Pegasus was the winged divine horse of Greek mythology, born from the blood of Medusa when the hero Perseus cut off her head. Pegasus flew to Mount Helicon, where he struck the ground with his hoof and caused the spring Hippocrene to gush forth, a source of poetic inspiration. Pegasus was eventually tamed by the hero Bellerophon, who rode him on various adventures, but when Bellerophon tried to fly to Olympus, Zeus sent a gadfly to sting Pegasus, and the hero was thrown from the horse and fell back to earth. Pegasus continued on to Olympus, where he became the bearer of Zeus’s thunderbolts and was eventually placed among the stars as a constellation. The name “Pegasus” is a synonym for the idea of a winged horse, and it has been used for countless things in modern life.
Pegasus is the winged horse, the child of Poseidon and Medusa (born, in the standard Hesiodic story, from the blood of Medusa’s neck when Perseus cut off her head). The standard source is Hesiod’s Theogony (line 280 ff.), which tells of the birth of Pegasus from Medusa’s blood; the Iliad (Book VI, the Glaucus-Diomedes exchange) gives the famous story of Bellerophon and the Chimera; Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Book IV) gives the later, more elaborate version in which Bellerophon tries to fly to Olympus and is thrown down. The constellation Pegasus (the seventh-largest in the sky) is named for the horse; the standard scholarly reference is the Star Tales of Ian Ridpath (1988).
The Birth of Pegasus
Pegasus was the offspring of Poseidon and the Gorgon Medusa. According to Hesiod, Pegasus was conceived when Poseidon lay with Medusa in a meadow of flowers, in a soft field, while she was still a beautiful maiden. This was before Medusa’s transformation into a monster by Athena.
When the hero Perseus cut off Medusa’s head with his curved sword, two beings sprang from her blood: the winged horse Pegasus and the giant Chrysaor, both conceived by Poseidon. Pegasus, with his brother, immediately flew away from the body of his mother.
In some versions of the myth, Pegasus and Chrysaor sprang from the drops of blood that fell from Medusa’s head as Perseus carried it. In others, they sprang from the blood on the ground. In all versions, the birth of Pegasus is connected to the death of Medusa, and the two events are linked in the mythology.
The Hippocrene Spring
Pegasus flew first to Mount Helicon in Boeotia, where the Muses had their sanctuary. There, he struck the ground with his hoof, and a spring gushed forth from the rock. The spring was called the Hippocrene, the “horse’s spring,” and it was a source of poetic inspiration. The Muses drank from the spring, and the waters gave them their songs.
The Hippocrene was a real spring on Mount Helicon, and it was said to inspire those who drank from it. The spring was sacred to the Muses, and it was the site of the Muses’ contests, the Mouseia, which were celebrated on Mount Helicon every four years.
The Taming of Pegasus
Pegasus was eventually tamed by the hero Bellerophon, who captured him with the help of a magic bridle given to him by the goddess Athena. According to the myth, Bellerophon was the son of the Corinthian king Glaucus, and he had been accused of a crime he did not commit. He was sent to the king of Lycia to be purified, and the king, not wanting to be the one to kill a guest, sent him on a series of impossible tasks, including killing the Chimera, a fire-breathing creature with the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a snake.
Bellerophon, with the help of Pegasus, killed the Chimera, and he performed other heroic deeds. He rode Pegasus into battle against the Solymi and the Amazons, and he defeated them all. He became a great hero, but his success went to his head. He decided to fly to Olympus, the home of the gods, to claim a place among them.
The Fall of Bellerophon
Zeus, the king of the gods, was angered by Bellerophon’s hubris. As Bellerophon was flying toward Olympus on the back of Pegasus, Zeus sent a gadfly to sting the horse. Pegasus reared in pain, and Bellerophon was thrown from the saddle. He fell back to earth, landing in a thorn bush or, in some versions, in the sea. He survived the fall but was crippled for life, and he wandered the earth, blind and alone, until he died.
The myth of Bellerophon’s fall is a classic example of the Greek theme of hubris and nemesis. The hero who was so favored by the gods that he rode the divine horse, who killed monsters, and who was promised a place among the immortals, was brought low by his own pride. The lesson is that no mortal, however great, can challenge the gods.
Pegasus on Olympus
After Bellerophon was thrown from his back, Pegasus continued on to Olympus. There, Zeus took the horse into his service as the bearer of his thunderbolts. Pegasus carried the thunderbolts from the forge of Hephaestus to the hall of Zeus, and he was given a place of honor among the divine horses.
In some traditions, Pegasus was given a place among the stars as the constellation Pegasus. The constellation is one of the most recognizable in the northern sky, with the distinctive “Square of Pegasus” formed by four bright stars. The constellation is visible from both hemispheres, and it has been recognized since ancient times.
Pegasus in Greek Art
Pegasus was a popular subject in Greek art, particularly in vase paintings, sculpture, and coins. The winged horse is often shown drinking from the Hippocrene, or being ridden by Bellerophon, or being received on Olympus by Zeus. The most famous surviving depiction is the Pegasus of the east pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia, which shows the horse in dynamic motion.
Pegasus also appears on countless Greek coins, particularly from Corinth, which used the image of Pegasus as its civic emblem. The Corinthian coins, which were widely circulated, helped to spread the image of Pegasus throughout the Mediterranean world.
Pegasus in Roman Myth and Art
The Romans adopted the myth of Pegasus from the Greeks, and they identified Pegasus with the constellation of the same name. The Roman poet Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, told the story of Pegasus and Bellerophon in detail, and he emphasized the theme of hubris and the fall of the hero.
The Romans also associated Pegasus with the Muses and with the arts. The horse was a symbol of poetic inspiration, and the phrase “riding Pegasus” came to mean writing poetry.
The Legacy of Pegasus
Pegasus appears in the Percy Jackson series, the Clash of the Titans films, the God of War franchise, and many fantasy video games (notably Final Fantasy and Monster Hunter). The name has been used for the airline Pegasus Airlines, the European Space Agency’s Pegasus rocket, the Pegasus World Cup horse race, and a US Navy hydrofoil. For the broader modern reception, see our guide to Greek mythology in modern culture.
A Note on Reading This Profile
A note on reading this profile. Pegasus is unusual in that the Greek tradition treats the horse as a real being, not as a symbol, and the modern symbolic readings (the Pegasus of freedom, the Pegasus of poetic inspiration) are later additions. The Hesiodic Pegasus (in the Theogony) is the horse that struck the ground and produced the spring Hippocrene, and the Bellerophon Pegasus is the tamed Pegasus that Bellerophon rode. The two are not the same horse in the Greek sources, and the modern synthesis is a later development. The standard scholarly reference is the Star Tales of Ian Ridpath (1988), and the standard treatment of the modern synthesis is in Marina Warner’s Stranger Magic (2011).