Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Spring 2007
Table of Contents
List of Figures................................................................................................................ 1
Introduction.................................................................................................................... 3
Bibliography................................................................................................................... 64
Alyssa Hagen 1
List of Figures
1.1 Attic black figure neck amphora. (J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu 86 AE77. Image 7
from [http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/P23.12.html].)
1.2 Mistress of Animals amulet from Ulu Burun shipwreck. (Bochum, Deutsches 9
Bergbau-Museums 104. Image from [http://minervamagazine.com/issue1704/
news.html].)
1.3 Egyptian amulet of Pataikos. (Image from Virtual Egyptian Museum 10
[http://www.virtual-egyptian-museum.org].)
1.4 Etruscan roof antefix with gorgoneion. (Image from Beazley Pottery Archive 11
[http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk].)
1.5 Attic red figure Stamnos by the Siren Painter. (London, British Museum E440. 14
Image from [http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/O21.3.html].)
2.1 Detail of handle on Francois Vase, showing Artemis as Mistress of Animals. 17
(Florence, Museo Archeologico 4209. Image from Perseus Vase Catalog
[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu].)
2.2 West pediment central group, Temple of Artemis at Corfu. (Corfu, 18
Archaeological Museum.)
2.3 Attic black figure pinax by Lydos. (Munich, Antikensammlungen 8760. Image 19
from Beazley Pottery Archive.)
2.4 Seated goddess with leopards, Catal Huyuk, Turkey. (Image from 20
[http://www.utexas.edu/courses/classicalarch/images1/catallady.jpg].)
2.5 Etrurian chariot plaque, Perugia, Italy. (Image from I. Krauskopf, LIMC (1988) 20
IV:2 no. 89.)
2.6 Laconian black-figure hydria with gorgoneion. (London, British Museum B58.) 22
2.7 Plate showing Gorgon as Mistress of Animals, Rhodes. (London, British Museum 23
A748. Image from I. Krauskopf, LIMC (1988) IV:2 no. 280.)
2.8 Perseus slaying the horse-bodied Gorgon. Boeotia, early 7th c. B.C.E. (Paris, 25
Louvre CA795. Image from [http://www.utl- auch.asso.fr/html/page%20htm/
Art_Grec/ Art_Grec_Cours2_VII.htm].)
3.1 Caeretan black figure hydria showing Herakles and Cerberos. (Paris, Louvre 34
E701. Image from [http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/M12.1.html].)
3.2 Coin from Kamarina, Sicily. (Image from [http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/sg/ 35
sg1062.html].)
3.3 Bronze plate from northern Iraq showing Pazuzu overlooking healing ceremony 37
to dispel Lamashtu, c. 650 B.C.E. (Paris, Louvre. Image from [http://www.ezida
.com/cats/pazuzu%20louvre6.jpg].)
3.4 Impression of Neo-Assyrian cylinder seal. (Image from [http://classics.uc.edu/ 39
~johnson/epic/gilgamesh_images/humbaba.jpg].)
3.5 Attic black-figure jar depicting Perseus beheading Medusa. (London, British 39
Museum B471.)
4.1a Old Babylonian relief of Humbaba’s head. (Paris, Louvre 12460. Carter, p. 356 44
fig. 1.)
4.1b Mask from Temple of Artemis Ortheia, Sparta. (Archaeological Museum of 44
Sparta, photo by Robert Meagher.)
Alyssa Hagen 2
Introduction
This thesis began in an archaeology class, in a lecture on temples – the Doric and Ionic orders,
peristyle counts, the endless details which make up an introduction to ancient Greek
the Ionian island of Corfu. The west pediment, my professor explained, featured a captivating
relief sculpture of the Gorgon Medusa, flanked by lions. Now why, he asked, turning from the
screen to face the class, would a Gorgon adorn the entrance to Artemis’ temple instead of the
goddess herself? Would it not be more logical to display a sculpture of Artemis on her own
temple? The Gorgon’s presence belies a more complex motive behind the decoration of this
sacred space, and I set myself the task of discovering what it was. How is it that a Gorgon
could be an acceptable choice? In other words, is there a deeper meaning associated with this
bogey? I have attempted to plumb the depths of this question, to explore the network of
There were two paths for me to take from the starting point of this temple pediment.
First, that the Gorgon was used as a decoration over temple entrances in general. This is true;
her image appears on temples around Magna Graecia, to other deities like Apollo and Hera. In
that case, there had to be a significance to the entryway itself. In fact, the Gorgon was an
apotropaion – a symbol meant literally to “turn away,” to deflect harm from its bearer. The
significance of this apotropaic role, though, only became clear to me when I incorporated
what I learned from investigating the second path: that the Gorgon decorated the temple of
Artemis because she shared a special thematic connection to this goddess. These two paths led
me further back in time, past the Archaic age which fostered the Gorgon to the Bronze Age
and earlier, and across the sea past Greece to Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Alyssa Hagen 4
The research itself posed problems, both from primary and secondary sources. Most of
the primary literature I cite is later than the images I use, dating from after the fifth century
B.C.E. until well into the Roman period. Since there is a dearth of early literature on the
Gorgon – Homer and Hesiod provide the bulk of this – I have had to rely heavily on the
images of the monster for my interpretations. Having little background in art history, I was
apprehensive about my skill in “reading” this evidence for artistic and anthropological
significance. But the archaeological record is at least as valuable as the literary, and gives us
more insight into daily life, in this case, the religious lives of Greeks. Their world was awash
with symbols, which in a largely illiterate society provided guidance and stability and
reinforced the connections and roles that kept social order. In following the clues of these
symbols, I discovered more and more layers of meaning around the Gorgon going much
deeper than I had originally thought. My research led me far away from Greece to Egypt,
Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and even India. I was forced to limit my scope considerably for this
project because I realized that the Gorgon embodies fundamental concepts which recur in
cultures across the world – the interplay between creative and destructive, masculine and
feminine, mortal and immortal which humans are constantly seeking to define and
understand. In the course of this exploration, we will see more clearly how the Gorgon
addressed these issues in the roles she plays, and how these roles complement and follow
upon one another to create a more cohesive picture of her place and purpose in ancient Greek
religious belief.
Alyssa Hagen 5
Chapter 1:
Gorgon and Gorgoneion
ancient Greece. Archaeologists have found them on the pediments of temples and other public
monuments, houses, ships, furniture, jewelry, and weapons. The face of the Gorgon was
thought to be necessary, then, to protect an individual in any type of situation, indoors and
outdoors, public and private. But what hazards were thought of as so threatening that this
The answer to these questions can be found when we gain a greater understanding of
the Archaic worldview. The Gorgon appears in art and literature of the middle Archaic era,
around 700-600 B.C.E., and is a product of the new pessimistic Zeitgeist that characterized
this time. This was the fallen age, Hesiod’s “age of iron,” and life was unpredictable. Humans
lived in fear of the jealousy (nemesis) of the gods, of Zeus’ harsh justice, of unalterable Fate.
This attitude permeated all levels of daily life, down to the causes of everyday accidents,
which were often attributed to the interference of daimons. These daimons, called Keres, were
“based on the sense of man’s helpless dependence upon capricious Power.” 1 They could be
blamed for anything from a broken pot to the death of a child. 2 According to myth, Ker was
the name of the daughter of Nyx (Night), and she carried men off the battlefield to the
underworld. Keres could assail one at any time, but were repelled by the face of the Gorgon.
1
E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley 1968), 45.
2
Dodds 41.
Alyssa Hagen 6
One of the mediums by which ill luck or keres were invoked was the evil eye, a belief
which persists to this day in many parts of the world. The eye was the image of fear of
damage from powers outside one’s control. It brought bad fortune, manifested as anything
from physical maladies, like disease or infertility, to accidents, like a broken dish or crop
blight. 3 It was widely believed at this time that vision worked when light was shed from the
eye onto the object it beheld; in Sophocles’ Ajax, Athena tells Odysseus that she will “turn
away the light of [Ajax’s] eyes” so that the angered man will not notice Odysseus observing
him. 4 The gaze itself was thought to have the power to affect that which it fell upon, and in
myth this power was exemplified by Medusa and her petrifying stare. The earliest literary
evidence of Medusa’s power comes to us from Pherecydes and Pindar, who wrote of Perseus
brandishing the head to “strike stony death to the islanders.” 5 Evidence of the Gorgon’s
apotropaic power against the evil eye goes further back, however, to the earliest visual
representations of the monster as a disembodied face, the gorgoneion. In some cases, the
gorgoneion or full-bodied Gorgon was used in conjunction with a pair of large eyes [Figure
1.1]. 6 Hazel Barnes equates the two images, writing that “the Gorgon was but the purest and
most common form of a variety of staring faces used interchangeably with the simple
representation of the eye by itself.” 7 It is very likely that the eye alone was a simple way of
expressing the idea of gorgoneion when space constraints or other considerations prevented
3
Marie-Louise Thomsen, “The Evil Eye in Mesopotamia,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 51:1 (Jan.
1992), 22.
4
Sophocles Ajax 69-70: “e)gw\ ga\r o)mma/twn a)postro/fouj* au)ga\j a)pei/rcw* sh\n pro/soyin
ei)sidei=n.”
5
Pindar Pythian 10; Pherecydes, schol. Argonautica.
6
See also I. Krauskopf, Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Zurich 1988) IV.2, “Gorgo,
Gorgones,” (referred to hereafter as LIMC) nos. 41 and 43.
7
Hazel Barnes, The Meddling Gods (Nebraska 1974), 7.
Alyssa Hagen 7
the artist from depicting the whole face. However the custom began, the Gorgon and the eye
1.1: Detail of Attic black figure neck amphora showing running gorgon painted between two eyes, c.
530 B.C.E.
Paradoxically, then, the evil eye is repelled by another representation of an eye, that of
the Gorgon. 8 As the symbol of the Gorgon, the eye embodies two conflicting qualities: the
eye as the source of misfortune and malaise and the eye as a watchful guardian. The Gorgon
itself embodies these qualities, in relation to the eye and to other concepts which we will
discover later. It is the nature of the Gorgon to take this paradox and solidify it by
symbolizing it, expressing a conscious contradiction that forms one of the pillars of the Greek
worldview, namely, that those things which seem at first to be opposite and mutually
8
Tobin Siebers, “Medusa as Double,” in The Medusa Reader, ed. Marjorie Garber and Nancy J.
Vickers (New York: Routledge, 2003), 196-197.
Alyssa Hagen 8
The function of Gorgo as a protector was tied to a larger body in the Greek cosmology
of goddesses or female daimons who “carry things out,” that is to say, maintain the place of
humans in between the gods and beasts. These are female enforcers of justice and natural law,
often conflated with each other in myth and cult because of their overlapping power over
human destiny, “sometimes stronger even than Zeus” 9 when the world order is concerned.
