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Greek city of Parion in Mysia
Silver Drachm 11mm (2.99 grams) Struck circa 480 B.C.
Reference: Sear 3917; B.M.C. 15.94,1
Gorgoneion.
Incuse square containing cruciform pattern with pellet at center.
On the shores of the Propontis, Parion was founded circa 710
B.C. and became a flourishing port through the excellence of its harbor.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured,
provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of
Authenticity.
In
Greek mythology
Medusa “guardian, protectress”)
was a monster
, a
Gorgon
, generally described as having the face
of a hideous human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Gazing
directly upon her would turn onlookers to stone. Most sources describe her as
the daughter of Phorcys
and
Ceto, though the author
Hyginus
(Fabulae,
151) interposes a generation and gives Medusa another chthonic pair as parents.
Medusa was beheaded by the hero
Perseus
, who thereafter used her head as a
weapon until he gave it to the goddess
Athena
to place on her
shield
. In
classical antiquity
the image of the head of
Medusa appeared in the
evil-averting device
known as the
Gorgoneion
.
Medusa in
classical mythology
Perseus with the Head of Medusa
,
by
Benvenuto Cellini
, installed 1554
The three Gorgon
sisters—Medusa,
Stheno
, and
Euryale
—were all children of the ancient marine
deities Phorcys
(or Phorkys) and his sister
Ceto (or Keto),
chthonic
monsters from an
archaic
world. Their genealogy is shared with
other sisters, the Graeae
, as in
Aeschylus
‘s
Prometheus Bound
, which places both
trinities of sisters far off “on Kisthene’s dreadful plain”:
Near them their sisters three, the Gorgons, winged
With snakes for hair— hated of mortal man—
While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers imagined Medusa and her
sisters as beings born of monstrous form, sculptors and vase-painters of the
fifth century 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, related by the Roman poet
Ovid (Metamorphoses 4.770), Medusa was originally a
ravishingly beautiful maiden, “the jealous aspiration of many suitors,”
priestess in Athena’s temple, but when she was caught being raped by the “Lord
of the Sea” Poseidon
in
Athena
‘s temple, the enraged Athena transformed
Medusa’s beautiful hair to serpents and made her face so terrible to behold that
the mere sight of it would turn onlookers to stone. In Ovid’s telling, Perseus
describes Medusa’s punishment by Minerva (Athena) as just and well earned.
Death
In most versions of the story, she was
beheaded
by the
hero
Perseus
, who was sent to fetch her head by King
Polydectes
of Seriphus. In his conquest, he
received a mirrored shield from
Athena
, gold, winged sandals from
Hermes
, a sword from
Hephaestus
and Hades’ helm of invisibility.
Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgons who was mortal, so Perseus was able
to slay her 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 golden sword-wielding giant, sprang
from her body.
Head of Medusa, gate of the
Royal Palace of Turin
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.”[6]
In the Odyssey
xi,
Homer
does not specifically mention the
Gorgon
Medusa:
Lest for my daring
Persephone
the dread,
From Hades should send up an awful monster’s grisly head.
Harrison’s translation states “the Gorgon was made out of the terror, not the
terror out of the Gorgon.”According to
Ovid, in northwest Africa, Perseus flew past the
Titan
Atlas
, who stood holding the sky aloft, and
transformed him into stone when he tried to attack him. 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 his future
wife, the lovely princess
Andromeda
. Furthermore the poisonous 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 about to be forced into
marriage with the king. King Polydectes was turned into stone by the gaze of
Medusa’s head. Then Perseus gave the Gorgon’s head to Athena, who placed it on
her shield, the Aegis
.
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:
The triple form is not primitive, it is merely an instance of a general
tendency… which makes of each woman goddess a trinity, which has given
us the Horae
, the
Charites
, the
Semnai
, and a host of other triple
groups. It is immediately obvious that the Gorgons are not really three
but one + two. The two unslain sisters are mere appendages due to
custom; the real Gorgon is Medusa.
Modern interpretations
Psychoanalysis
An
archaic
Medusa wearing the belt of
the intertwined snakes, a fertility symbol, as depicted on the west
pediment
of the
Artemis Temple in Corfu
, exhibited
at the
Archaeological Museum of Corfu
In 1940,
Sigmund Freud
‘s Das Medusenhaupt (Medusa’s
Head) was published posthumously. This article laid the framework
for his significant contribution to a body of criticism surrounding the monster.
Medusa is presented as “the supreme
talisman
who provides the image of
castration
— associated in the child’s mind
with the discovery of maternal sexuality — and its denial.”
Psychoanalysis
continue
archetypal literary criticism
to the present
day:
Beth Seelig
analyzes Medusa’s punishment from
the aspect of the crime of having been raped rather than having willingly
consented in Athena’s temple as an outcome of the goddess’ unresolved conflicts
with her own father, Zeus
.
