in Antiquity and Mythology. Authors are not agreed in the account they give of the Gorgons. The poets represent them as three sisters, whose names were Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa; the latter of whom was mortal, and, having been deflowered by Neptune, was killed by Perseus; the two former were subject neither to age nor death. They are described with wings on their shoulders, with serpents round their heads, their hands were of braids, and their teeth of a prodigious size, so that they were objects of terror to mankind. After the death of Medusa, her sisters, according to Virgil, were appointed to keep the gate of the palace of Pluto.

Multaque preterea variarum monstera ferarum—Gorgones, Harpyiques—

Diodorus Siculus will have the Gorgons and Amazons to have been two warlike nations of women, who inhabited that part of Libya which lay on the lake Trinonides. The extermination of these female nations was not effected till Hercules undertook and performed it.

Pausanias says, the Gorgons were the daughters of Phorbus; after whose death Medusa, his daughter, reigned over the people dwelling near the lake Trinonides. The queen was passionately fond of hunting and war, so that she laid the neighbouring countries quite waste. At last, Perseus having made war on them, and killed the queen herself, when he came to take a view of the field of battle, he found the queen's corpse of extremely beautiful, that he ordered her head to be cut off, which he carried with him to show his countrymen the Greeks, who could not behold it without being struck with astonishment.

Others represent them as a kind of monstrous women, covered with hair, who lived in woods and forests. Others, again, make them animals, resembling wild sheep, whose eyes had a poisonous and fatal influence.