Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

In the Ovidian tale Medusa was once a mortal maiden of famous beauty, most admired for her hair. Poseidon lay with her in the temple of Athena (Minerva). The virgin goddess, outraged that her sanctuary was polluted, punished the girl: she changed Medusa’s lovely locks into writhing snakes, so that the face which had drawn desire became a sight that turns beholders to stone. Thereafter Medusa dwelt among her Gorgon sisters; when Perseus later cut off her head, the snakes remained the terror of the aegis and the kibisis. Hesiod’s older strand simply states that Poseidon lay with Medusa in a soft meadow among spring flowers, and that when her head was taken, Pegasus and Chrysaor sprang forth—no temple, no curse of hair. Apollodorus follows the heroic beheading and the Poseidon-fathered children. The present file isolates the temple-violation version: Poseidon’s act in Athena’s house, and Athena’s metamorphosis of Medusa’s hair, as the aetiology of the Gorgon’s snaky head. Catalogue it as Roman-labeled transmission of a Greek cult logic (polluted virgin space; goddess’s revenge on the mortal partner rather than on the god).