They were often tripartite, like the Gorgons themselves, and known by many names across
Greece: the Moirai, the Erinyes, the Eumenides, the Semnai, and the Praxidikai. These deities,
though powerful and terrible, were not completely inaccessible to mortals, and could be
invoked to fulfill prophecies and promises in various situations for human supplicants. The
Erinyes were known for avenging crimes against kin and other transgressions of natural law,
but also presided over oath-taking, as did the Praxidikai. Pausanias writes of a sanctuary in
Haliartus where the Praxidikai, “exacters of punishment,” were worshiped, and adds that men
did not swear oaths rashly in this vicinity. 10 In addition to being interchanged with each other,
these goddesses bore similarities to the Gorgon in that they were chthonic, born from the
darkness of the earth’s inner recesses, daughters of Nyx or primordial Ge. 11 The Erinyes were
also said to have serpentine hair. 12 Praxidike, in singular form, was depicted as a disembodied
head; according to Harrison, the ritual function of the Praxidikai were as “mask goddesses,”
9
B. C. Dietrich, Death, Fate, and the Gods (London: Athlone Press, 1965), 95, 104.
10
Pausanias, Description of Greece ix.33.3: “e)ntau=qa o)mnu/ousi me/n, poiou=ntai de\ ou)k e)pi/dromon
to\n o(/rkon.” See also Jane Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903; repr., New
York: Meridian Books, 1955), 188 and J. H. Croon, “The Mask of the Underworld Daemon,” Journal
of Hellenic Studies 75 (1955): 13.
11
Dietrich 91-92.
12
Joseph Fontenrose, Python: The Delphic Myth and its Origins (Berkeley 1959), 287.
Alyssa Hagen 9
just as some scholars argue the Gorgon was a mask in early ritual, an issue which we will
return to later. 13
The Gorgon is associated with Artemis as a protective force, sharing with her the
attributes of a kourotrophos, or caretaker of the young, a role we shall explore later. Artemis
herself, and occasionally Gorgo, were conflated in iconography and in cult with the Mistress
of Animals, a Near Eastern deity of diffuse origin. 14 The Mistress, too, was a caretaker and
feminine enforcer of natural order; moreover, her image was often used to bring good
fortune. 15 She appeared on cosmetic jars, mirror-handles, amulets and plaques in Bronze Age
Syria, standing naked and grasping two animals in her hands. Similar items have been found
in contemporary Greece and Italy, attesting to the popularity of the image across Magna
Graecia. 16 A gold amulet recovered from the Ulu Burun shipwreck shows the Mistress as a
1.2: Gold Mistress of Animals amulet from Ulu Burun wreck, c. 1300 B.C.E.
13
Harrison 188-191; Burkert, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 104;
Chapter 4 below.
14
Martin S. Thompson, “The Asiatic or Winged Artemis,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 29 (1909):
286ff. Dietrich (142-143) also connects the Mistress to the Erinyes and the Gorgon.
15
Nanno Marinatos, The Goddess and the Warrior (New York: Routledge, 2000), 51; Barnes 9.
16
Marinatos 13-14, 26-27, 56, and figs. 1.24, 1.25, 3.3, and 3.6.
Alyssa Hagen 10
Usually made of clay or bronze and worn around the neck, amulets like this one
brought the power of a symbol into direct contact with the body. Seal rings could also be
used. The Gorgon’s prophylactic power against the evil eye made it a popular subject, and
numerous examples survive. 17 On some, the Gorgon is depicted in conflict with another
monster, who may be a daemon or fierce animal, indicating her ability to literally vanquish
malicious forces. Others show her grasping snakes coiled around her waist in a pose similar to
the Egyptian Pataikos, a hirsute god often represented on amulets with the same animals,
1.3: Egyptian amulet of Pataikos. Note the snakes in his hands and protruding tongue.
Marinatos points out that Bes, another protective demon of Egyptian origin, was also a figure
on cosmetic jars and amulets, and may have been conflated with the Mistress of Animals in
the Near East. 18 All four figures – the Mistress of Animals, Pataikos, Bes, and Gorgo – are
17
See LIMC nos. 14, 15, 54, 58, 250, 261, 284, and 285.
18
Marinatos 52-56 and figs. 3.7, 3.10.
Alyssa Hagen 11
shown handling dangerous animals, snakes or lions, which suggest control over the
unpredictable and threatening aspects of nature. The role of demonic figures specifically as
guardians is a subject we will examine later; clearly, though, there was a belief across the
Public Gorgoneia
individual, we may see how apotropaic symbols functioned on a larger scale. Protection of the
home was a concern for all, and Gorgons were some of the apotropaic devices which
decorated homes on rooftops and above doors. Gorgoneia were often painted on roof
antefixes, tiles which were attached to the eaves of roofs to conceal the rough edges, or
The face in this figure is meant to be either terrifying or comical. It may be meant to frighten
away keres and human ill-wishers by its ghastly countenance. Stephen Wilk has suggested
19
See LIMC nos. 60, 64, 65, 67, and 70; Fontenrose 290.
Alyssa Hagen 12
that the faces were designed to scare nesting birds, but this rationalistic interpretation is
unlikely. 20 On the other hand, the Gorgon faces’ exaggerated features at times look almost
clownish. It could be that they were meant as an embarrassing image of sexuality, known as
geloia (laughter-inducing). 21 These were believed to turn away ill will by their very absurdity,
as the girl Baubo brought a smile to Demeter’s grieving face by exposing her genitals to the
goddess. Joan Marler argues that Gorgo’s protruding tongue and bearded mouth are a
suggestion of the phallus and vagina, noting that Medusa also gives birth from her neck,
implying a conflation of head and womb. 22 Gorgons were not the only sexual images used on
antefixes; satyrs and maenads were also popular subjects, and these were undeniably geloia,
Similar baskania, or evil eye charms, were used by potters, smiths, and bakers to
protect their wares. Gorgoneia, and sometimes satyr faces, were placed over the opening of a
kiln or oven as over a doorway. 23 The function was the same as that of the gorgoneia on
Pottery production was certainly a difficult process, and the tools available were imprecise,
leaving ample room for mishaps in firing. Harrison explains that “fire was a natural terror to
primitive man and all operations of baking beset by possible Keres. Therefore on his ovens he
thought it well to set a Gorgon mask.” 24 Owls were occasionally substituted for gorgoneia as
vanquishers of the evil eye. Their wide eyes were similarly prominent, and both the owl and
20
Stephen R. Wilk, Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon (Oxford 2000), 170.
21
Harrison 190-191.
22
Joan Marler, “An Archaeomythological Investigation of the Gorgon,” ReVision 25:1 (Summer
2002): 18-19; Marinatos 56-57. According to Dietrich (342), Baubo was not a nymph but a bogey.
23
Harrison 189, figs. 27-30.
24
Ibid. 188.
Alyssa Hagen 13
the Gorgon were symbols of Athena, the goddess of metis (technical skill) and patroness of
craftsmen. 25
The Gorgon was also at work when navigating between settlements. Travel was
dangerous, since it put one at the mercy of the elements, without law or protection from the
polis. The sea was the realm of the pre-Olympian Poseidon, god of unpredictable nature; as
Poseidon Taraxippos he was also the patron of horses, which the Greeks thought of as wild,
since they could throw a rider with little provocation. 26 Both of these realms, that of the sea
and that of horses, are also domains of the Gorgon. 27 The liminal space of the sea, an
inhospitable place populated with monsters like the Gorgon’s mythical mother Keto, and the
Gorgon’s protection was invoked as a method of exerting control, real or imagined, over the
unpredictable water. Once again, sailors used the eye as a symbol of the Gorgon to protect
their ships against the elements and ensure safe navigation. Large eyes, called ophthalmoi,
were affixed to the prows of ships, literally watching ahead for danger as the vessel sailed
[Figure 1.5]. 28 Interestingly, similar eyes were also painted on the outside of drinking cups,
suggesting a connection between the ideas of sailing and drinking, which we will explore
later. 29
25
Robert Luyster, “Symbolic Elements in Cult of Athena,” History of Religions 5:1 (Summer 1965):
158.
26
Marcel Detienne, “Athena and the Mastery of the Horse,” History of Religions 11:2 (November
1971): 168-9. Detienne points out that the word gorgos was used by Xenophon to describe the nervous
quality of a horse.
27
See below, Chapter 2.
28
Harrison 198 and 202, fig. 37. R. T. Williams (“Ships in Greek Vase Painting,” Greece & Rome
18:54 [1949]) states that the tradition of eyes on ships dates back as far as the Mycenaean period (see
p. 131). If this is so, then it is possible that an earlier idea of the apotropaic eye conflated with the
Gorgon myth after developing independently.
29
For more on this concept, see Williams 133 and Chapter 4 below.
Alyssa Hagen 14
1.5: Attic red figure Stamnos by the Siren Painter, showing Odysseus on his ship, c. 480 B.C.E.
Conclusions
Whether it is crossing the threshold of a house, crossing the ocean, or firing pottery to
sell, the Gorgon presides over the liminal spaces in life, literal or metaphorical. Even simple
acts put one at risk of keres’ interference, and in a time when cities and empires could rise or
fall seemingly in the blink of an eye, the supernatural power of objects was a way for an
The eye is a pervasive symbol against such evils. To this day in the Mediterranean
area, pendants made of blue glass with a painted iris and pupil are worn against the evil eye,
and children wear blue beads to ward off harm. 30 The Gorgon was a sort of living eye, the
idea of the evil eye personified in a monster terrifying enough to cast it but who uses this
power for protection. Her fierce visage “protect[s] the owner of the object she decorates and
destroy[s] his enemy.” 31 In the next chapter, we will explore the reasons behind the use of the
30
Barnes 31.
31
Marinatos 56.
Alyssa Hagen 15
Chapter 2:
Gorgo as a Fertility Goddess
It is significant that the Gorgon, unlike the majority of monsters in Greek mythology, is
female. As far as the Perseus myth is concerned, there is no reason why Medusa and her
sisters should not be male, like the Cyclopes or the Minotaur – it would be all the same to the
hero. We must look deeper than this to understand the significance of Gorgo’s femininity. The
theory put forth by Harrison, Gimbutas, and others holds that a Great Goddess was worshiped
in Greece throughout the Neolithic era in a tripartite form – as maiden, mother, and crone –
corresponding to the major stages in a woman’s life cycle, “encompassing the archetypal
unity and multiplicity of feminine nature.” 32 The Greek goddesses are all in different ways
manifestations of this concept; the most apparent, for example, are goddesses closely linked to
the earth like Gaia, Persephone, Demeter, and Cybele. Likewise, Artemis and Athena are both
virginal goddesses in later Classical Greek religion, but they also fulfill important fertility
roles.
Arthur Frothingham was one of the first scholars to suggest that the Gorgon was a
manifestation of a fertility deity. “Medusa was not an evil demon or bogey,” he writes, “but
primarily a nature goddess or earth-spirit of prehistoric times identical with or cognate to the
Great Mother, to Rhea, Cybele, Demeter, and the ‘Mother’ Artemis.” 33 Several scholars have
linked the name Medusa to the Greek participle medousa, meaning queen or guardian, 34 a title
32
Gimbutas, The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe (Berkeley 1982), 152.
33
A. L. Frothingham, “Medusa, Apollo, and the Great Mother,” American Journal of Archaeology 15
(1911): 349. Frothingham’s outdated conclusion that the Gorgon is a solar or nature goddess should
not eclipse the importance of his recognition that she embodies a conflation of influences from Crete,
Egypt, Assyria, and Anatolia.
34
Barnes 8.
