When most people think about Medusa, they think about the story told by the Roman author Ovid in his Metamorphoses. He casts her as a priestess of Athena who was ravaged by Poseidon in Athena’s temple. As punishment for this sacrilege, Athena transformed Medusa into a hideous monster with snakes for hair and a gaze so fierce it could kill. To add insult to injury, she then sent her favored hero Perseus to kill Medusa and wore her severed head as a trophy.
But this is only one version of the myth of Medusa, and it strays pretty far from the original purpose of Medusa and the other gorgons, since she wasn’t the only one, in Greek mythology as divine protectors.
So, who was the original Medusa, and how was she transformed from a protector to a victim?
The Primordial Version of Medusa in Greek Myth
Our earliest insights into Greek religion and mythology come from Hesiod’s Theogony, written around 700 BC. He says that Medusa was one of three Gorgon sisters born to Phorcys and Ceto, primordial gods of the ocean. He sisters were Stheno and Euryale, and while they were all hideous and had snake hair, her sisters were immortal, while Medusa was mortal.
Early depictions of the Gorgons show that has beasts with boar tusks, lolling tongues, and even beards, as they embraced both masculine and feminine characteristics. As well as their snake hair, they also often had wings protruding from their temples.
Images of the Gorgons were often placed on shields, armor, coins, and temple pediments. This was to protect them from evil through apotropaic magic, which was the belief that evil could be driven away by more monstrous beings, in this case, the Gorgons. While in ancient Greek art, humans and gods were usually depicted in profile, much like in Egyptian art, Gorgons were always depicted face on. This may have been to emphasize their terrifying nature.
Athena was the most famous mythological figure to appear with a Gorgon on her aegis, which was either her shield or her breastplate; it is not entirely clear.
An Evolving Monster Myth
Hesiod does not mention the idea that Medusa or the Gorgons could turn men to stone with a single look. This idea seems to appear around the 5th century BC in the works of poets and playwrights such as Pherecydes of Athens, Pindar, and Aeschylus.
However, Hesiod does record a story of Medusa’s death. He said that Poseidon lay with her “in a soft meadow among spring flowers,” with no mention of force. He also mentions her being killed by Perseus, but with no mention of Athena playing any role. Hesiod also says that when Perseus beheaded Medusa, the warrior Chrysaor and the horse Pegasus sprang from her neck.
Perseus the Monster Slayer
So, who was this Perseus? According to Pindar and Apollodorus, a mortal princess of Argos named Danae was locked up by her father because he had received a prophecy that his grandchild would kill him. But Zeus visited Danae and impregnated her (as was his custom), and she gave birth to Perseus. In retaliation, Danae’s father locked her and Perseus in a wooden chest and threw them into the sea. The pair were saved by Dictys, who then raised Perseus as his own.
While Dictys lived a humble life, his brother Polydectes was king of Seriphos. He fell in love with Danae, but Perseus was suspicious of him and tried to protect his mother from his advances. To get him out of the way, Polydectes set Perseus what he thought was an impossible task: retrieve the head of the Gorgon Medusa.
In Hesiod’s version, Perseus killed Medusa on his own without mention of any divine assistance. But by the 5th century BC, he had the help of Athena, who guided him to Medusa and also gave him use of her bronze shield so that he could look at Medusa’s reflection and not risk being turned to stone. He also had the use of Hermes’ winged sandals, and the god helped him find the Graeae, who revealed Medusa’s location, and then the Nymphs, who gave him the helm of Hades that enabled invisibility.
So, thanks to all this divine help, since it seems that the gods really wanted Medusa dead for some reason, Perseus was able to locate the Gorgons, sneak into their lair, behead Medusa, and get away from her angry sisters.
He then found the princess Andromeda chained to a rock to be sacrificed to the sea monster Cetus, so he used Medusa’s head to save her, since even in death it had the power to turn men to stone. He then went back to the court of Polydectes and used the head to turn him and his court into stone, returning Dictys to power. Finally, he gave the head to Athena, who chose to wear it as a trophy of her Aegis.
Writing in the 1st century AD, the Roman poet Lucan in his Pharsalia hints at why Athena and the other gods may have wanted Medusa dead. He suggests that her power to petrify was so great that it threatened “the sea and sky with rare paralysis, and clothe the world with stone.” He suggests that even the gods feared to endure her gaze.
Ovid’s Rewriting of Medusa
These were the stories that the Roman author Ovid had access to when he decided to include Medusa’s story in his Metamorphoses, which was published in AD 8. He took significant liberties with the source materials to create a version of the story that would appeal to his Roman audience and his theme of metamorphosis in myth.
He recast Medusa not as a primordial goddess, but as a beautiful young woman. She caught Neptune’s attention, since he used the Latin names for the gods, and he forced himself upon her inside the temple of Minerva, which was an act of sacrilege. Minerva could not exactly punish her uncle Neptune, so she turned her wrath on Medusa. She transformed her into the familiar hideous monster.
But this is inconsistent with the fact that Ovid still describes he as one of three sisters, and the mortal one, which made her the obvious target for Perseus. She was also the only one with snake hair, as men had often complimented her hair, so it was the first thing that the vengeful Minerva transformed into something hideous.
He also recounts the story of Perseus, who was assisted by Minerva, and adds a few details. He suggests that when Perseus saved Andromeda, he set Medusa’s dead down on a bed of fresh twigs and seaweed. Petrifying power emanated from the head and turned the soft seaweed into stone, creating the world’s first coral wreaths. Explaining the origins of aspects of nature through metamorphosis was another of Ovid’s themes.
While Ovid passes no explicit judgment in his telling of the story, reading between the lines, we are meant to feel a bit sorry for Medusa, who was a victim of fate and divine whims.
Transmission of the Legends
Ovid’s version of the story was the one that became most well-known in the millennia that followed, because while the works of authors like Hesiod were lost and only rediscovered centuries later, Ovid continued to be read in monasteries, making it the first source for many Greek myths. He became extremely popular in the Renaissance, and he was referenced in almost all of Shakespeare’s plays. He also inspired artistic representations of Medusa by masters like Caravaggio (1597), Cellini (545-1554), and Bernini (1630s).
Thus, the archaic goddess Medusa, who protected the Greeks against even greater evil, has come down through history as a victim of divine lust and vengeance.
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