Pegasus

Pegasus, as the horse of Muses, on the roof of Poznań Opera House (Max Littmann, 1910)

Pegasus on ancient cup of Marlik

The poet Hesiod presents a folk etymology of the name Pegasus as derived from πηγή pēgē 'spring, well', referring to "the pegai of Okeanos, where he was born".[1]

A proposed etymology of the name is Luwian pihassas 'lightning', and Pihassassi, a local Luwian-Hittite name in southern Cilicia of a weather deity associated with thunder and lightning. The proponents of this etymology adduce the role of Pegasus, reported as early as Hesiod, as the bringer of thunderbolts to Zeus. That interpretation was first suggested in 1952 and remains widely accepted,[2] but Robin Lane Fox (2009) has criticized it as implausible.[3]

Michael Brown, who has been studying ancient and medieval Greek poetry in the context of the Greek-North European dialogue, has concluded from his studies that the word Pegasus is a pre-Celtic-PIE word, one that did not evolve into one of the numerous common names listed in both Greek and Western languages. This concept is discussed further in "Linguistics and Classical Theology", by William S. R. Miller, which is based on his work with Charles F. G. Osterhaus's analysis of the word and its relationships to Greek and Italian. The relationship of "Pegasus" to "Cyrillic" is discussed further in his Phrygian Monikers and the Naming of Greek Pronunciation "Cyrillic or Pene-Orthogyrin" and "Pegasus" as an Early Semitic construct.[4]

According to early myths, everywhere the winged horse struck his hoof to the earth, an inspiring water spring burst forth. One of these springs was upon the Muses' Mount Helicon, the Hippocrene ("horse spring").[5] Antoninus Liberalis has suggested,[6] that it was opened at the behest of Poseidon to prevent the mountain swelling with rapture at the song of the Muses. Another spring associated with Pegasus was at Troezen.[7] Hesiod relates how Pegasus was peacefully drinking from a spring when the hero Bellerophon captured him.

Hesiod wrote that Pegasus carried thunderbolts for Zeus.[8]

There are several versions of the birth of the winged stallion and his brother Chrysaor in the far distant place at the edge of Earth, Hesiod's "springs of Oceanus", which encircles the inhabited earth, where Perseus found Medusa:

One is that they sprang from the blood issuing from Medusa's neck as Perseus was beheading her,[9] similar to the manner in which Athena was born from the head of Zeus after he swallowed her pregnant mother.

In another version, when Perseus beheaded Medusa, the brothers were born of the Earth, when the Gorgon's blood fell upon her. A variation of this story holds that they were formed from the mingling of Medusa's blood, pain, and sea foam, implying that Poseidon had involvement in their making.

The last version bears resemblance to Hesiod's account of the birth of Aphrodite from the foam created when the severed genitals of Uranus were cast into the sea by Cronus.

Bellerophon fighting the Chimera, side A of a black-figure double-belly cup of Siana made in Athens found in Camiros (Rhodes)

Left: a Hellenistic Greek mosaic of Bellerophon riding Pegasus while slaying the Chimera, 300–270 BC, Archaeological Museum of Rhodes

Right: a Roman mosaic of Bellerophon slaying the Chimera, 2nd to 3rd centuries AD, Musée de la Romanité

Pegasus aided the hero Bellerophon in his fight against the Chimera. There are varying tales about how Bellerophon found Pegasus; the most common[10] being that the hero was told by Polyeidos to sleep in the temple of Athena, where the goddess visited him in the night and presented him with a golden bridle. The next morning, still clutching the bridle, Bellerophon found Pegasus drinking at the Pierian spring, caught him, and eventually tamed him.

Michaud's Biographie universelle relates that when Pegasus was born, he flew to where thunder and lightning are released. Then, according to certain versions of the myth, Athena tamed him and gave him to Perseus, who flew to Ethiopia to help Andromeda.[11]

Left, the head of Athena wearing the Corinthian helmet adorned with a griffin; right, Pegasus flying and between his legs, a triskele is displayed

After Bellerophon fell off Pegasus while trying to reach Olympus, Pegasus and Athena left him and continued to Olympus where he was stabled with other steeds belonging to Zeus, and was given the task of carrying Zeus' thunderbolts, along with other members of his entourage, his attendants/handmaidens/shield bearers/shieldmaidens, Astrape and Bronte.

Because of his years of faithful service to Zeus, Pegasus was later honoured with transformation into a constellation.[12] On the day of his catasterism, when Zeus transformed him into a constellation, a single feather fell to Earth near the city of Tarsus.[13]

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  Bellerophon, Pegasus, and Athena, fresco of the 3rd style from Pompeii, first half of the 1st century
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  Bronze figurine (Greece, sixth century BC)
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  Bellerophon mounted on Pegasus fighting the Chimera, side A from an Attic red-figure pelike
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  Bellerophon and the Chimera, edge of an Attic red-figure epinetron (thigh-protector used by a woman when weaving)
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  Reel (probably an ear-stud) with representations of Pegasus and Chimaira
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  Pegasus, Attic red-figure squat lekythos, 480–460 BC, from Sicily
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  Parthian era bronze plate depicting Pegasus (Pegaz in Persian), excavated in Masjed Soleyman, Khūzestān, Iran
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  A 1914 illustration depicting Bellerophon riding Pegasus
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  Bellerophon Taming Pegasus, by Jacques Lipchitz. 1977. Columbia University, New York
• 
  Modern pegasus logo of the University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida

• The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Pegasus)
• Media related to Pegasus at Wikimedia Commons
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pegasus" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.