Alyssa Hagen 16
which was occasionally applied to Athena, Artemis, and Aphrodite. 35 We saw earlier, though,
that Gorgo was also supposed to be evil and apotropaic, her mother goddess aspect
incorporates the so-called “Terrible Mother” goddess traits, to be “demonically negative” and
“lustfully cruel.” 36
Iconography of Fertility
Gorgon is staggering. She has been depicted with a variety of widely used natural symbols
like snakes, horses, plants, lions, deer, birds, wolves, sphinxes, and beehives. I will touch on
the main symbols which contextualize the Gorgon in relation to outside cultural influences as
kneeling between two birds, snakes, or lions, usually holding them with her hands.37 This
general arrangement of characters, a female flanked by twin animals, is most typical of Near
Eastern depictions of goddesses of a type known as the potnia therōn, or Mistress of Animals.
Although known in Greece since the second millennium B.C.E., the Mistress theme was
“given a new lease on life” in the early Archaic era as Greek art and religious ideas were
35
Luyster 136, 158. The Mycenaeans worshiped a goddess called “Athena Potnia.”
36
Erich Neumann, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, trans. Ralph Manheim (Princeton
1974), 146. He later (166) explains, “to be rigid is to be dead… The Gorgon is the counterpart of the
life womb; she is the womb of death or the night sun.”
37
See LIMC nos. 155, 247, 255, 260, 261, 280, and 288.
38
Walter Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution (Harvard 1992), 19. Marinatos (10) places the origin
Alyssa Hagen 17
It is because of this orientalizing influence on artistic schema that Artemis was often
depicted in the same manner, accompanied by deer or panthers [Figure 2.1]. The Mistress of
Animals was a protectress and establisher of order, a kourotrophos connected to the birth and
protection of young animals, and in Greek cult shared these same features with Artemis.
Nanno Marinatos has postulated in her analysis of this phenomenon that the introduction of
hunting to the Artemis-Mistress figure by the sixth century B.C.E. marked the absorption of
the Mistress type into the Virgin Huntress figure. 39 Depictions of Gorgo in the same pose
emphasize her connection to both goddesses. 40 The Gorgon, then, is iconographically similar
to the Mistress of Animals along with Artemis, suggesting that the two Greek figures have a
2.2: West pediment central group, Temple of Artemis at Corfu, c. 580 B.C.E.
The Lion
The Temple of Artemis at Corfu which I mentioned earlier provides an interesting key
to the early Orientalizing influence of the Mistress of Animals type in Greek culture. Built
around 580 BCE, its west pediment is the earliest known example of monumental temple
decoration. 41 A Gorgon dominates the pediment relief, flanked by two snarling lions [Figure
2.2]. A snake coils around her hair and two more make up a belt around her waist. Her tongue
protrudes from a typical Archaic-style face. She appears to be running, her limbs spread in
what has been termed the knielaufen position. This pose, indicating action, either
41
J.L. Benson, “The Central Group of the Corfu Pediment,” in Gestalt und Geschichte, ed. Martha
Rohde-Liegle, Herbert A. Cahn, and H. Chr. Ackermann (Bern: Francke, 1967), 54.
Alyssa Hagen 19
preparedness for combat or violent defeat at the hands of a hero, is first seen in Assyrian art,
David Napier has theorized that the Gorgon was deliberately depicted with leonine
features – a broad nose, long fangs, wild mane-like hair, dots above the eyes – as an
Orientalizing adaptation of an Assyrian lion type [Figure 2.3]. 43 The lion was sacred to Ishtar,
the Assyrian goddess of war and fertility, known as the “lioness of the gods.” Iterations of this
connection are apparent in other fertility goddesses in the region, from the Semitic Astarte,
Ba’alat, and Anat to the Indian goddess Devi, who rides a lion in battle. 44
In Anatolia and Mesopotamia, lions or leopards did not only accompany a fertility
goddess as guardians or consorts. Because of their predatory vitality, they were also known as
helpers in childbirth and occasionally representations of her wards in the form of cubs. 45 A
42
Clark Hopkins “Assyrian Elements in the Perseus-Gorgon Story,” American Journal of Archaeology
38 (1934): 345, 352; Bernard Goldman, “The Asiatic Ancestry of the Gorgon,” Berytus 14 (1961): 6.
43
A. David Napier, Masks, Transformation, and Paradox (Berkeley 1986), 109. For examples of
superciliary markings, see LIMC nos. 31, 37-39, 155, and 283. Hopkins attributes the fashion of
Assyrian art in Greece, especially Corinth, to the expansion of the Assyrian Empire under
Ashurbanipal in the mid-seventh century B.C.E. The “Corinthian” style of depicting the Gorgon
became codified in art across Greece around this time. See Hopkins 345.
44
Goldman 6.
45
Buffie Johnson, Lady of the Beasts: Ancient Images of the Goddess and Her Sacred Animals
Alyssa Hagen 20
Neolithic clay figure from Çatal Huyuk in Anatolia shows a goddess giving birth on a throne
flanked by leopards, her hands affectionately placed on their heads, indicating their
submission to her [Figure 2.4]. In a similar pose, six thousand years later, a Gorgon decorates
an Etrurian chariot plaque [Figure 2.5]. The scene is a bit more violent: the Gorgon’s hands
are clasped tight around the throats of the lions, who push against her arms and legs to support
her body. This decoration is a shining example of the persistence of symbols in human
2.4, left: Seated goddess with leopards, Çatal Huyuk, 7100-6300 B.C.E.
2.5, right: Etrurian chariot plaque, Perugia, Italy, c. 500 B.C.E.
The androgynous Gorgon’s beard is explicable in the context of these eastern fertility
goddesses. Bernard Goldman has noted that in the Near East divine intersexuality was a
common motif. “Astarte, Ishtar, and Kybele sometimes adopt male characteristics; the
Carthaginian Didon-Astarte wears a beard.” 46 Goldman speculates that in this case a beard
may emphasize the asexuality of the goddess through her absorption of a male counterpart, or
else her more masculine role as a “savage destroyer.” Given the nature of the Gorgon as a
figure who crosses social and natural boundaries, I would agree with the former explanation.
Neither fully female nor male, the Gorgon transcends gender, as did the Mesopotamian
The Snake
On the aforementioned pediment from Corfu, one can see that the Gorgon is entwined
with snakes. The presence of serpents on her head and curled around her body indicates her
chthonic connection. 47 According to Gimbutas, the snake was one of the primary animals
associated with the Neolithic mother goddess figure. “The snake characteristics [of the
goddess] were emphasized...most frequently, by snakes spiralling over the body and by a
‘snake-spiral’ coiffure.” 48 These characteristics were fertility, death, and rebirth, inspired by
The idea of such rebirth, and the juxtaposition of life-giving with death-giving was
carried over into new iterations of these goddesses, for instance, Athena. Neumann and others
have pointed out the snake as indication of Athena’s iconic connection to Mother Goddesses
in Crete, Egypt, and the Near East. 50 Reconstructions of Phidias' chryselephantine statue in
the Parthenon place a coiled snake behind her shield, which rests on the ground beside her.
46
Goldman 5.
47
For examples, see LIMC nos. 39, 41, 45, 58, 65-68, 79, 81, 156, 158, 247, 260, 289, and 326.
48
Gimbutas 66, 145.
49
Barnes 14. Neumann’s psychoanalytic argument that the snake is a fecundating power representative
of the Great Goddess’ male consort is outdated, although many scholars still work on this assumption.
50
Neumann 143 n. 79, 148; Barnes 14; Luyster 151.
Alyssa Hagen 22
Herodotus recorded a legend that a snake holy to Athena guarded the Erechtheion on the
Snakes and lizards were also sacred to Demeter, and thus Gorgo’s serpentine
adornments also reinforce her association with the chthonic goddess. A few depictions of
Gorgons include lizards; one vase shows a running Gorgon holding a snake in her right hand
and a plant, perhaps Demeter’s wheat, in the other. 52 Gorgo and Demeter are not only
connected through their fertility but also through their “Terrible Goddess” attributes, their
association with the underworld and the Demeter-Erinyes, which will be discussed in the next
chapter.
51
Jenifer Neils, “Athena, Alter Ego of Zeus,” in Deacy and Villing, eds. Athena in the Classical
World, (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 225-226; Herodotus Histories viii.41; Luyster 146.
52
See LIMC nos. 39, 272, 247, and fig. 2.8 below. Marinatos has put forth the interesting argument
that the snake and plant motif is borrowed from the Syro-Egyptian goddess of magic and fertility, Qu-
du-shu, another deity who displays the attributes of a Mistress of Animals (16-17 and 52, fig. 3.5).
Alyssa Hagen 23
The Bird
The Gorgon’s wings indicate the influence of both the Near Eastern goddesses through
Artemis and the Old European bird goddesses. 53 A Laconian hydria shows a gorgoneion
flanked by antithetical sphinxes and hawks [Figure 2.6]. Cranes make up the row of figures
underneath. According to Johnson, birds were thought to control or influence the weather
because of their place in the domain of the sky. A Rhodian plate from the late seventh century
B.C.E. in the British Museum shows a Gorgon holding the necks of two birds in the Mistress
Her dramatic wings dominate the upper half of the plate and she wears a headband with a
meander, a divine water symbol. 54 Her body is surrounded by swastikas, lozenges, and
53
See LIMC nos. 234-238, 249-252, 258, 260, 261, 269-271, 280-285, 293, 299-303, 314-315, 317,
320-325, 343, 346, and 350.
54
Gimbutas 124.
Alyssa Hagen 24
rosettes, all of which are symbols of plants. 55 Clearly the Gorgon is being conflated in this
case with a goddess who spans the realms of flora and fauna, perhaps as an avatar of Demeter.
But her potency as a weather goddess on the grounds of providing nourishment for vegetation
was soon eclipsed by her connection to the fecundity of beasts. 56 A more plausible
explanation for Gorgo’s bird wings is that they are vestiges of a Mother Goddess who was
characterized either as a bird or a primordial egg, symbol of the womb, which featured
prominently in Egyptian creation myths. 57 The bird was also associated with water, through
weather beliefs and water birds like the cranes in Figure 2.6, who represented the flowing
aspect of the Mother Goddess. 58 In Greece proper, Athena came to be a patroness of birds as
well as snakes, another vestige of her Mother Goddess origins, appearing with an owl in
iconography. A winged Gorgon on her aegis or shield would have conveyed the idea of
The Horse
Horses were an important signifier of Gorgo’s fecundity early on. She was often
shown holding a colt in one arm, the young Pegasos. 60 On a Boeotian amphora from the early
seventh century, Perseus holds his sword to Medusa’s throat while she stands rigid, eyes
staring forward [Figure 2.8]. Oddly, an equine body extends out from under her skirt,
suggesting a conflation of the Gorgon with a female centaur. Frothingham has classified this
theriomorphic Gorgon as a separate type, possibly Cretan, arguing that her face bears none of
55
Johnson 8, 80.
56
For more on the Gorgon and weather magic, see Noel Robertson, “Athena as Weather Goddess: The
Aigis in Myth and Ritual,” from Athena in the Classical World op. cit.
57
Johnson 26.
58
Ibid. 36-40.
59
Gimbutas 147-149.
60
See LIMC nos. 271, 272, 283.
