Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/299

GORGION. IMntarch {Cic. 24) that Gorgias led a dissolute life, and also corrupted his pupils ; and this circum- stance was probably the cause of Cicero's aversion to him. Gorgias was the author of several works, viz, 1. Declamations, which are alluded to by Seneca (Controv. i. 4). Some critics are of opinion that the declamations which have come down to us under the name of Gorgias of Leontini, namely, the 'A-rroAoyia TlaXafi-nbous and 'EyKcojj.iou 'EAe- »'r;y, are the productions of our rhetorician. 2. A work on Athenian courtezans (Hepl tccu KQifivriaLv 'EraipiSwv, Athen. xiii. pp. 567, 583, 596) ;'but it is not quite certain whether the author of this work is the same as our rhetorician. 3. A rhe- torical work, entitled 2x'?M" Aiavolas kciI Ae^ews, in four books. The original work is lost, but a Latin abridgment by Rutilius Lupus is still ex- tant, under the title De Figuris Sententiarum et Elacutionis. This abridgment is divided into two books, although Quintilian (ix. 2. ^§ 102, 106) states that Rutilius Lupus abridged the four books of Gorgias into one ; whence we must infer that the division into two books is an arrangement made by one of the subsequent editors of the trea- tise. (Comp. Ruhnken, Praefut. ad Rutil. Lup. p. X, &c.) [L. S.] GO'RGLS (rop7fas). L A physician at Rome, a friend and contemporary of Galen in the second century after Christ, to whom Galen dedicated his work De Causis Procatarcticis. (Galen, De Locis Affect, v. 8. vol. viii. p. 362 ; De Cans. Procat. vol. vii. pp. 347, 352, ed. Chart.) 2. A surgeon at Alexandria, mentioned in terms of praise by Celsus {De Med. vii. Praef. 14, pp. 1 37, 151 ), who may be conjectured (from the names of his apparent contemporaries) to have lived in the third century b. c. [W. A. G.] GO'RGfAS, a Lacedaemonian statuary, who flourished in the 87th Olympiad, B. c. 432. (Plin. //. A^. xxxiv. 8. s. 19 ; where, for Gorgias, Lacon, we should read Gorgias Lacon ; Sillig in Bottiger's Amalthea, vol. iii. p. 285.) [P. S.] GO'RGIDAS (rop7fSas), a Theban, of the party of Epameinondas and Pelopidas. When the first step had been taken towards the recovery of the Cadmeia from the Spartan garrison in b, c. 379, and Archias and Leontiades were slain, Epa- meinondas and Gorgidas came forward and joined Pelopidas and his confederates, solemnly intro- ducing them into the Theban assembl}', and calling on the people to fight for their country and their gods. (Plut. Pelop. 12.) In the next year, B. c. 378, Gorgidas and Pelopidas were Boeotarchs to- gether, and Plutarch ascribes to them the plan of tampering with Sphodrias, the Spartan harmost, whom Cleombrotus had left at Thespiae, to induce him to invade Attica, and so to embroil the Athe- nians with Lacedaemon. (Plut. Pelop. 14, Ages. 24 ; Xen. HelL v. 4. §§ 20, &c. ; comp. Diod. XV. 29.) [E. E.] GO'RGION {Topyiwv was, according to Xe- nophon {Artab. vii. 8. $ 8), the son of Hellas, and Gongylus the Eretrian, who received a district in Mvsia, as the price of his treachery to his country. [Gongylus.] The dates, however, would lead us to suppose that he was a grandson rather than a son of this Gongylus. Of this district Gorgion and his brother Gongylus were lords in B. c. 399, when Thibron passed over into Asia to aid the lonians against Tissaphernes. It contained the four towns of Garabrium, Palaegambrium, Myrina, and Gryni- GORGO. 285 um, and these were .surrendered by the brothers to the Lacedaemonian general. (Xen. Hell, iii, 1. § 6.) [E. E.] GORGO and GO'RGONES (Fo/rye^ and V6p. yovss). Homer knows only one Gorgo, who, ac- cording to the Odyssey (xi. 633), was one of the frightful phantoms in Hades: in the Iliad (v, 741, viii. 349, xi. 36 ; comp. Virg. Aen. vi. 289), the Aegis of Athena contains the head of Gorgo, the terror of her enemies. Euripides (/om, 989) still speaks of only one Gorgo, although Hesiod {Theog. 278) had mentioned three Gorgones, the daughters of Phorcys and Ceto, whence they are sometimes called Phorcydes or Phorcides. (Aes- chyl. Proin. 793, 797 ; Pind. Pyth. xii. 24 ; Ov. Met. V. 230.) The names of the three Gorgones are Stheino (Stheno or Stenusa), Euryale, and Medusa (Hes. I.e. ; ApoUod. ii. 4. § 2), and they are conceived by Hesiod to live in the Western Ocean, in the neighbourhood of Night and the Hesperides. But later traditions place them in Libya. (Herod, ii. 91; Pans. ii. 21. § 6.) They are described {Scut. Here. 233) as girded with serpents, raising their heads, vibrating their tongues, and gnashing their teeth ; Aeschylus {Prom. 794. &c., Chollph. 1050) adds that they had wings and brazen claws, and enormous teeth. On the chest of Cypselus they were likewise represented with wings. (Pans. v. 18. § I.) Medusa, who alone of her sisters was mortal, was, according to some legends, at first a beautiful maiden, but her hair was changed into serpents by Athena, in conse- quence of her having become by Poseidon the mo- ther of Chrysaor and Pegasus, in one of Athena's temples. (Hes. Theog. 287, &c. ; Apollod. ii. 4. § 3 ; Ov. Met iv. 792 ; comp. Perseus.) Her head was now of so fearful an appearance, that every one who looked at it was changed into stone. Hence the great difficulty which Perseus had in killing her ; and Athena afterwards placed the head in the centre of her shield or breastplate. There was a tradition at Athens that the head of Medusa was buried under a mound in the Agora. (Pans. ii. 21. § 6, v. 12, § 2.) Athena gave to Heracles a lock of Medusa (concealed in an urn), for it had a similar effect upon the beholder as the head itself. When Heracles went out agdnst La- cedaemon he gave the lock of hair to Sterope, the daughter of Cepheus, as a protection of the town of Tegea, as the sight of it would put the enemv to flight. (Paus. viii. 47. § 4 ; Apollod. ii. 7. § 3.) The mythus respecting the family of Phorcys, to which also the Graeae, Hesperides, Scylla, and other fabulous beings belonged, has been inter- preted in various ways by the ancients themselves. Some believed that the Gorgones were formidable animals with long hair, whose aspect was so fright- ful, that men were paralysed or killed by it, and some of the soldiers of Marius were believed to have thus met with their death (Athen. v. 64). Pliny {H.N. iv. 31) thought that they were a race of savage, swift, and hair-covered women ; and Dio- dorus (iii. 55) regards them as a race of women inhabiting the western parts of Libya, who had been extirpated by Heracles in traversing Libya. These explanations may not suffice, and are cer- tainly not so ingenious as those of Hug, Hermann, Creuzer, Biittiger, and others, but none of them has any strong degree of probability. [L. S.] GORGO (rop7eJ), alyric poetess, a contemporary and rival of Sappho, who often attacked her in her