Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Chrysaor.
The gallery
Gorgon Pediment of the Temple of Artemis at Corfu (central group)
Unknown, c. 580 BCE
Carved in limestone for the west pediment of the Temple of Artemis on Corfu (Corcyra) around 580 BCE and now in the Archaeological Museum of Corfu, this is the earliest monumental Greek pediment to survive and the earliest securely identified image of Chrysaor. At its center the winged, snake-haired Gorgon Medusa kneels in the archaic 'running' pose, girt with serpents and flanked by guardian lions in Mistress-of-Animals fashion. At her side stand the two offspring who, in myth, sprang from her severed neck: the winged horse Pegasus and, here at her flank, the small human figure of Chrysaor, 'he of the golden sword.' Following the archaic convention of identifying a figure by placing its children nearby, the sculptors mark Medusa as their mother even as the composition fixes the instant of her death and their birth.
Chrysaor, from the Gorgon Pediment of the Temple of Artemis at Corfu (detail)
Unknown, early 6th century BCE
A close-up of the small human figure beside the great Gorgon on the west pediment of the Temple of Artemis at Corfu (c. 580 BCE, Archaeological Museum of Corfu): Chrysaor, the son who in Hesiod's Theogony leapt from Medusa's neck together with Pegasus at the moment Perseus beheaded her. Dwarfed by his monstrous mother and placed at her flank to declare his parentage in the archaic manner, this carving is the figure's earliest appearance in surviving art. Chrysaor is rarely depicted alone in ancient or later art, so the Corfu pediment, where he stands as one of Medusa's twin-born children, remains the principal monument to him.