The three Gorgones were depicted in ancient Greek vase painting and sculpture as winged women with broad, round heads, serpentine locks of hair, large staring eyes, wide mouths, lolling tongues, the tusks of swine, flared nostrils, and sometimes short, coarse beards. Medousa was humanised in...
On many parts of this rock you see traces of cloven feet and outlines of beards and of faces, and here and there impressions of backs as of persons who had slipt--and rolled down. For they say that Dionysos, when he was trying to storm the place together with Herakles, ordered the ...
Later on Zeus appeared; perhaps, since he was a god, because he smelt the steam of flesh that was cooking, which your gods admit they ‘receive as their portion.’ He plagues the Titanes with thunder, and entrusts the limbs of Dionysos to his son Apollon for burial. In obedience to Ze...
RIVER GODS & DAEMONES(Theoi Daimones Potamoi) The river-gods appeared either as men from the chest upwards, set upon the serpentine tail of a fish and crowned with a single bull's horn, or as horned man-headed bulls. ACHELOUS(Akheloios) An Aetolian river-god who was wrestled by Herac...
THE ALOADAI (Aloadae) were two giants who attempted to storm the home of the gods by piling three mountains--Olympos, Ossa and Pelion--one on top of the other.Ares tried to stop them but was defeated and imprisoned for thirteen months in a bronze urn. Artemis later raced between them ...
Beneath their chin hangs down a beard; we may compare it with the beards of Drakones (Serpents), and strong and very sharp nails cover their hands. Their whole body is covered with hair--another respect in which they resemble dogs. They are very swift of foot and know the regions that...
When their beards are full grown they leave off wearing clothes and let the hair of their head fall down behind far below the knees, while their beard trails down to the feet in front. When their body is thus entirely covered with hair they fasten it round them with a girdle, so that...
These actually have a crest, of moderate extent and height when they are young; but as they reach their full size, it grows with them and extends to a considerable height, at which time also they turn red and get serrated backs. This kind also have beards, and lift their necks on ...
In Greek mythology Satyrs were rustic fertility spirits of the countryside and wilds. They consorted with the Nymphs and were companions of the gods Dionysus, Hermes, Hephaestus, Pan, Rhea-Cybele and Gaea. Satyrs were depicted as animalistic men with asi
, Placing the Gods: Sanctuaries and Sacred Space in Ancient Greece (1994, reprinted 2001); and Robin Osborne, Classical Landscape with Figures: The Ancient Greek City and Its Countryside (1987), which also discusses the ways in which the Greek countryside was exploited in different regions. “...