Alyssa Hagen 25
the apotropaic features typical to other representations, although her eyes are prominent
features. 61 The association with Crete is tentative, but it is certainly significant that the horse
was worshiped there and elsewhere as sacred to Mother Goddess figures, such as Astarte in
the Levant. In Greece itself, Demeter is closely associated with the horse; the citizens of
Phigalia in Arcadia worshiped an image of her comprised of the body of a woman and the
head of a horse. 62
2.8: Perseus slaying the horse-bodied Gorgon. Boeotia, early 7th c. B.C.E.
The theme of equiniform fertility runs through Medusa's interactions with Poseidon in
myth. The horse itself as a symbol of Poseidon represents male sexuality, and on a broader
scale male youth in general. 63 Since Poseidon is a pre-Olympian god, associated with
chthonic power – his title “Earth-Shaker” attests to this function – as well as with the ocean,
he filled the role of consort to fertility goddesses. 64 For instance, he copulates with Demeter in
61
Frothingham 373-374.
62
Pausanias Guide to Greece 8.42.1-13.
63
Napier 60.
64
Barnes 8.
Alyssa Hagen 26
the form of a horse, begetting the maiden Despoine and the horse Areion. 65 Medusa also
couples with Poseidon, according to some versions of the myth actually in a temple of
Athena, producing the monsters Pegasos and Chrysaor who spring from her corpse. 66 Her
connection to horses is clear. But Gorgo’s more specific ties to the male realm will be
explored later.
After examining this ample evidence, the question remains: what function does the
Gorgon serve for the Greeks in the sphere of women? The answer lies in Gorgo’s connection
to Artemis. As the nurturer of youth, or to borrow Vernant’s phrase, the “Kourotrophos par
excellence,” Artemis guided human children through the liminal years when they had not yet
taken up a functional role in society. She initiated them into the world and established the
boundaries in their minds between male and female, child and adult, human and animal. The
Gorgon assisted Artemis in this task, since she, too, protects young and traverses transitional
spaces.
The act of childbirth has always been an uncertain time for mother and baby. The
woman is transformed by labor pains into a wild, screaming beast, the utter opposite of a
nurturer, while in the act of delivering the creature she is to mold into a member of society.
The juxtaposition of human and bestial attributes in the mother necessitates supernatural
protection in order to safely navigate the birth and the mother and child’s return to the realm
of society afterward. Artemis oversees childbirth, then, not as the better-known Classical
virgin goddess who rejects eroticism but as the goddess who maintains this boundary between
65
Pausanias Guide to Greece 8.25.5.
66
Hesiod Theogony 276-283. Athena and Poseidon were also worshiped jointly as horse gods at the
sanctuary at Colonos. See Luyster 159.
Alyssa Hagen 27
the wild and the civilized. 67 Likewise, Gorgo embodies the boundary herself, since she
displays the attributes of a woman and an animal at the same time. She is depicted with
combinations of wings, horns, fangs, a snarling snout, and even the entire body of a lion or
horse, but retains the human face. The bizarre conglomeration of zoological features
emphasize not associations with a specific animal but a more general impression of ferality.
There is evidence for the Gorgon as not only a mother but a protector of the young. As
I noted earlier, she is often depicted holding a horse and human child, Pegasos and Chrysaor,
archetypal images of youth. On the Temple of Athena at Syracuse she crouches in a modified
knielaufen pose and puts a solicitous arm around the small Pegasos. When depicted in this
manner, clutching her young to her, the Gorgon’s maternal role is emphasized. If Artemis
protects and guides children into adulthood, the Gorgon on Artemis’ temple at Corfu is a
symbolic extension of the goddess’ power into the Gorgon. In Euripides’ Ion, Creusa
mentions that she swaddled her son Ion in a cloth embroidered with “a Gorgon in the middle
threads of the robe… And, like an aegis, bordered with serpents.” 68 This decoration is clearly
a deliberate choice, not only to associate Ion with Athena from birth but to protect the infant
from the elements when Creusa is forced to abandon him in a cave. The Gorgon’s apotropaic
visage here is meant to ward off the innumerable threats, real or imagined, which would try to
Conclusions
The major Olympian goddesses all carry over older divine traditions in their
iconography and in ritual practice, but the Gorgon is the only figure who embodies all of these
at once. Athena has her snakes and owls, Artemis her status as Potnia Theron, Aphrodite her
67
Artemis’ skill in midwifery was well-known. “[Leto] finally reached Delos and gave birth to
Artemis, who thereupon [as a baby] helped her deliver Apollon” (Apollodorus Library 1.21).
68
Frothingham 354, Euripides Ion 1420-1423.
Alyssa Hagen 28
waterfowl, Demeter her plants. The Gorgon absorbs and displays all of these symbols at one
time or another, depending on the context of her image. Far from being a monstrous
instrument of chaos, the stuff of nightmares, the Gorgon aids Athena, protecting the citizens
of the polis, or Artemis, easing childbirth; and in playing these different roles, she becomes
the connection between the goddesses, as well as their connection to the past and the plethora
We have now seen how the Gorgon bears traits in the iconographic record which
relate it to earlier Mother Goddesses, through animals like the snake and lion, poses either
standing or kneeling, with her young around her. But there is another side to consider, one
which is perhaps better known but meaningless without the context of fertility: her Terrible
Mother aspect. The Gorgon is not only a creator but a destroyer, putting her in the company of
major Eastern goddesses Ishtar and Kali and the Egyptian Sekmet. This tradition of dangerous
sexuality, exemplified by the stories of Aphrodite and Adonis or Cybele and Attis, is carried
on in the Gorgon.
Alyssa Hagen 29
Chapter 3:
Gorgo as the Guardian of Hades
In the last chapter we learned how the Gorgon was a guardian of boundaries: between wild
and civilized, male and female, child and adult. Her most important role, though, was as
guardian of the boundary between the living and the dead. Odysseus dreads her presence
when he journeys to the end of the world to speak to the spirit of Tiresias in the Odyssey:
“green fear took hold of me / with the thought that proud Persephone might send up against
me / some gorgonish head of a terrible monster up out of Hades.” 69 Guarding the gates to
Hades was the Gorgon’s most celebrated function long past the Classical era. She even
appears in this role in the ninth canto of Dante’s Inferno. It is her place in realm of Hades
which epitomizes Gorgo’s image as a terrifying monster – “the direct confrontation with death
itself” – in company with Cerberus, the Erinyes, the Keres, and other hellions. 70 The power to
scare interlopers away from the underworld with her frightening visage allows the Gorgon to
enforce this vital boundary and prevent the mingling of the dead with the living.
There are a number of divinities who may have contributed to the development of the
chthonic Gorgon, and they fall into two categories: fertility goddesses and demons. Because
of her lineage of influence stemming from Mother Goddesses, she delivers life and death in
turn, embracing the age-old paradox of concepts which appear to be in opposition and yet are
embodied harmoniously in one figure. The apotropaic demon beliefs of Babylonian, Assyrian,
Semitic and Egyptian cultures strongly influenced the use of the Gorgon’s image as a
69
Odyssey 11.633-35, Richmond Lattimore, trans. “e)me\ de\ xlwro\n de/oj h(/|rei, mh/ moi Gorgei/hn
kefalh\n deinoi=o pelw/rou e)c )Ai/dew pe/myeien a)gauh\ Persefo/neia.”
70
Jean-Pierre Vernant, “Feminine Figures of Death in Greece,” in Mortals and Immortals: Collected
Essays, ed. Froma I. Zeitlin (Princeton 1991), 97.
Alyssa Hagen 30
protector against evil Keres as well as a display of evil itself. But first, to shed light on
Gorgo’s position in Greek cosmology, we must consider the role of female deities in the
There was a positive and a negative way of conceiving of death in Archaic Greece. A
warrior’s death, exemplified in the Iliad, was idealized as the tragedy of a man cut down in
his prime, dying for his country. 71 In giving his life in battle, a man ensured that he would be
remembered in the future as a young man, like the great Homeric heroes who chose kleos
(glory) over longevity. The most distinguished heroes were granted eternal rest in the
paradisiacal Elysian fields. 72 This masculinized death was restricted to the privileged few who
achieved hero cult status; in other words, the great heroes of a bygone, semi-historical age
which men like Homer could only dream of. For most people, dying occurred outside the field
of battle and the realm of myth. It was a grim daily reality, and their outlook was pessimistic.
Death meant obliteration from memory; there was no concept of reward for a “moral” or
“just” life until later in the Classical era with the rising popularity of mystery cults. 73 The
realm of the underworld was a terrifying place where the essence (eidolon) of the dead person
wandered for eternity, no more tangible than a shadow, trying in vain to imitate the ways of
the living, feeding on libations (choai) poured on the ground by the living. 74 The deities who
controlled mortality also took positive and negative roles corresponding to the type of demise
they dealt out. Thanatos was the god of peaceful death, “whose role is not to kill but to
71
See Iliad 16.672, 682.
72
See Odyssey 4.561-5: “soi d' ou) qe/sfato/n e)sti… a)lla/ j' e)j )Hlu/sion pedi/on kai\ pei/rata
gai/hj a)qa/natoi pe/myousin… th=| per r(hi/sth bioth\ pe/lei a)nqrw/poisin.”
73
Walter Burkert, Greek Religion 199.
74
Ibid. 195-197.
Alyssa Hagen 31
receive the dead, to transport the one who has lost his (or her) life.” 75 The Keres, on the other
hand, were daimons of death by violence or disease, who “represent death as a maleficent
force that sweeps down on humans to destroy them.” 76 The masculine death, Thanatos, was
most desirable, whereas the feminine death at the hands of the Keres was harsh and painful.
Females were associated with the messier side of life, the more “primitive” and less civilized
Females as Guardians
Female daimons played a vital role in the structure of the cosmos. The Moirai, the
Erinyes, and the Keres, as well as the Gorgons, are terrifying to mortals, but they are not
merely bogeys. They fulfill an important duty in maintaining balance and order in the cosmos.
The Moirai, or Fates, determine the length of a person’s life, and the Keres enforce the end of
that life by carrying one’s eidolon off to the underworld. 77 The Erinyes, or Furies exact
revenge on behalf of the dead for unjust crimes. 78 In tending to the unsavory aspects of
human existence – the violent transgression of natural law or the arbitrary finality of death –
these deities belong to a class separate from the Olympian pantheon. Along with the Gorgon,
they attend to areas of human life which the Olympic gods consider beneath them and even
dangerous; an Olympian would abandon a mortally wounded human to avoid the pollution of
death. 79
75
Vernant, “Feminine Figures of Death in Greece,” in Mortals and Immortals op. cit., 95.
76
Ibid. 95-96.
77
For example, in Odyssey 3.410, “Neleus had been brought low by Ker and had gone on his way to
Haides’ house,” Ker acts as the agent of the Moirai.
78
These three groups of deities were often conflated with each other. See Aeschylus, Seven Against
Thebes 1060-1: “w)= mega/lauxoi kai\ fqersigenei=j Kh=rej+ )Erinu/ej;” Harrison 183-184; and Dietrich
67, 92-94.
79
In Euripides’ Alcestis (20-23), Apollo avoids the approaching Hades because of the pollution his
Alyssa Hagen 32
One of the only deities in the family of Zeus who can be said to cross into the world of
the dead is Artemis, in her conflated form of Artemis-Hekate. Hekate was a virgin goddess
and kourotrophos much like Artemis, and associated with dogs and snakes; the two were
often conflated in cult because of these intersections. 80 We learned in the last chapter how
Artemis is an enforcer of boundaries in the physical and mental worlds, and it is in this
capacity that she is involved with the underworld. The Gorgon guards the gates of Hades in
part because she is an agent of Artemis, keeping the living and the dead separate from each
other and overseeing the crossing point. She is a threat to humans, but only for their own
good: if the living were allowed to freely mingle with the dead, the natural order, Zeus’ order,
would be overturned.
