The Mythology of Perseus in the Archaic Period
„The Perseus myth is attested as early as the Iliad, where Zeus tells Hera that he is inflamed by her beauty even more than when he loved ‘Danaë, fair-ankled daughter of Acrisius, who gave birth to Perseus, conspicuous among all men’, as well as in Hesiod’s Theogony, which refers to Perseus’ beheading of Medusa and the consequential emergence of Chrysaor and the winged horse Pegasus. In each case the brevity of the reference indicates the familiarity of the tale. … A fragment of Alcaeus or Sappho reads ‘into the kibisis … he put’; the only other pre-Hellenistic occurrence of the unusual word κίβιϲιϲ denotes the pouch into which Perseus stashes Medusa’s head, so this might point towards a reference to the myth in the Aeolic poetic tradition too.
The clash with Medusa appears in art from the seventh century. A Proto-Attic neck amphora from Eleusis, dating to c. 670–660 and attributed to the Polyphemus Painter, and found in a grave, containing the skeleton of a child, depicts Perseus escaping with Medusa’s decapitated head, pursued by her Gorgon sisters (behind whom lies her headless body), and protected by Athena, who interposes herself between him and his foes. A painted terracotta metope from the temple of Apollo at Thermon (c. 630–620) shows him with cap, winged sandals, and sword, carrying the Gorgon’s head, which is in his pouch but partly visible. … A painted clay relief from Syracuse, dated to the second half of the seventh century, depicts Medusa with Pegasus tucked under her right arm, a clear allusion to the myth of her decapitation. The actual moment when she loses her head is portrayed on a Cycladic relief pithos from the same period, found at Thebes, probably in a grave: Perseus has the pouch slung over his shoulder and his cap on his head, as he swings his sword at Medusa, whose body combines those of a woman and a horse. The hero looks away as he deals the fatal blow, indicating that the artist knew the petrifying power of the Gorgon’s gaze. The same episode seems to have appeared on another pithos from this period, although only Perseus can now be seen on it; and on a fragmentary Protocorinthian cup from Aegina.
Perseus’ encounter with another foe, the sea-monster from which he rescues Andromeda, has a single, rather later, archaic attestation, on a Corinthian black-figure amphora dating to the second quarter of the sixth century: the monster is on the left, confronting Perseus, who is flinging rocks at it, wearing a cap, winged sandals, and carrying the pouch, while Andromeda stands behind him, her hands probably tied.
By the sixth century we encounter the first literary description of Perseus of any length, in the epic Shield attributed to Hesiod but actually composed long after his death. The poem describes an image of Perseus on the shield which gives the work its title; called the son of Danaë and armed with a sword, he is carrying the Gorgon’s head in his bag (specified as the κίβιϲιϲ), and is wearing winged sandals and the cap of Hades, while the other Gorgons pursue. … Another hexameter poem from this period wrongly attributed to Hesiod, the Catalogue of Women, provides the first attestations of two figures who play an important part in Perseus’ life: ‘Dictys and godlike Polydectes’, the sons of Magnes, brother of Macedon and son of Zeus and Thyia, Deucalion’s daughter. Acrisius’ wife, named Eurydice, also features; Danaë is said to be their daughter, and Perseus her son, though of his conception nothing is mentioned, the poem returning to Acrisius’ brother Proetus and his offspring. A tiny fragment from the same papyrus containing the word ‘gold(en)’ has been conjectured to come from a description of Danaë’s impregnation with Perseus by Zeus in the form of a shower of rain, a story familiar from later sources; it is however futile to build an interpretation on a single unexceptional word from an unknown context. A more convincing Hesiodic reference occurs in a different papyrus, which mentions Acrisius, followed by Perseus’ being sent into the sea in a chest, then Zeus, then ‘golden’. This, the earliest attestation of Perseus’ unusual voyage, implies other aspects of the myth again known thanks to subsequent accounts: Acrisius’ anger at Danaë’s pregnancy, the oracle telling him that his daughter’s son would kill him, the eventual rescue on Seriphos. Given the adjective, now crucially contextualised, the golden shower might be mentioned too. This papyrus is probably not from the Catalogue, but may be from the Megalai Ehoiai, which may have included Perseus’ gift of the Gorgon’s head to Athena.
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In the visual arts depictions of Perseus’ escape from Medusa’s pursuing sisters continue to be attested in sixth-century black figure pottery, far more so than images of the killing of Medusa. Both scenes are attested in other media across the Greek world: for example, the cedar Chest of Cypselus (c. 590–570) in the temple of Hera at Olympia depicts Perseus escaping from Medusa’s sisters as they fly after him; the throne at Amyclae carved by Bathycles of Magnesia in second half of the sixth century portrays the killing of Medusa; and a late-sixth-century limestone metope from Temple C at Selinus shows Perseus cutting off the head of Medusa (who is holding a winged horse, i.e. Pegasus), with Athena standing by him as a supporter (as often on vases too). From the end of the century the clash is depicted on red-figure vases. Medusa is often presented as a beautiful woman, making the encounter more like an erotic abduction than the dispatching of a monster. But of Perseus after his return from his quest no trace remains from this period.”
- Euripides and the Myth of Perseus. Two Lost Greek Tragedies Illuminated by a New Papyrus by P.J. Finglass
