Medusa, wearing the belt of the intertwined snakes, a fertility symbol, as depicted in an altar from
Gela. She embraces her children, the winged horse
Pegasus and the giant
Chrysaor. of Syria (312–280 BC) The three
Gorgons—Medusa,
Stheno, and
Euryale—were described by
Hesiod and
Apollodorus as offspring of the sea-god
Phorcys and his sister
Ceto; according to
Hyginus, however, their parents were "Gorgon" and Ceto. Their genealogy is shared with other sisters, the
Graeae, as in
Aeschylus's
Prometheus Bound, which places both trios of sisters far off "on Kisthene's dreadful plain": Near them their sisters three, the Gorgons, winged With snakes for hair—hatred of mortal man In most versions of the story, Medusa was beheaded by the
hero Perseus, who was sent to fetch her head by King
Polydectes of
Seriphus because Polydectes wanted to marry Perseus's mother. The gods were well aware of this, and Perseus received help. He received a mirrored shield from
Athena, sandals with gold wings from
Hermes, a sword from
Hephaestus and
Hades's
helm of invisibility. Since Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgons who was mortal, Perseus was able to slay her; he did so while looking at the reflection from the mirrored shield he received from Athena. During that time, Medusa was pregnant by
Poseidon. When Perseus beheaded her,
Pegasus, a winged horse, and
Chrysaor, a giant wielding a golden sword, sprang from her body.
Jane Ellen Harrison argues that "her potency only begins when her head is severed, and that potency resides in the head; she is in a word a mask with a body later appended... the basis of the
Gorgoneion is a
cultus object, a ritual mask misunderstood." In a similar manner, the
corals of the
Red Sea were said to have been formed of Medusa's blood spilled onto seaweed when Perseus laid down the petrifying head beside the shore during his short stay in
Ethiopia where he saved and wed the princess
Andromeda, the most beautiful woman at that time. Furthermore, the venomous vipers of the
Sahara, in the
Argonautica 4.1515, Ovid's
Metamorphoses 4.770 and Lucan's
Pharsalia 9.820, were said to have grown from spilt drops of her blood. The blood of Medusa also spawned the
Amphisbaena (a horned dragon-like creature with a snake-headed tail). Perseus then flew to Seriphos, where his mother was being forced into marriage with the king, Polydectes, who was turned into stone by the head. Then Perseus gave the Gorgon's head to Athena, who placed it on her shield, the
Aegis. While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers imagined Medusa and her sisters as having monstrous form, sculptors and vase-painters of the fifth century BC began to envisage her as being beautiful as well as terrifying. In an ode written in 490 BC,
Pindar already speaks of "fair-cheeked Medusa". In a late version of the Medusa myth, by the Roman poet
Ovid, Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden, but when
Neptune (the Roman equivalent of the Greek
Poseidon) mated with her in the temple of
Minerva (the Roman equivalent of the Greek
Athena), the goddess punished Medusa by transforming her beautiful hair into horrible snakes. Although no earlier versions mention this, ancient depictions of Medusa as a beautiful maiden instead of a horrid monster predate Ovid. In classical Greek art, the depiction of Medusa shifted from hideous beast to an attractive young woman, both aggressor and victim, a tragic figure in her death. The earliest of those depictions comes courtesy of
Polygnotus, who drew Medusa as a comely woman sleeping peacefully as Perseus beheads her. As the act of killing a beautiful maiden in her sleep is rather unheroic, it is not clear whether those vases are meant to elicit sympathy for Medusa's fate, or to mock the traditional hero. Some classical references refer to three Gorgons; Harrison considered that the tripling of Medusa into a trio of sisters was a secondary feature in the myth: File:Perseus Medusa Louvre CA795.jpg|Medusa, depicted as a
centaur, is beheaded by Perseus,
Boeotian
pithos, c. 660 BC File:Tempio C di Selinunte, Perseo con Atena decapita Medusa, 540-510 a.C. -FG2.jpg|Perseus decapitating Medusa while Athena looks on, from a preserved metope from the
temple of Apollo in
Selinus. File:Yerebatan 1091.jpg|An ancient Roman carving of the Medusa, now a
spolia in use as a column base in the
Basilica Cistern File:Sousse mosaic Gorgon 03.JPG|The Medusa's head central to a mosaic floor in a
tepidarium of the Roman era. Museum of Sousse, Tunisia File:Aplique con Gorgona Medusa.jpg|Aplique with the shape of Medusa discovered in
Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa File:Glittica romana, medusa, sardonice, II-III sec dc..JPG|A Roman cameo of the 2nd or 3rd century File:Roof ornament with Medusa's head. Etruscan, from Italy, 6th century BCE. National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.jpg|Roof ornament with Medusa's head. Etruscan, from Italy, 6th century BC. National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh ==Modern interpretations==