However, the Gorgon’s role as guardian of Hades is only one aspect of her
overarching chthonic power. Control over life and death was traditionally the domain of the
Mother Goddesses we examined in the last chapter. Fertility and death were connected
conceptually in the earth, which delivers crops and water and then takes back the human dead
to nourish itself. The chthonic gods of the Greek pantheon like Demeter and Hades were
associated with both death and fecundity; in Hesiod’s Works and Days, he gives instructions
to pray to Hades “Zeus of the Earth” and Demeter when sowing the first seeds in
springtime. 81 Indeed, the shape of a round storage jar, one of the earliest symbols used to
designate a fertility goddess by its resemblance to the womb, was also widely used in burials
in many cultures. From the Mycenaean tholos or beehive tombs to the burial pithoi of the
Classical era, the shape persists in Greece as a vehicle for interring the dead. Marija Gimbutas
equates the earth here to the body of a goddess “Mother of the Dead,” to whom the deceased
are entrusted as her children. “Burial in the womb is analogous to a seed being planted in the
earth, and it was therefore natural to expect new life to emerge from the old.” 82 This means
that Gorgo’s duty as a female divine guardian in the underworld is carried over from older
traditions of dedicating the dead to a Mother Goddess. The fact that Gorgo also exhibits the
traits of a fertility goddess, as we have seen above in Chapter 2, sheds light on why she would
A vivid example of the Gorgon’s power over life and death comes from literature. In
Euripides’ Ion, Creusa uses Medusa’s blood, passed down to her from Erichthonius to poison
her son. She explains that she possesses “two drops of blood from the Gorgon…one is deadly,
the other heals disease.” 83 That the blood of the Gorgon can both heal and kill belies the
duplicity of the chthonic goddess, and introduces liquidity as another important aspect of this
realm. If the earth is the body of the Goddess, water that flows under or up from the earth is
the flow of the Goddess: blood, milk, or amniotic fluid. “The cult of wells and thermal
springs…cannot be separated from the cult of the life-dispensing Goddess, single or triple.” 84
J. H. Croon has noted that Gorgon representations have been found on coins and monumental
architecture on the island of Seriphos and at other cult sites with springs, notably Selinus,
Thermon, and Methymna. 85 This association could also be related to the Gorgon’s
82
Gimbutas 151, 218-219.
83
Euripides, Ion (Robert Potter, trans.) 1004-1006: “dissou\j stalagmou\j ai(/matoj Gorgou=j
a)p/ o…to\n me\n qana/simon, to\n d' a)kesfo/ron no/swn.” See also Apollodorus Library 2.144.
84
Gimbutas 43.
85
Croon 11-12.
Alyssa Hagen 34
stewardship of the gate to Hades in that the spring is a point where the worlds below and
above ground meet, rather like the fissure in the ground at Delphi decorated with gorgoneia. 86
3.1: Detail of Caeretan black figure hydria showing Herakles and Cerberos, Cairea, c. 530 B.C.E.
Like the fertility goddesses they aid, the animals we looked at in the last chapter also
symbolize the beginning and end of the life cycle. Ground-dwelling animals like the snake
were associated with underground phenomena, and thus with the body of an earth goddess,
which was often identified as a cave or fissure in the earth. The snake was thought to hold
regenerative powers because of its ability to slough its skin; the Greek word gh=raj meant
both old age and the skin of a snake. 87 Indeed, Cerberos, Gorgo’s counterpart in policing the
border of Hades, was often depicted with a “mane” of snakes reminiscent of the Gorgon’s hair
[Figure 3.1]. Birds, particularly owls, were also seen as creatures who transcended the
boundaries of living and dying. Robert Luyster has argued that Athena fulfills a death goddess
role partly because of her association with snakes and owls. In the last chapter, we saw how
Athena displayed a chthonic aspect in myth with her relationship to Erichthonios, whose very
86
See, for instance, Euripides Ion 223-224: “Chorus: Does the temple of Phoebus really hold the
center of the earth? Ion: Yes, adorned with garlands, and gorgons all around.”
87
Gimbutas 135.
Alyssa Hagen 35
name provides a link – “He of the Very Underworld.” 88 The Gorgon, too, was paired with
owls, especially on coins; a bronze trias from Sicily shows a gorgoneion on the obverse and
on the reverse an owl clutching a snake or lizard in its claw [Figure 3.2]. The gorgoneion can
represent a “shorthand” symbol for Athena, and it is likely that the motif was meant to make
elements stem only from her relation to these mother goddess figures, however. Uses of
gorgoneia decorating amulets correspond to evidence from the Near East of demonic, non-
human spirits who both bring terror and protection on amulets, seals, or other devices of
apotropaic magic. Early scholars, swept away on a current of Orientalism, often overlooked
the sphere of the earth goddesses entirely in favor of comparing the Gorgon to these demons.
Clark Hopkins writes, “The full figure of the Gorgon…came over directly and with very
surely myopic, there is merit to the argument that some chthonic elements of the Gorgon
88
Luyster 146.
89
Hopkins 355.
Alyssa Hagen 36
A common fear was the loss of children, especially infants, and the belief in demons
who pray on the young during the early months of life was common in Greece and the Near
East. According to Walter Burkert, a daimon called Lamia appears in Greece as a baby-
snatcher: “grotesque, repulsive, and hideous beyond measure.” The Assyrian Lamashtu is
widely recognized to be cognate to Lamia in that she too brought death and ruin to pregnant
women and infants. 90 In pictorial representations she shares qualities with the Gorgon: on a
seventh-century plate found near Babylon, she holds two snakes in her hands and stands on a
horse or donkey in the knielaufen pose so characteristic of the Gorgon [Figure 3.3]. 91 Her
breasts hang low, allowing two dogs to suckle, and her head resembles that of a lion; we
learned how leonine features often occur on gorgoneia in the last chapter. Lamashtu, indeed,
resembles a fertility goddess in regard to her attributes, but her purpose is perverted: she
destroys the young which a Mother Goddess would protect, embodying a contradiction of
There is, then, a visible trend of supernatural belief which runs between Mesopotamia
and Greece; Burkert cites Assyrian demon seals with Phoenician script as evidence of its
diffusion. 92 The Phoenicians certainly played a major role in the distribution of ideas and
material culture westward into Greece. Nanno Marinatos elaborates, saying that the
Phoenicians “visited Cyprus, Crete, and the South of the Peloponnese and brought with them
script, metallurgy, amulets and magical practices… Magic was always eagerly received,
especially if it had foreign origins.” 93 Images of the Gorgon following well-traveled trade
90
Burkert, Orientalizing Revolution 82.
91
For examples of the snake-wielding Gorgon, see LIMC nos. 251, 261.
92
Burkert, Orientalizing Revolution 83.
93
Marinatos 48.
Alyssa Hagen 37
routes, in cities like Corfu, Rhodes, and Syracuse, make a case for the popularity of “foreign”
notions and for the influence of Near Eastern demons on the Greek belief system. 94
3.3: Bronze plate showing Pazuzu presiding over a ceremony to dispel Lamashtu, c. 650 B.C.E.
Along with this trend came an important concept, perhaps not new to the Greeks, that
evil can be used to drive away evil. Spirits who cause harm can also be beneficent,
counteracting another threat with their own, just as the Gorgon does. Pazuzu, a bringer of
famine and disease, was used as an amuletic character to repel Lamashtu. The plate
mentioned above displays Pazuzu overseeing a ritual meant to cure an individual’s illness,
culminating in the expulsion of Lamashtu in the bottom panel. Like her, he is depicted with a
leonine face, as well as insect or bird wings, bird feet, and sometimes a snake-phallus. 95 A
94
For a more thorough discussion of Orientalizing influence in Greek art, see Napier 99-107.
95
Gimbutas (208) mentions that insect or bee wings and snakes were symbols of regeneration, and it is
possible that Pazuzu’s healing of the sick is a form of this power.
Alyssa Hagen 38
much more popular protector figure was the Egyptian Bes, who was worshiped as far north as
Syria and would have certainly been known in Greece. Heated academic debate about
whether Bes was a direct influence on the Gorgon has gone on for over a century, and their
similarity is worth noting. 96 Bes is depicted en face, an uncommon pose in Egyptian art, and
ithyphallic, with a beard and protruding tongue. 97 He too was thought to protect the young
and drive away evil and therefore keep order in the cosmos. Napier mentions that
“combinations of the Egyptian Bes with Gorgons and with Near Eastern winged monsters are
common,” 98 and therefore it is possible that elements of his role in Egypt were carried to
Humbaba, a Babylonian monster who appears in the Gilgamesh epic, has been
extensively analyzed as an origin of the Gorgon. Like Bes, he always appears in full face, and
is shown in the knielaufen pose. 99 Clark Hopkins, in his extensive discussion of Humbaba as
an influence on the Gorgon type, notes that the schema of a monster facing forward with one
knee bent between two victorious humans is an Assyrian-Babylonian convention. There are
ample examples of these scenes which depict the battle between Gilgamesh, Humbaba, and
Enkidu [Figure 3.4]. 100 This pose became common in representations of Perseus beheading
Medusa [Figure 3.5]. But as was the case with the other demons, Humbaba’s similarity to the
Gorgon is not limited to iconography. In the Gilgamesh myth, Humbaba guards the cedar
forest in the northern Levant, which would have seemed a wild and faraway place to a native
Mesopotamian, much like the land of the Hesperides beyond Oceanus where the Gorgons
96
See Adolf Furtwangler and W. H. Roscher, Lexikon der Mythologie; Hopkins 344.
97
Marinatos 51, 55; for a side-by-side comparison of Bes and Gorgo, see p. 55 figs. 3.10a and 3.10b.
98
Napier 92.
99
Hopkins 345-346, Napier 109.
100
Hopkins 350-352 and figs. 4-6.
Alyssa Hagen 39
were said to live. 101 He is in company with Pazuzu and Bes in that he can be a terrifying
destroyer and an apotropaion, “a tame demon whose face has a protective virtue.” 102 The
combination of protection and revulsion coupled with the disembodied head symbol may have
contributed to the use of gorgoneia in Greece, but Humbaba can only enhance our picture of
3.4, left: Impression of Neo-Assyrian cylinder seal showing Gilgamesh and Enkidu attacking
Humbaba. 3.5, right: Attic black-figure jar depicting Perseus beheading Medusa with Hermes, c. 540
B.C.E.
Conclusions
In this chapter, we have gone from the concrete to the speculative, from the Gorgon’s
role in the relatively well-ordered Greek cosmos to the cultural melting pot of the Eastern
Mediterranean. The underworld deities in Hades, including the Gorgon, were enforcers,
dealing with the unsavory aspects of life, the violence of death and the injustice of murder.
101
Napier 109; Hesiod Theogony 270ff.
102
Hopkins 346. Napier (130-132) postulates that Humbaba is also connected to the Indo-Iranian
tradition through the similarity of his name to that of an Elamite king, Khumbaba, who fought
protracted wars with the Babylonians, and the Sanskrit word kumbha, meaning container or womb.
