6/18/2023 0 Comments Poseidon and medusa![]() ![]() Or Conflation of Other Priestess Stories, Maybe? Medusan calendar, and replaced it with another.īut even in all of that Graves does not actually call Medusa a priestess, rather he says that this female monster was originally simply a mask of the great goddess whom he theorises was dethroned by later patriarchal usurpation in Europe.Ĭould this be the point from which, at present day, it has become such a basic assumption that Medusa's story starts off with her as Athena's priestess? ![]() Of their Gorgon masks, and took possession of the sacred horses-anĮarly representation of the goddess with a Gorgon's head and a mare'sīody has been found in Boeotia. Hellenes overran the goddess's chief shrines, stripped her priestesses Gorgon mask: a hideous face intended to warn the profane against That Medusa was once the goddess herself, hiding behind a prophylactic Pointed out ( Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, chapter V) Greece and Asia Minor early in the second millennium BC, andĬhallenged the power of the Triple-goddess. probably, represented the patriarchal Hellenes who invaded 17 of which he writes that:Ī large part of Greek myth is politico-religious history. The closest to such a claim that I've come across is in the speculative anthropology presented by Robert Graves in his 1955 book The Greek Myths, on p. ![]() So where does this notion of Medusa being a priestess of Athena come from? No other source that I've found, Greek or Roman, ancient or mediaeval, mentions anything further about any sort of rivalry or relationship between Medusa and Athena/Minerva prior to the goddess becoming Perseus' patroness in his mission to slay the Gorgon. Once again, though, the Vatican Mythographers simply reiterate the information found in Ovid and contain nothing about priesthood for Medusa. It isn't until centuries later, in the mediaeval Latin compilations called the Vatican Mythographers, that I find the next mention of the story of Neptune's violation of a beautiful Medusa in Minerva's shrine, and of Minerva thereafter making her into a snake-haired horror. He says in Bibliotheka 2.4.3 that the slaying of Medusa by Perseus was Athena's own vanity project because "they say that the Gorgon was fain to match herself with the goddess even in beauty." simply portray her as a monster born into a large family of monsters."Īpollodorus, writing around the same time as Ovid, or perhaps a bit later (in the 1st or 2nd century AD), is the only Greek source that seems to hint at the idea that Medusa's origin was perhaps different from her simply having been born as a monster. According to, "Earlier Greek writers and artists. No explanation is contained in the Metamorphoses, however, of how Neptune and Medusa find themselves in Minerva's sacred precinct, and the text nowhere says that Medusa was a priestess. For some reason Minerva deems this event punishable by the transformation of Medusa's lovely hair into a mass of snakes. The Roman poet Ovid seems, in Book 4 of his Metamorphoses, to be first person to bring up such an idea, in which he says that Neptune (the Roman Poseidon) accosted Medusa in the shrine of Minerva (the Roman Athena). More's the pity if this is how Athena treats her own cultic attendant.Īs far as I've been able to find there is no Greek source which has any explicit mention of a story in which Medusa suffers a sexual assault. Two of them go as far as to say that she was the goddess's "chief priestess." Part of what makes Medusa's story tragic, as it is understood in this modern version, is that Poseidon rapes her and she gets punished for it by Athena changing her from a beautiful damsel into a most deadly thing of terror. Literally half of the top ten results from my search all simply and baldly state that Medusa was Athena's priestess but none citing its source for the statement. I searched via Google for the source of this priestess back-story of Medusa, having myself taken it for granted that it must go back to at least one ancient mythographer. The Internet is replete with the assertion that Medusa was originally a beautiful young lady who once served as priestess of Athena before she was violated by Poseidon in the temple of this virgin goddess. The most complicated aspect of her connection with this goddess, however, would appear to be a modern version thereof. Her relationship with Athena is somewhat complicated by the variety of its different versions. By Poseidon she conceived a pair of twin sons, namely the winged horse Pegasus and some other kind of creature called Chrysaor. Medusa is a monster in Greek mythology known for being associated in some way with the gods Poseidon and Athena.
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