2. Did you know that most accounts of the mythological figure Medusa identify her as north African? In Greek myth, Medusa was the snaky-haired ‘Gorgon’ whose gaze turned people to stone. Early versions of her story suggest that she was born as a monster. However, later classical texts report that she was originally a priestess of Athena/Minerva who was famed for her beauty — so much so, that she attracted the unwanted attention of Poseidon/Neptune, who violated her in Athena’s temple. Though poor Medusa was a victim, the uncompromising, virginal goddess Athena punished her for losing her virginity in Athena’s sacred space, turning her into a monster too dangerous to look upon. Eventually, Medusa was beheaded by the Greek hero Perseus.
So where does Medusa’s story take place? Hesiod (7th c. BCE) says she lived beyond Okeanos (Ocean) near the Hesperides (Theogony 270-81) far to the west, near Night itself — though the Hesperides were also believed to lie just beyond the Atlas Mountains in northwest Africa. Stasinus of Cyprus, who composed the epic poem Cypria, also claims that she lived near the Hesperides, on a mysterious island called Sarpedon (Fragment #21). Yet according to Aeschylus (5th c. BCE), Medusa lived near Lake Tritonis in Tunisia, North Africa (Phorkides, fr. 262, iv, R, p. 364 (R = Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, vol. iii, p. 364)). Similarly, Herodotus (2.91.6, 5th c. BCE), Apollonius Rhodius (Argonautica 4.502ff., 3rd c. BCE), Diodorus Siculus (3.52.4, 1st c. BCE), Ovid (Metamorphoses 4.614-20, ca. 43 BCE – 17/18 CE), Pausanias (2.21.5-6, 2nd c. CE), and Nonnus of Panopolis (Dionysiaca 30.263-77, 5th c. CE) all record that she came from Libya. Incidentally, Ovid is the first poet (that we know of) to relate how Medusa was beautiful before an angry Athena turned her into a monster (Metamorphoses 4.791-803). Though Ovid’s version certainly makes for good storytelling, it also corresponds to the Greek & Roman belief that dark-skinned people were especially beautiful. As of now, we have one surviving passage that indicates an eastern origin for Medusa: in Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, 790-800 (mid-to-late 5th c. BCE?) Prometheus seems to locate the Gorgons in Cisthene (northwestern Asia Minor). Doubtless, the oral tradition included many versions of this myth. But the majority of our surviving Greek & Roman texts identify the mythological victim/monster Medusa as north African or north African-adjacent (from the western ‘streams of Okeanos/Ocean’). In this regard, Medusa exemplifies the gap between Greco-Roman antiquity’s easily verifiable diversity, and our modern assumption/insistence that Greek & Roman literature is populated by ‘white’, European-looking characters.