Evidence for this association is purely circumstantial, however, and while the euhemerizing story of
Khumbaba may have provided some inspiration for Humbaba, there is no indication that he was a
fertility figure as the word kumbha would suggest.
Alyssa Hagen 40
Terrifying femininity as a concept evolved from the “Terrible Mother,” the dark side of the
older chthonic goddesses, the power of life and death expressed in burial rites meant to mirror
birth and the mythical use of the Gorgon’s blood. An affiliation with the underworld, with
chthonic deities like Demeter and the Delphic oracle, indicates the necessity of the Gorgon as
a protector against the unknown. Iconography connects the Gorgon to the underworld through
her bird and snake characteristics, and through similarities to the exorcising icons of the Near
East. It is possible that the pictorial schema of these Eastern demons was simply borrowed by
Greek artists searching for a way to express the function of the Gorgon as it had already
developed in Greece, but transmission and intermingling of culture is more complex than this
and we must keep in mind the functions of these demons in their places of origin. From the
stretch to postulate that the role of the Gorgon as a kourotrophos is in part borrowed from
these traditions. At any rate, Gorgo’s connections to the basic “mysteries” of life, the
unpredictability and finality of death, and familiarity with the unknown and supernatural, will
lead us into the next stage of our exploration: ecstatic ritual and intoxication.
Alyssa Hagen 41
Chapter 4:
Gorgo in Ecstatic Ritual
Now that we have examined the function of the Gorgon in transcending boundaries between
life and death, we can understand her role in negotiating religious precincts. The altered states
of ecstatic ritual and intoxication constitute a liminality of the mind, in which the spiritual
state overpowers the celebrant and reality and imagination became indistinguishable. There
was necessity for protection in the undertaking of a ritual or symposium just as there was in
sailing across the Aegean or giving birth, i.e. in any precarious situation. Protection early on
took the form of masks, and the Gorgon’s apotropaic face may have been used in fertility
rituals, since the cults of chthonic gods particularly used masks in their worship. 103 The
Gorgon joins the Satyr and other bestial monsters in being an apotropaion and guide in the
form of ritual masks and decorations on drinking cups and sacred items.
A much-discussed issue in early studies of the Gorgon was the inception of the
disembodied head as a symbol, and whether it might have originated from a mask worn in
rituals. 104 Indeed, the Gorgon seems to have been linked at least with rituals of initiation, and
103
Both Dionysos and Demeter have been connected to mask cults. Croon (13) mentions the cult of
Demeter Kidaria at Pheneus, a locale noted for its mythical association with Hades and the Styx.
Pausanias here recorded a rite in which a priest donned a mask of Demeter and beat the ground to
drive away daemons. Napier includes Dionysos in the category of fertility deities, and cites a cup
depicting maenads dancing around a mask of the god mounted on a post (52, pl. 14).
104
Furtwangler (Roscher’s Lexicon, 1695-1727) and Jane Harrison (190) assumed that the gorgoneion
was a stylized mask. Recently, Wilk (35) and Callois (“The Gorgon Mask,” in The Medusa Reader op.
cit. 104-5) have agreed, while Marinatos (60) dismisses the theory on lack of evidence. Napier gives a
very reasonable explanation of the inherent difficulties in dissecting the uses of pre-Classical masks,
pointing out that one cannot categorically distinguish masks used for votive, dramatic, ritual, or
Alyssa Hagen 42
it is entirely possible that its face was worn in re-enactments of Perseus’ adventure or for
more general purposes. Marinatos cites an inscription from Mycenae that mentions Perseus
“in connection with ‘parents’ and a state function in which the recorders for sacred matters
(hieromnemones) are to serve as judges,” indicating a ritual for young men patterned on
Perseus’ initiation. 105 The Gorgon is closely connected to initiation ritual through her
patronage of youths like Perseus, as we will see in the next chapter. Our material evidence,
however, is scant: terracotta heads from sanctuaries of Hera at Tiryns in the Argolid and
Gortyn on Crete, and the Temple of Artemis Ortheia at Sparta. It would be logical to wear a
Gorgon mask in a rite in Artemis’ precinct, since we have seen that the two divinities are
closely connected. The association of Gorgon with Artemis and Hekate, protective and
dangerous goddesses, can help us understand what role the Gorgon may have played in ritual.
Artemis, like the Mistress of Animals, is an initiatrix, and in her conflated Hekate form she is
the “hag” goddess. In imitating the power of these chthonic goddesses through the Gorgon’s
mask, the worshiper becomes an apotropaion himself and rid the temple precinct of any ill
But the question remains: are these masks actually Gorgon faces? Krauskopf includes
them in his entry on Gorgons under the heading “Preliminary stages and development of firm
types.” 106 The masks from Tiryns certainly do not resemble the fully developed Gorgon very
closely, with their large ears and indistinct heavy features, showing no tongue but an open
mouth and boar’s tusks. They also date from near the time that the Gorgon type developed in
funerary purposes, as even cumbersome votive masks could be used in ritual, funerary masks as
votives, and so forth (46-51).
105
Marinatos 59. See also M. Jameson, “Perseus, the Hero of Mykenai,” in R. Hagg and G. Nordquist
(eds) Celebrations of Death and Divinity in Bronze Age Argolid (Stockholm 1990), which Marinatos
cites extensively for her argument.
106
LIMC nos. 1 and 2.
Alyssa Hagen 43
Greece, around 750 to 650 B.C.E., and would reasonably reflect the regional variation found
in early depictions. 107 Looking at these variations, before the Gorgon was solidified and
normalized as an image, allows us to examine the diverse ideas and influences which went
into constructing it. The masks from both Sparta and Tiryns which have been identified as
Gorgons at some time fall into two character types: frightening crones and beastly demons.
The crone type reveals an association with Artemis-Hekate, the crone goddess. The Gorgon
sisters were crones too, like their cousins the Graiae (“old women”), protective –
paradoxically – precisely because of their association with death. The demonic masks follow
the pattern of Babylonian and Assyrian depictions like that of Humbaba, which, as we saw in
the previous chapter, was an influence on the Gorgon in artistic representation as well as in
concept. The “furrowed, grimacing masks” from Sparta have pronounced curves running from
nose to jowl, sometimes merging with a beard [Figure 4.1]. Jane Carter points out that similar
masks have been found, along with masks of unbearded youths, in Mesopotamia in the second
millennium B.C.E., around the time that Humbaba emerged as a popular artistic subject. She
traces the movement of mask production in this style to the Levant in the late second
millennium, then through Cyprus to Sparta on the ships of Phoenician traders. 108 “The
furrowed masks may have preserved Humbaba’s functional identity – the demonic adversary
of a semi-divine hero.” 109 If this is so, the masks of Artemis are the strongest evidence we
have of the influence of the Gilgamesh epic on Greek myth and of young men’s initiation
rituals associated with the Gorgon and Artemis as protectresses. Although the masks may not
portray “gorgons” as they came to be known later, they illustrate a key association between
107
Jane Carter, “The Masks of Ortheia,” American Journal of Archaeology 91:3 (1987): 360.
108
Ibid. 362-364, figs. 7-11.
109
Ibid. 366.
Alyssa Hagen 44
the ideas of the dual protective characters, hag-goddess and monster-demon, which soon
4.1. a) Old Babylonian mask of Humbaba’s head. b) Terracotta mask from the Temple of Artemis
Ortheia, Sparta.
The Gorgon’s significance and purpose in ritual is tied to her relationship with other
daimons like the ones portrayed on the demonic masks, and the Satyr type in particular.
Gorgons share their prophylactic role with Satyrs as baskania (evil eye repellents) on non-
sacred items: kilns, building decorations, amulets, pottery, and drinking cups. 110 Both have
grotesque, twisted, beastlike facial features; Gorgons often sport unkempt, Satyr-like beards.
Both are often shown in motion and en face, Satyrs dancing, Gorgons chasing, suggesting the
frenetic element of ritual dance or possession. They can be crouching or otherwise exposing
themselves, sticking out their tongues in obscene gestures meant to deflect evil intentions with
threatening sexuality [Figure 4.2]. Satyrs’ sexual potency is similar to the fecundity of the
goddesses to whom I compared the Gorgon earlier; they dwell in the wilderness, in mountains
sacred to Artemis, cavorting with nymphs and guarding the secrets of those mysterious drinks
110
See above Ch. 3, Harrison 190.
Alyssa Hagen 45
which change men’s behavior. The Satyr Aristaios was reputedly the first beekeeper – linking
him to the bee iconography of older goddesses – and an accomplished hunter in the tradition
of Artemis. 111 Like Gorgons, Satyrs can also be associated with civilized behavior in
situations when they help to define humanity’s separation from beasts and gods. The same
Aristaios was also a pioneer in cheese making and olive husbandry, which along with honey
production were staples of Mediterranean agriculture and trade that supported the Greek way
of life. 112 Once again, creatures with strong feral qualities show that they also serve an
4.2. a) Etrurian chariot plaque with Gorgon splaying legs, c. 500 B.C.E. b) Detail of Attic black figure
eye-cup showing a Satyr in a similar position, seated between the two eyes. Nikosthenes, c. 530
B.C.E.
The Satyr’s love of cacophonous celebration is also echoed in the howl of the Gorgon.
Hopkins and Howe have suggested that the Greek word gorg- is derived from the Sanskrit
root garj- meaning shriek or piercing noise, but this justification is a tenuous argument for a
111
Nonnus Dionysiaca 5.212.
112
Diodorus Siculus Library 4.81.1 and Oppian Cynegetica 4.265.
Alyssa Hagen 46
simpler concept. 113 The monster’s open mouth itself indicates its screaming, and the sisters of
Medusa are described as screaming after Perseus. Athena was said to have invented the flute
to imitate the Gorgon’s cry, “weaving in music's rich refrain the ghoulish dirge of the fierce-
hearted Gorgones.” 114 When a Satyr, Marsyas, mocked the goddess’ puffed cheeks as she was
playing, she cast the flute down to him in disgust and he took it up as his own. We have here a
direct mythological connection between the Gorgon and the Satyr, one (though not the only)
explanation for their overlapping uses. They are disruptive, making wild sounds very different
Symbolism on Eye-Cups
Satyrs are best known, of course, as members of Dionysos’ entourage, and they
provide a conceptual bridge between Gorgo and Dionysos in their ambivalent nature,
hovering between man and beast. The tradition of drinking wine, usually at symposia, brings
Satyrs and Gorgons into conflation on drinking cups (kylikes). Most of these drinking cups
feature a pair of eyes on the outside with a figure in between them, a motif we saw earlier in
connection with apotropaia against the evil eye [Figure 1.1]. 116 The painted subjects of these
eye-cups follow two general themes. First, there is that of revelry, depictions of mythical and
actual events, from cavorting satyrs and maenads to Dionysos carrying a wine skin to
reclining komasts. Then there is the apotropaic theme, which includes not only images of
113
Hopkins 341 and Thalia Howe, “The Origin and Function of the Gorgon-Head,” American Journal
of Archaeology 58 (1954), 210-211. Vernant (117) rejects the Sanskrit root.
