W hat the Gorgon Really Was

Abstract The Quotes That Open This Chapter are diametrically opposed to the one that opened Chapter 3, in which Humfry Payne called the Gorgon “one of the most remarkable creations of the archaic period.” I agree with Payne (although I should note that many of the Gorgon parallels from other cultures encroach pretty heavily on Greek originality), but I see the points of Burnham and Bierce. If the Gorgon is meant to be an apotropaic device, as so many claim, then what sort of lily-livered attacker is it capable of scaring off? To be sure, it has the features of a scowling monster. But be truthful-who would really be afraid of that face? Doesn’t its frequent appearances on antefixes, on shields, and on cups and jars dilute what little shock value it may once have had? After all, we in the twentieth century no longer see Gorgons everywhere we look, but even we are used to the sight. In ancient Greece and Rome, as I’ve shown in the last few chapters, the Gorgon was a common motif, repeated endlessly