In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

, Gorgophone was a daughter of Perseus and Andromeda

Andromeda (mythology)

Andromeda is a princess from Greek mythology who, as divine punishment for her mother's bragging, the Boast of Cassiopeia, was chained to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster. She was saved from death by Perseus, her future husband. Her name is the Latinized form of the Greek Ἀνδρομέδη...

. Her name means "Gorgon Slayer", a tribute to her father who killed Medusa

Medusa

In Greek mythology Medusa , " guardian, protectress") was a Gorgon, a chthonic monster, and a daughter of Phorcys and Ceto. The author Hyginus, interposes a generation and gives Medusa another chthonic pair as parents. Gazing directly upon her would turn onlookers to stone...

, the mortal Gorgon

Gorgon

In Greek mythology, the Gorgon was a terrifying female creature. The name derives from the Greek word gorgós, which means "dreadful." While descriptions of Gorgons vary across Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters who had hair of living, venomous snakes, and a...

.

Gorgophone is a central figure in the history of Sparta

Sparta

Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...

, having been married to two kings, Oebalus

Oebalus

In Greek mythology, King Oebalus or Oibalos of Sparta, son of Cynortas, was the second husband of Gorgophone. With her, he fathered Tyndareus, Icarius and Hippocoon , as well as a daughter, Arene, who married her half-brother Aphareus...

 of Laconia

Laconia

Laconia , also known as Lacedaemonia, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Peloponnese. It is situated in the southeastern part of the Peloponnese peninsula. Its administrative capital is Sparti...

 and Perieres

Perieres

In Greek mythology, Perieres or Perieris, was a son of Aeolus and husband of Gorgophone. He was the father of Leucippus and Aphareus. He is often confused with Gorgophone's second husband, Oebalus . With Oebalus, Gorgophone was the mother of Tyndareus, Hippocoon and Icarius....

 of Messenia

Messenia

Messenia is a regional unit in the southwestern part of the Peloponnese region, one of 13 regions into which Greece has been divided by the Kallikratis plan, implemented 1 January 2011...

, and being considered the first woman to have married twice. She was of Lelege descent, the Leleges

Leleges

The Leleges were one of the aboriginal peoples of southwest Anatolia , who were already there when the Indo-European Hellenes emerged. The distinction between the Leleges and the Carians is unclear. According to Homer the Leleges were a distinct Anatolian tribe Homer...

 being a people from Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

 who settled in Laconia. One of the sons of Oibalos and Gorgophone was Tyndareus

Tyndareus

In Greek mythology, Tyndareus or Tyndareos was a Spartan king, son of Oebalus and Gorgophone , husband of Leda and father of Helen, Castor and Polydeuces, Clytemnestra, Timandra, Phoebe and Philonoe.Tyndareus had a brother named Hippocoon , who seized power and exiled Tyndareus...

, stepfather of Helen of Troy, Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra

Clytemnestra or Clytaemnestra , in ancient Greek legend, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess...

, Castor and Pollux

Castor and Pollux

In Greek and Roman mythology, Castor and Pollux or Polydeuces were twin brothers, together known as the Dioscuri . Their mother was Leda, but Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, king of Sparta, and Pollux the divine son of Zeus, who visited Leda in the guise of a swan...

, and another was Icarius

Icarius

In Greek mythology, there were two people named Icarius or Ikários .-Icarius of Sparta:One Icarius was the son of either Perieres and Gorgophone or of Oebalus and Bateia, brother of Hippocoon and Tyndareus and, through Periboea, father of Penelope, Perileos, Thoas, Damasippus, Imeusimus, Aletes...

, father of Odysseus

Odysseus

Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....

's wife, Penelope

Penelope

In Homer's Odyssey, Penelope is the faithful wife of Odysseus, who keeps her suitors at bay in his long absence and is eventually reunited with him....

. Thus, Perseus's descendants played a central role in the Homeric epics and the pre-history of Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. With her second husband, Perieres, she became the mother of Leucippus

Leucippus

Leucippus or Leukippos was one of the earliest Greeks to develop the theory of atomism — the idea that everything is composed entirely of various imperishable, indivisible elements called atoms — which was elaborated in greater detail by his pupil and successor, Democritus...

 and Aphareus

Aphareus

In Greek mythology, Aphareus , son of Gorgophone and Perieres, was the husband of Arene, daughter of Oebalus, and father of Lynceus, Idas and Peisus, though some report that Idas' actual father was Poseidon. Some call his wife Polydora or Laocoosa...

, half-brothers of Hippocoon

Hippocoon

In Greek mythology, the name Hippocoön refers to several characters:*A son of the Spartan King Oebalus and Bateia. His brothers were Tyndareus and Icarius. When their father died, Tyndareus became king. Hippocoön, with the help of his sons, overthrew him, took the throne and expelled his...

, Tyndareus and Icarius.

Chief sources for Gorgophone are Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...

 (Books II and IV) and Apollodorus

Apollodorus

Apollodorus of Athens son of Asclepiades, was a Greek scholar and grammarian. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon, Panaetius the Stoic, and the grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace...

 (Books I and III).

Gorgo

The most famous historical Spartan woman derived her name from Gorgophone: Gorgo

Gorgo, Queen of Sparta

Gorgo was the daughter and the only child of Cleomenes I, King of Sparta during the 6th and 5th centuries BC. She was the wife of King Leonidas I, Cleomenes' half-brother, who fought and died in the Battle of Thermopylae. Gorgo is noted as one of the few female historical figures actually named...

, who was the daughter of the Spartan king Cleomenes

Cleomenes

Cleomenes may refer to:* one of several kings of Sparta:** Cleomenes I ** Cleomenes II ** Cleomenes III *Cleomenes of Naucratis, a Greek administrator*Cleomenes the Cynic Cynic philosopher...

. Gorgo was born around 507 BC and after her father's awful death, she married his brother, Leonidas, who became king and was the hero at the Battle of Thermopylae

Battle of Thermopylae

The Battle of Thermopylae was fought between an alliance of Greek city-states, led by King Leonidas of Sparta, and the Persian Empire of Xerxes I over the course of three days, during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place simultaneously with the naval battle at Artemisium, in August...

 in 480 BC. Gorgo was renowned in Spartan legend, and it is curious that she bore the name that was so closely identified with the legendary Perseus and his daughter, who, if they really lived, pre-dated Gorgo by over seven centuries.

In addition to appearing in Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

's works, Gorgo appears in a several of Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

's anecdotes that emphasize her close ties with her father and his trust in her acuity of judgment.