114
Pindar Pythian XII.8-9. See also Ovid Fasti 6.697; Vernant 118, 126. Nonnus (Dionysiaca 40.227)
describes a man playing a flute who “droned a gruesome Libyan lament, one which long ago both
Sthenno and Euryale with one many-throated voice sounded hissing and weeping over Medousa newly
gashed, while their snakes gave out voice from two hundred heads, and from the lamentations of their
curling and hissing hairs they uttered the ‘manyheaded dirge of Medousa.’”
115
Ovid (Metamorphoses 4.770) locates Medusa and Poseidon’s affair in the very temple of Athena.
116
See also LIMC nos. 35, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, and 43.
Alyssa Hagen 47
gorgons and gorgoneia but also Pegasos and even Athena, who appear occasionally as a
variation to indicate the Gorgon’s presence. These categories are certainly not exclusive;
Gorgons often appear running like Satyrs, and it can be difficult to differentiate between the
Satyr’s grin and the Gorgon’s grimace. In Figure 4.3, the only indication that the image is a
Gorgon and not a Satyr is the protruding tongue. We have seen that the Satyr’s lasciviousness
4.3: Tondo of Attic black figure kylix showing Gorgoneion or joking Satyr, Etruria, c. 525-500 B.C.E.
The act of drinking and reveling, then, was thought to be a time during which one was
vulnerable to keres or ill intentions. The combination of large eyes and scenes of sexuality,
real or implied by lewd displays, constitutes a powerful, twofold protective image. Perhaps
these were devices simply to ensure that one’s cup did not spill, or to avoid a hangover in the
morning. There were plenty of opportunities for accidents during the impairment of
drunkenness. Sailing was often compared to intoxication in that it was a mental journey in
which one was at the mercy of a capricious body of liquid, whether it be the Aegean or the
Alyssa Hagen 48
wine in a psykter. 117 Dionysos, as the deity of wine and intoxication, was a liminal god as
much as Artemis, and his appearance on eye-cups indicates his protection along with that of
Satyr and Gorgon. The liminality of drinking brings the Gorgon into the realm of Dionysos, a
The realm of Dionysos coincides with that of the fertility goddesses in that he is a god
of to vegetation and reproduction, and the liquids wine and honey illustrate this association as
symbols of divine fertility. In terms of ritual, wine (and sometimes honey-mead) was used to
create an effect in the mind of alterity, of losing one’s identity and taking on another, such as
that of a Gorgon. The Gorgon’s head is the mask of the celebrant, and eyes painted on the
outside of a cup imply the presence of a whole head. Many kylikes have noses between the
eyes, and some feature ears, either human or Satyr-like, on the sides. 118 John Boardman went
so far as to claim the eye-cup was meant to look like a mask. “Consider one raised to the lips
of a drinker: the eyes cover his eyes, the handles his ears, the gaping underfoot his mouth.” 119
Regardless, the head was an implied motif on the cup early on, which suggests that the
intoxicant in the cup will soon take over the mind. An amphora from Eleusis fuses the idea of
the eye-cup and the Gorgon head into one [Figure 4.4]. The artistic representation of the
Gorgons is still in its earliest stages here, and these already show the characteristic snakes
around the head, open mouth displaying teeth and tongue, and wide eyes. In between the eyes,
though, which are unusually wide-set, there is what appears to be a stream of liquid. These
117
Williams 133. Drinking cups have been found with ships and ocean waves painted on them, like
the famous kylix of Exekias depicting Dionysos sailing in the tondo (Munich 2044). An Attic cup in
Leipzig has ship prows flanking the eyes. See Leipzig, University T 472, Corpus Vasorum
Antiquorum Leipzig 2, DDR 2, 1973, pl. 33.2.
118
G. Ferrari, “Eye-Cup,” Revue Archeologique 1 (1986): 12, 14, and figs. 10-12.
119
Ferrari 11 n. 27, 14-20. Ferrari concludes that the eye-cup represented a Dionysiac mask, since the
appearance of this type around 540-530 B.C.E. coincides with the beginning of the use of masks in
dramatic presentations. See also David Napier, Foreign Bodies: Performance, Art, and Symbolic
Anthropology (Berkeley 1992) 103.
Alyssa Hagen 49
head markings are reminiscent of a type of cup molded to resemble a head, usually that of an
animal, and the snakes curling up from the neck may be the handles. Napier calls this a “bowl
of sacred water,” and relates it to the marks on the foreheads of later Gorgons which have
been reduced to a dot or line pattern as on Figure 4.3. 120 Though it is difficult to make a case
from one anomalistic example, the representation of sacred fluid – it does not matter what the
fluid is, as water, wine, and honey were all signs of the fertility of the earth – connects the
Gorgon to the rituals of Dionysos and Demeter as some manifestation of the protective power
Conclusions
The functions of Gorgons and Satyrs commingle in their roles as apotropaic symbols
in ritual. Grotesque, grimacing faces of old men or women were worn to scare off keres or
120
Napier 167-178.
Alyssa Hagen 50
other evil influences from the god’s precinct, and these patterns may have solidified later into
the face of the Satyr or Silen and the crone Gorgon. The Gorgon may also have played an
initiatory role in rituals based on the Perseus myth, and her function as an initiatrix would
have been acknowledged at the sanctuary of Artemis Ortheia, a goddess already connected
with rites of passage. The path of interpretation leads us to conclude that the fertility image of
the Gorgon was a part of ritual in the precincts of Dionysos, Demeter, and Artemis,
Chapter 5:
Gorgo in the Sphere of Men
Now that we have a better understanding of the way the Gorgon helped negotiate dangerous
ritual situations, it remains to be seen how her protective power applies in martial life. Since
men and women had different priorities and concerns in life, deities and symbols held gender-
dependent meanings for the worshiper. The Gorgon’s face can represent the terrible face of
one’s foe in the violent confrontation of war or hunting, two arenas in which men
distinguished themselves from women and from one another. Therefore, a man confronted
with the image of a Gorgon head would likely be reminded of Perseus’ chase, the thrill of the
hunt, or a shield, perhaps borne by Athena as she rides her chariot into battle.
But this terrifying visage also carries protection. In association with Athena, the
gorgoneion emphasizes the goddess’s stewardship of Athens and the young male citizens,
known as ephebes, who when grown would have fought to defend their homes. In Artemis’
realm, the Gorgon protects the ephebes during their initiation, often by hunting, into the
sphere of citizenship. These two broader areas of influence necessarily blur into each other,
since a man’s life was taken up in war, politics, hunting and religion in turn. The flexibility of
the Gorgon as a symbol suits these variants, though, by protecting a man during the liminal
times of initiation, the first hunt or the first battle, in perilous conditions when the line
We have seen in an earlier chapter how the lion was associated with fertility goddesses
in Asia Minor. But the lion was also a martial animal: in Assyria and Egypt lions protected
Alyssa Hagen 52
the king under the command of the goddesses Ishtar and Sekhmet/Bast, respectively. The
example of this leontocephalic Egyptian war goddess can help us understand why the Gorgon
is a protective element for the Greeks. The concepts of a lion’s ferocity both in hunting and
defense of its young and the warlike goddess protecting her troops combine in the gorgoneion,
expression reinforces Athena’s power and, in turn, draws its protective power in battle from
Gorgoneia on Armor
illustrated in a description of Agamemnon's shield. “And circled in the midst of all was the
blank-eyed face of the Gorgon / with her stare of horror, and Fear was inscribed upon it, and
Terror.” 121 Fear and Terror aid the shield’s bearer, directing their power to strike terror in his
opponent. Stephen Wilk postulates that the Gorgon's face was a particularly distracting
pattern to put on a shield because of its wide eyes, and that therefore “in single combat the
shield can function very effectively as an attention-grabbing device.” 122 This slight practical
advantage is hardly the only reason to put such an elaborate insignia on a shield. Symbolic
significance also plays a part in armor ornamentation. The style of the face, with its grimacing
sneer, teeth bared and eyes wide, suggests the expression of a berserker, and thus, as Vernant
has explained, “the face and eyes somehow concentrate the power of death that radiates from
the body of the warrior.” 123 The psychological impact would have been important to the
121
Iliad 11.36ff, Richmond Lattimore, trans. For examples, see LIMC nos. 148, 173, 176, 177, 181,
and 184.
122
Wilk 158.
123
Vernant, “Death in the Eyes: Gorgo, Figure of the Other,” in Mortals and Immortals op. cit., 117.
Alyssa Hagen 53
Most crucially, though, the gorgoneion is a protective device for the individual, a
good-luck charm for combat. Pausanias writes of a shield decorated with a gorgoneion that he
saw dedicated at Olympia under a statue of Nike. The inscription reads: “The temple has a
golden shield; from Tanagra / The Lacedaemonians and their allies dedicated it, / A gift taken
from the Argives, Athenians and Ionians, / The tithe offered for victory in war.” 124 The
Gorgon provides an appropriate image for this shield as a quintessential symbol of war and as
a symbol of the Gorgon’s protective invoked over the city of Sparta in its campaigning in
Boeotia.
This shield strap, another dedication from Olympia, shows Medusa in a modified
knielaufen pose, with Chrysaor and Pegasos in her arms [Figure 5.1]. We learned in Chapter 2
how the anachronistic schema of Medusa with her offspring emphasizes the Gorgon’s
protection of young people and animals. This strap, because of its place on a shield, indicates
protection for young soldiers in battle. The Vix krater, for instance, features handles worked
124
Pausanias Guide to Greece 5.10.4. The battle referenced is likely that of 457 B.C.E.
Alyssa Hagen 54
in the shape of Gorgons and a line of armed warriors and horses in relief around the rim
[Figure 5.2]. But we will return later to Gorgo’s relationship with young men.
5.2 Bronze volute krater from Vix, Burgundy, France, c. 500 B.C.E.
A gorgoneion’s appearance on the shield of Athena, then, relates her more closely to a
human soldier. Indeed, the goddess is commonly classified by scholars as one of the Greek
deities who is “present at hand,” meaning that she would personally interfere in battle to aid a
fighter; this quality is opposed to Artemis or Apollo, who were called “shooters-from-afar.”
The gorgon seems to have first appeared on Athena's shield on pottery decorations around 600
B.C.E. 125 Perhaps this was a stylistic choice, since the way in which the aegis was initially
drawn restricted prominent display of the gorgoneion. 126 In any case, the shield served to
characterize Athena as a martial goddess in a general sense and also began to tie the Gorgon
specifically to the concept of Athena’s protection, a quality which was exemplified in her
aegis.
125
Patricia Marx, “Introduction of the Gorgoneion to the Shield/Aegis of Athena,” Revue
Archeologique (1993): 233.
126
ibid. 234-235. Marx argues that an early version of the Perseus myth in which Athena fixes
Medusa’s head to her shield may have inspired this trend.
Alyssa Hagen 55
The most easily visible link between Athena and Gorgo is the gorgoneion adorning
Athena’s aegis. The nature of this item – the aegis – is somewhat cloudy to scholars. Noel
Robertson has argued that it was an “instrument of weather magic,” 127 used by Zeus to
summon his storms; possibly a wand, judging from textual evidence which describes Zeus as
“brandishing” or “wielding” the aegis. Athena was said to wear it as a garment, originally
perhaps a goatskin whose head would rest on her breast. 128 In earlier depictions beginning
around 575 B.C.E. it was worn on the back and later altered to cover her torso, providing
more visibility for the gorgoneion in its center [Figure 5.3]. 129
5.3 Seated Athena statue wearing aegis by Endoios, Athens, c. 525 B.C.E.
Because its invention also attributed to Zeus, the aegis represented Athena's Olympian
power and her devotion to Zeus' law. Dionysios Skytobrachion, writing in the second century
127
Robertson 31.
