![]() ![]() Of Perseus' death given by the fixth-sixth-century AD ChristianĪfter sometime King Cepheus, the father of Andromeda, cameĪgainst him from Ethiopia, and made war upon him. We have seen, Hyginus preserves the bare information, probably derivedįrom an anomalous tragedy, that he was killed by hisĬousin-once-removed Megapenthes in revenge for the killing of hisįather Proetus ( Fabulae 244). Two accounts of Perseus' death survive, but neither was canonical. 32-33), Daniel Ogden 2 discusses the end of the character's life as narrated by Malalas in Khronographia 2.21: On account of her great beauty, Perseus ravishes her away from there, making her his wife.Īfter several conquests all over the Near and Middle East, Perseus comes to rule over Assyria and Persia. In 2.15, from Libya, Perseus goes on to Ethiopia, whose virgin princess Andromeda has been dedicated by her father King Kepheus to serve in the local temple of Poseidon, where she now lives. Using "the deception of loathsome sorcery" that he had learned from his father Picus (here a euhemerised form of Zeus), he "performed mysteries over" the girl's severed head and thus transformed it into the petrifying weapon for which it would gain fame and by which he was able to subdue his enemies. Khronographia 2.14 tells of how Medusa, rather than being a monster, was merely a wild-haired, wild-eyed country girl who Perseus, completely unprovoked, beheaded by the roadside in Libya. Later still than Hyginus, the Early Mediaeval Antiochene writer John Malalas ( circa AD 491 – 578) compiled a history of the world featuring a mixture of euhemerised Greco-Roman myths, snippets of allegory, and philosophical maxims and musings, interacting with characters from the Bible, and entitled the Khronographia, "Chronicle." His treatment of the Perseus myth seems to be unique to him, and his Perseus is somewhat of an evil wizard supervillain. the giant Orion, the Hydra, and the sea-monster which Perseus killed in order to save Andromeda ). This need not be a contradiction, however, as several others who were made into constellations, like Perseus was, were originally mortal characters who died first before being lifted into the skies (e.g. Perseus, the son of Jove and Danae, who was admitted into the stars. Strangely enough, though, Hyginus, earlier in the Fabulae, has already enumerated Perseus in his list of sixteen "Mortals Who Were Made Immortal" as his Chapter 224 is entitled. This appears to be a different version of Proitos' fate from the one in which his great-nephew Perseus kills him, which then would preclude his son needing to avenge his death because Perseus isn't responsible for that in the scholion.īut then the scholion doesn't offer thereafter an account of Perseus' death. In the sentence immediately after what you have quoted from William Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, it says that the scholion on Euripides' Phoinissai 1109 describes Proitos as having been expelled from Argolis (presumably by Perseus) and having ended up in Thebes. ![]() Megapenthes son of Proetus: Perseus, son of Jupiter and Danae, inĪnd that is all that Hyginus has to say on the matter, which brevity is probably what Theoi means when it calls the story "obscure". Trzaskoma 1 as the name of the killer followed by that of his victim: Megapenthes Proeti filius Perseum Iovis et Danaes filium, propter The only reference to Perseus' death is a very obscure legendĪfter that it quotes from the relevant portion of Mary Grant's 1960 English translation of Fabulae 244, which originally is entitled Qui cognatos suos occiderunt, "Men Who Killed Relatives," and is basically a quick roll-call of fifteen culprits who fit this bill. It is very brief, listing the only two characters involved, aside from Perseus, and these are Proitos and Megapenthes, which listing is followed by this blurb: On the second Page, the last chapter (which is followed by some appendices) is entitled "The Death of Perseus". ![]()
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