruding from their heads. The faces of Archaic Gorgons are particularly distinctive, typically with large menacing eyes, tripartite scroll-like noses, wide mouths with rictus-like grins or grimaces, lolling tongues, fangs and/or tusks, and sometimes beards. Aside from its particular monstrousness, the most distinctive feature of archaic representations of Gorgons is that the head is always facing frontally 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 the fourth century BC. One of the earliest such "beautiful" Gorgons is a red-figure pelike, 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.