128
This notion may have originated from Herodotus' observations of a Libyan festival in which a
woman dresses as a warrior goddess with a goatskin aegis. See Robertson’s article and Fontenrose
244-5. Robertson (54) also notes that goats were sacrificed to calm the autumn rains.
129
Marx 240-241; Kim Hartswick, “The Gorgoneion on Aegis of Athena,” Revue Archeologique
(1993): 276-278. For more examples, see LIMC nos. 196, 197, 202, 206, 207, 212, 214, and 216.
Alyssa Hagen 56
B.C.E., relates a story of a chthonic monster called Aigis who is killed by Athena after
The earth being thus all in a flame, and the inhabitants partly
consumed, and partly through fear, having forsaken their
country, Minerva…killed this monster; and wore its skin upon
her breast, to be both as a breast-plate and a coat of mail against
future encounters, and likewise as a memorial of her valour and
glorious victory. 130
Fontenrose equates this account with Zeus' acquisition of the thunderbolt, since both
are “talisman[s], giving Athena or Zeus marvelous power to ward off evil.” 131 In this case, the
description of the people's plight puts Athena's actions in perspective. She is acting in her
capacity as defender of home and country to rid the land of a dangerous threat to law and
order. The tradition of Athena as a civic goddess is then linked to the aegis as an emblem of
that protection. The gorgoneion on the aegis serves to solidify this image by adding an extra
Some of the earliest literary evidence of Athena wearing the aegis comes to us from
130
Diodorus Siculus Library of History, ed. George Booth (London: McDowall, 1814), 210.
131
Fontenrose 244. In this perspective, the thunderbolt is Zeus' aegis.
132
Euripides' references to the Athena-aegis myth lends evidence to Dionysios Skytobrachion's
version. He describes how “Gorgo/n' e)/teke Gh=, deino\n te/raj...h)= paisi\n au(th=j su/mmaxon, qew=n
po/non.” The later story seems to me to be a confusion of this earlier myth, in which the vaguely
defined monster Aigis was actually the Gorgon itself. Athena, according to Euripides, slew the Gorgon
and wore its hide, which came to be known as the aegis.
133
Iliad 5.738-742, Richmond Lattimore, trans. The legitimacy of this passage, however, is under
debate by scholars. Hartswick postulates that the description of the aegis was most likely added by an
editor under Peisistratos in the sixth or fifth century. See Hartswick 275, 278 n.36; Marx 260.
Alyssa Hagen 57
The aegis is meant to be apotropaic, augmenting the terrible might of Athena while also
aiding the soldiers she is fighting for by encouraging them with her dramatic display of
power. In later times, the image of Athena with an aegis was used as a charm to bring good
fortune in war. During a battle in Achaea, the Palladium bearing the aegis was carried out
onto the battlefield, since it “heartens the citizens and terrifies the enemy;” another account of
this battle alleges that a priestess appeared dressed as Athena. The battle site was
appropriately named Pellene after the Achaean victory.134 The Gorgon by itself could have the
power to protect an entire city. Pausanias records a legend of the city of Tegea in which
Athena gave a lock of the Gorgon’s hair to Cepheus “so that Tegea should never be captured
while time shall endure.” 135 The token illustrates the extension of Athena’s power through the
Gorgon symbol. Athena, then, is connected to Gorgo through the iconography of protection,
to the individual or army in battle (as Athena Promachos) and in the defense of the city and its
The Gorgon’s relationship with Artemis functions in much the same way as her
relationship with Athena. Rather than being simply a goddess who rules over wild things,
civilization and wilderness, “where the wild and the cultivated exist side by side -- in
opposition, of course, but where they may also interpenetrate one with another.”136 Though
134
Robertson 36; Luyster 158. For more anecdotes on the aegis and Palladium protecting a city, see
Luyster 160-161.
135
Pausanias Description of Greece 8.47.5.
136
Jean-Pierre Vernant, “Figure and Function of Artemis in Myth and Cult,” in Mortals and Immortals
op. cit. 198.
Alyssa Hagen 58
not traditionally a martial goddess, Artemis operated on the battlefield by maintaining the
laws of civilized pitched battle. She enforced the boundary between warfare, where “each
combatant has his place and is expected to play the role he has been taught in the gymnasium”
and the slaughter “found among the wild beasts who know neither rule nor justice.” 137 She
during a rout to stave off the losing side’s complete destruction. As the martial Mistress of
Animals, she patronized ephebes, represented by beardless horsemen. Evidence from Cretan
pottery show an Artemis-like potnia theron figure on items dedicated by athletes for victory
The relationship of a citizen-soldier to Artemis and to Gorgo began earlier than the
battlefield. These ephebes were wards of the goddess from birth until they developed into
mature men, just as she guided female parthenoi toward marriage. In Sparta, Artemis’ control
was violently illustrated when once a year the young men of a certain age were brought to the
temple of Artemis Orthia and flogged over the altar to give their blood to the goddess. 139 The
ordeal was meant to desensitize the victim and perhaps to test his devotion to his city as
represented by the altar, giving it his blood as he will give his life defending Sparta one day.
In this sense, the domains of Artemis and Athena coincide in that both goddesses aid city-
defenders. The Gorgon, as an emphatic symbol of these two goddesses and a vessel for their
power, protects young men in battle as well as in athletics and the hunt, more contained
137
Ibid. 203-204.
138
Marinatos 84-85, 97-98.
139
Vernant 205.
Alyssa Hagen 59
We have seen above how early representations of the Gorgon show her grasping
smaller figures of horses and beardless men, as on the Olympian shield strap [Figure 5.1]. 140
Her initiatory aspects are more specifically evident in a series of shield straps cited by Nanno
Marinatos. 141 Assuming the content of the different panels in these straps were meant to form
a cohesive theme, the juxtaposition of Gorgons with depictions of youths grappling with
older, bearded men. These adversaries may be giants, gods, or simply mature human men; the
meaning in any case is a rite of passage for the young man, an obstacle he must overcome for
heroic status. An example tying this theme to Artemis’ protectorate is the pediment of the
Temple of Artemis at Corfu which we examined earlier. The decoration in one corner is a
scene of a standing youth aiming at a crouching man [Figure 5.4]. It is unclear what the youth
140
For more examples, see LIMC nos. 271-275, 283.
141
Marinatos 101-103, figs. 5.8-5.14.
Alyssa Hagen 60
is holding, but his striking pose and the older man’s Gorgon-like knielaufen stance indicate
This type of dueling was the stuff of myth, however, and real men had other ways of
marking the passage to adulthood. The first hunt brings young men from the world of the
child to that of the provider and soldier, acquainting them with violence and bloodshed.
Artemis’ domain is the physical space of the Greek borderlands where people and beasts
coexist and the mental space in a human's brain between citizen and wild animal. “Artemis
sacralizes the intangibility of a frontier whose extreme fragility is emphasized by the hunt to
the extent that it may challenge that frontier at any moment.” 143 Artemis, aided by the Gorgon,
provides protection for safe navigation of this space just as she does on the battlefield.
The hunt is a key part of the myth of Perseus and Medusa. By pursuing the Gorgon
and retrieving her head as a prize, the young Perseus makes a name for himself and asserts his
new status as a hero. Medusa serves a function similar to that of Artemis, but taken to an
extreme: rather than being simply the guide on a young man's first hunt, she herself becomes
But Medusa is not the only example of a monster who is also an initiator of heroes.
The centaur Chiron served as mentor to a string of mythic heroes: Heracles, Theseus, Jason,
and Achilles. His is a more peaceful example, but he taught these youths the art of combat,
and even if he did not go as far as to fight against them, the underlying role is the same. The
centaurs had a reputation of being savage and unpredictable; Chiron was the exception to the
142
In Marinatos’ interpretation (98) the weapon is a lightning bolt, identifying the youth as Zeus and
the other man as Kronos.
143
Vernant 197.
Alyssa Hagen 61
rule of a race more closely resembling the Gorgons in temperament than himself. It is possible
that the examples we have of Gorgons with horse bodies, such as Figure 2.7, indicate an early
Scholars have often noted the similarities between the Perseus myth and the
Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, in which Gilgamesh slays the demon Humbaba. While the
Gilgamesh epic is much earlier, first written down in the third millennium B.C.E., it was
iconography en face, often in the knielaufen pose or as a disembodied head, and was
characterized as an apotropaion against evil. The similarities to the Gorgon are hard to
ignore. 145 More importantly, the story itself parallels that of Perseus. Gilgamesh sets off on his
quest aided by his semi-human companion Enkidu who, like Athena, helps him defeat the
monster. Both Perseus and Gilgamesh go on from their ordeals to establish royal dynasties in
their cities, and both men travel to the ends of the earth during their quests. Both heroes also
use magic to accomplish their goals, an uncommon tactic for a male hero in the body of Greek
In the myth of Perseus, Athena also plays her part in helping the youth accomplish his
goal and become a city-founding hero. Pseudo-Apollodorus says that Athena “guided his
hand.” 147 In depictions of his quest on Attic pottery, Athena often stands nearby, watching
over him with her helmet on and spear at the ready [Figure 5.5]. She is wearing her aegis,
again anachronistically, showing her protection of the hero as Athena Promachos. Perseus is
144
See LIMC nos. 285, 346, and 350; Marinatos 59 n.62.
145
Napier 109, Hopkins 346.
146
Napier 85-87, 109-111. We must be wary of assuming that the Perseus myth is directly borrowed
from that of Gilgamesh, though, since there are many aspects of the Perseus myth which cannot be
explained by this story.
147
Psuedo-Apollodorus Library 2.4.2.
Alyssa Hagen 62
facing her, showing his obedience, while using the magical tools she gave him to slay
5.5 Athena watches over Perseus as he grabs the sleeping Medusa on an Attic Pelike, c. 450 B.C.E.
Curiously, Perseus acts alternately as predator and prey. He hunts down Medusa, but
as soon as he captures his prize – her monstrous head – the two surviving Gorgons attack and
chase him away. “Perseus himself, the son of Danae, was at full stretch, like one who hurries
and shudders with horror. And after him rushed the Gorgons, unapproachable and
unspeakable, longing to seize him.” 148 Marinatos speculates that Perseus’ escape may be
related to an initiation ceremony separating a young boy from his mother, personified by the
monstrous females, a plausible explanation if we take into account the use of Gorgon masks
in ritual. 149
148
Hesiod Shield 229-230.
149
Marinatos 60.
Alyssa Hagen 63
Conclusions
Once again, the uses of the Gorgon shift according to its surrounding associations
while remaining around a central locus of meaning. Both Athena and Artemis are concerned
with defense of the city, Athena as champion of Zeus’ law and the realm of men and Artemis
as the keeper of the boundary between the city and the wilderness. Concern with the well-
being of the city logically translates to a concern with bringing up the male citizens who will
fight to defend their home, and who need divine protection when they carry out this crucial
duty. The Gorgon, as a symbol conflated with both goddesses, protects men and helps them
navigate through initiation and battle, enabling them to carry out their prescribed duties and
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