Feminism
In the 20th century,
feminists
reassessed Medusa’s appearances in
literature and in modern culture, including the use of Medusa as a
logo by fashion company
Versace
. The name “Medusa” itself is often used
in ways not directly connected to the mythological figure but to suggest the
gorgon’s abilities or to
connote
malevolence; despite her origins as a
beauty, the name in common usage “came to mean monster.” The book Female
Rage: Unlocking Its Secrets, Claiming Its Power by Mary Valentis and Anne
Devane notes that “When we asked women what female rage looks like to them, it
was always Medusa, the snaky-haired monster of myth, who came to mind … In one
interview after another we were told that Medusa is ‘the most horrific woman in
the world’ … [though] none of the women we interviewed could remember the
details of the myth.”[15]
Medusa mosaic (Roman period),
National Archaeological Museum, Athens
Medusa’s visage has since been adopted by many women as a symbol of female
rage; one of the first publications to express this idea was a 1978 issue of
Women: A Journal of Liberation. The cover featured the image of a Gorgon,
which the editors explained “can be a map to guide us through our terrors,
through the depths of our anger into the sources of our power as women.”[15]
In a 1986 article for Women of Power magazine called “Ancient Gorgons: A
Face for Contemporary Women’s Rage,” Emily Erwin Culpepper wrote that “The
Amazon Gorgon face is female fury personified. The Gorgon/Medusa image has been
rapidly adopted by large numbers of feminists who recognize her as one face of
our own rage.”
In Ancient Greece
, the Gorgoneion (Greek:
Γο�γόνειον) was originally a horror-creating
apotropaic
pendant
showing the
Gorgon‘s head. It was assimilated by the
Olympian deities
Zeus
and Athena:
both are said to have worn it as a protective
pendant.
It was assumed, among other godlike attributes, as a royal
aegis,
by rulers of the Hellenistic age, as shown, for instance, on the
Alexander Mosaic and the
Gonzaga Cameo.
Homer
refers to the Gorgon on four occasions, each time alluding to the head alone, as
if the creature had no body.
Jane Ellen Harrison
notes that “Medusa is a
head and nothing more…a mask
with a body later appended”. Up to the 5th
century BC, the head was depicted as particularly ugly, with a protruding
tongue,
boar
tusks, puffy cheeks, her eyeballs staring fixedly on the viewer and
the snakes twisting all around her.
The direct frontal stare, “seemingly looking out from its own iconographical
context and directly challenging the viewer”, was highly unusual in ancient
Greek art. In some instances a beard (probably standing for streaks of blood)
was appended to her chin, making her appear as an
orgiastic deity
akin to
Dionysus.
Gorgoneia that decorate the shields of warriors on mid-5th century Greek
vases are considerably less grotesque and menacing. By that time, the Gorgon had
lost her tusks and the snakes were rather stylized. The
Hellenistic
marble known as the
Medusa Rondanini illustrates the Gorgon’s eventual transformation
into a beautiful woman.
Parium (or Parion)
was a
Greek
city in
Mysia
on the
Hellespont
. It became a Roman Catholic
titular see
,
suffragan
of
Cyzicus
in the
Roman province
of
Hellespontus
.
//
Located near
Lampsacus
, it was a
colony
probably founded by
Eretria
and
Paros
. It belonged to the
Delian League
. In the
Hellenistic period
it came under the domain of
Lysimachus
, and subsequently the
Attalid dynasty
. In
Roman
times, it was a
Colonia
, within the
province
of
Asia
; and after the province was divided in the
4th century AD
, it was in the province of
Hellespontus
. The ancient coinage of Parium is
quite abundant, attesting to its great output and advanced mint (in Hellenistic
times, the city’s badge shown on coins was the
Gorgoneion
).
Christian history
The Acts of the martyr
St. Onesiphorus
prove that there was a
Christian community there before 180. Other saints worthy of mention are:
St. Menignus
, martyred under
Decius
and venerated on 22 November;
St. Theogenes
, bishop and martyr, whose feast
is observed on 3 January;
St. Basil
, bishop and martyr in the ninth
century, venerated on 12 April.
Le Quien
(Oriens christianus I, 787-90)
mentions 14 bishops, the last of whom lived in the middle of the fourteenth
century. An anonymous Latin bishop is mentioned in 1209 by
Innocent III
(Le Quien, op. cit., III, 945) and
a titular bishop in 1410 by
Eubel
(Hierarchia Catholica medii ævi,
I, 410).
At first a suffragan of the
Archbishopric
, Parium became an
autocephalous
archdiocese
as early as 640 (Heinrich
Gelzer, Ungedruckte … Texte, 535) and remained so till the
end of the thirteenth century. Then the Emperor
Andronicus II
made it a
metropolis
under the title of Pegon kai
Pariou.
In 1354
Pegæ
and Parium (the Latin forms of both names)
were suppressed, the incumbent
metropolitan
receiving in exchange the See of
Sozopolis
in
Thrace
(Miklosich and Müller, “Acta
patriarchatus Constantinopolitani”, I, 109, 111, 132, 300, 330). This was the
end of the episcopal see.
The ruins of Parium were under Ottoman rule at the Greek village of
Kamares
(the vaults), on the small cape
Tersana-Bournou in the
caza
and
sandjak
of
Bigha
.
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