Chrysaor

For other uses of the name, see Chrysaor (disambiguation)

In Greek mythology, Chrysaor (Greek Χρυσαωρ = "[He who has a] golden sword" was a giant, the son of Poseidon and Medusa. He was conceived on the floor of a temple to Athena who, enraged at the desecration, turned Medusa into a Gorgon. As such, Chrysaor and his brother, the winged horse, Pegasus, were not born until Perseus chopped off Medusa's head. They were born from the drops of her blood which fell in the sea; some say that they sprang from Medusa's neck as Perseus beheaded her, a "higher" birth, like the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus. Chrysaor is said to have been king of Iberia (Spain and Portugal).

Chrysaor had one son, Geryon, from Callirhoe, daughter of Oceanus.

"Chrysaor, married to Callirhoe, daughter of glorious Oceanus, was father to the triple-headed Geryon, but Geryon was killed by the great strength of Herakles at sea-circled Erytheis beside his own shambling cattle on that day when Herakles drove those broad-faced cattle toward holy Tiryns, when he crossed the stream of Okeanos and had killed Orthos and the oxherd Eurytion out in the gloomy meadow beyond fabulous Okeanos." - Hesiod, Theogony 287

"The ancient writers seem to call the Baetis [a river in southern Spain, now called Guadalquivir ] Tartessos, and Gadeira [Gades, now Cadiz ] and the nearby island Erytheia. This, it is supposed, is why Stesichorus could say of Geryon's herdman [Eurytion] that he was born almost opposite famous Erytheia .. by the limitless silver-rooted [with reference to the silver mined in the region] waters of the river Tartessos in the hollow of a rock." - Greek Lyric III Stesichorus, Geryoneis Fragment S7 (from Strabo, Geography)

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