Perseus

The oracle and the bronze chamber

Acrisius, a king of Argos, is told by an oracle, a message from the gods, that his daughter Danae will have a son who will kill him. To stop this, he shuts Danae away in a bronze chamber under the ground, to keep her from any man at all.

The prison does not work, and Danae has a son, Perseus. The ancient writer Apollodorus, who retold the Greek myths, gives two accounts of how this happened and does not choose between them. “As some say,” she was seduced by Proetus. He was the twin brother of Acrisius, who had already driven him out of Argos in a quarrel over the throne. “But some say” the god Zeus came to her as a stream of gold that poured in through the roof.

When Perseus is born, Acrisius does not want to kill his daughter and grandson with his own hands. Instead he shuts mother and child in a chest and throws it into the sea, leaving them to die.

The chest comes ashore on Seriphos, an island where a fisherman named Dictys takes them in. Every attempt to escape the oracle only moves Perseus closer to the life that will fulfil it.

The head of Medusa

Polydectes, the king of Seriphos, wants Danae free of her son. He sends Perseus away to fetch the head of Medusa. She is one of the Gorgons, and the only one of them who can die.

In the account of Apollodorus, Perseus finds Medusa asleep. He does not look at her directly. He watches her reflection in a bronze shield, while the goddess Athena guides his hand, and he cuts off her head. The winged horse Pegasus springs from the wound.

An early poem, the Shield of Heracles, already pictures Perseus in flight with the Gorgons behind him. He wears winged sandals on his feet and the cap of the god Hades on his head.

The oracle comes true

Years later, Perseus takes part in funeral games held by Teutamides of Larissa. He competes in the pentathlon, a contest of five events. Apollodorus says that when Perseus throws the discus, it strikes his grandfather Acrisius on the foot and kills him at once. The oracle comes true, though no one meant it to.

Perseus is ashamed to go back to Argos and take the throne of a man he has killed. So he swaps kingdoms with Megapenthes, the son of Proetus. Perseus takes Tiryns for himself. In Apollodorus’s account, he also builds walls around Midea and Mycenae.

How Mycenae got its name

Pausanias, an ancient travel writer, heard two stories of how Perseus named the city he founded. In the first, the cap (myces) fell from the hilt of Perseus’s sword on the spot. He took it as a sign to found a city there. In the second, Perseus was thirsty and pulled up a mushroom (also myces) from the ground. Water ran out from under it, he drank, and he named the place after it.

Pausanias saw parts of the city wall still standing. They included a gate with two lions carved above it. He says it was the work of the Cyclopes, the same builders said to have made the wall at Tiryns for Proetus. He also names a fountain among the ruins, Persea, after Perseus. The Lion Gate and the Cyclopean walls still stand at the site today.

Other tellings of Perseus

The historian Herodotus records worship of Perseus far from Argos and its region. At Chemmis in Egypt, he was shown a square temple to “Perseus son of Danae”. Inside were a shrine and a statue of the hero. The people held games in the Greek style in his honour, with animals, cloaks and skins as prizes.

They told Herodotus that Perseus was one of their own. His ancestors Danaus and Lynceus, they said, had left Chemmis for Greece. When Perseus was grown, he came to Egypt for the Gorgon’s head and recognised all his relatives there. Herodotus repeats what he was told without saying he believes it.

The oldest surviving mention of Perseus is much shorter than these stories. In the Iliad, the epic poem of Homer, Zeus names Danae among his mortal lovers. He calls their son the best of all warriors. Apollodorus and the later writers supply the connected life.