In Greek mythology, Medusa was raped by the sea god Poseidon in the Temple of Athena. Athena found no fault in Poseidon, but was furious with Medusa. My question is why would Athena not find any fault with Poseidon?
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2I think the common explanation is that Athena had no power to punish Poseidon, her uncle. Note also that in Apodollorus' version, Medusa boasted of being more beautiful than Athena.– SemaphoreCommented Dec 18, 2015 at 9:23
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So it wasn't thqt she found no fault with it was that she couldn't do anything to him makes more sense– user1025Commented Dec 18, 2015 at 18:08
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1@Semaphore You should post as an actual answer! I can't think of a single instance of the younger generation of Olympians having power over the elder generation except for Hephaestus catching Aphrodite in the net with Ares.– DukeZhouCommented Oct 13, 2016 at 16:20
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Wasn't there something about Athena being jealous of Medusa's beauty? And also that Athena was an unredeemable B*tch. We can see that in Illiad and in the story about Arachne.– Nuloen The SeekerCommented Jan 25, 2018 at 11:49
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5 Answers
There's a discussion of this question on Quora that covers all the points I wanted to raise. Personally, I've always preferred the explanation that Medusa was a priestess in Athena's temple. Defiling it by having sex there would be bad enough, but with Athena's enemy? Athena was already a short-tempered goddess, so Medusa must have known she was in for trouble. Also, as the Quora discussion notes, the gods were notoriously lenient towards each other, while smiting mortals hard and often.
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1It sounds like you wanted t raise additional points beyond your personally preferred explanation provided here. If so, you should summarise those points here rather than rely on a link. Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 10:30
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I raised the points I wanted to raise - anyone who wants to read the rest can follow the link. The points that gods are pissy and that Medusa was (in one version) a priestess of Athena's seemed like relevant points. It's interesting that a lot of pop myth websites prefer the priestess explanation, by the way, it makes sense of why Medusa had to suffer punishment. Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 15:27
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What @Semaphore is saying is that you consider the information in the link valuable. Therefore, you should add in that information. Link rot can severely hurt answers. Commented Jan 1, 2016 at 22:58
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I take your point, but just for the record the points in Quora that I didn't mention were ones I felt were not important enough to rehash, just things I though people might find interesting. I will be careful to be clearer about that in the future. Commented Jan 3, 2016 at 0:09
Poseidon was a god, and Athena was a goddess. She was not powerful enough to punish Poseidon. He is a elder god, which makes him second only to Zeus.
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1This is an interesting answer. Poseidon's senior status may have made him untouchable for Athena. I would suggest that you add sources in your answers, to make them more helpful to others. Commented May 1, 2017 at 23:25
Because all religions ever were invented by some misogynist guy who wanted to set a nice delusional foundation for a patriarchal society and hence when they wrote the story they naturally put the blame on the woman?
Theres a unspoken hierarchy in place with greek mythology based on power and respect. Also views of society were different when the storys we're first told. Thanks to creative minds that questioned everything. Things changed in the direction they thought best.
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3Could you elaborate? This is kinda confusing, and doesn't really answer the question– blehCommented May 20, 2017 at 12:43
I also thought about the question as to why didn't Athena help Medusa? Supposedly Athena was jealous of Medusa which possibly could of clouded her judgement as to whether she should save her or not. I mean it is her temple she could of at least did something.
Then again as the goddess of war, she possibly could have believed that women could defend themselves, that they were just as strong as men and wanted Medusa to fight off Poseidon. But that wouldn't make sense since Medusa is a human and Poseidon is a god so there's no fighting him off.
Furthermore, with Athena afterwards putting a curse on Medusa it kinda seems like she and Poseidon planned for this to happen, which would mean Athena was so envious that she'd go to extreme lengths to get back at Medusa. Athena could of went to her father and told him that Poseidon degraded her temple but instead decided to punish Medusa.
It all just makes it seem like the gods just like playing with the humans and Athena could care less about her followers, she only cares about her reputation. Sure Athena was powerless compared to Poseidon but she could seek out her father to help her make him pay and if Zeus refused she could have talked to other gods for assistance, basically, all of them fight against Poseidon. I'm pretty sure since she's the goddess of wisdom she would have been able to persuade a few gods to help her.
It says that Medusa's parents were gods if they were Athena could of went to them for aid. This all makes it seem like Athena just wanted an easy way out, and that would be by punishing medusa. Though trying to punish Poseidon would cause total chaos, you could say that's why she didn't try to ask her father or other gods.
But last time I checked she wasn't the goddess of peace but war so that would pretty much mean it's ok to have a war but not between gods. In all honesty, this just makes Athena seem to be falsely symbolizing wisdom and war. She's supposedly very smart yet couldn't find any ways around this. Maybe Athena didn't want to save Medusa because she disliked her. It was one thing to cast Medusa out of the temple but when setting a curse on Medusa just sent it overboard.
Medusa would have already been ashamed and depressed since she was raped and cast from being a priestess but with the curse, Medusa couldn't even have a normal life. This just makes Athena look like either a coward or completely selfish.
I thought about all this after watching this video: The Story Of Medusa - Greek Mythology Explained
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Hello and welcome to Mythology. When it comes to questions about ancient myths, we tend to favour answers that are supported by textual evidence. Your answer is interesting, however, a lot of your assumptions seem a bit off. Why, for example, do you think Athena is completely powerless compared to Poseidon? After all, Poseidon rarely had much luck when facing another Olympian.– yannisCommented Feb 8, 2018 at 11:42