Perseus
PURR-syoos
Attested elsewhere in ancient sourcesThe hero who killed Medusa, using a polished shield to look at her without meeting her eye.
Herodotus records that the Persians traced their name to Perses, son of Perseus, and reports the Persians themselves making the claim when it suited them to be kin to Greeks.
That genealogy sits oddly under the wars. Herodotus lets it stand without comment, which is his habit with the traditions he finds rather than the ones he believes.
Sources
- Hdt. 7.61
- Hdt. 7.150
- Hes. Theog. 280-283
- Apollod. 2.4.1-5
References are to the standard divisions of the ancient texts, not to any one edition.
Acenes of Sparta: The Dragon Slayer
A dragon is the reason the 300 died. Leonidas used the magic of the gods to bind Kalaxes beneath Taygetus, and the price was his life and his men's. Sixty-two years later a seven-year-old of the agoge falls into the dragon's crypt and inherits the unpaid balance.
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