Gorgonilla

This name derives from the Ancient Greek “gorgō (γοργώ) gorgón (γοργών) gorgónios (γοργόνιος),” meaning “dreadful, terrible, terrifying, very ugly, like a gorgon, relating to Gorgon.” In Greek mythology, a Gorgon is a female creature. While descriptions of Gorgons vary across Greek literature and occur in the earliest examples of Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters who had hair made of living, venomous snakes, as well as a horrifying visage that turned those who beheld her to stone. Gorgo (~480 BC) was the daughter and the only known child of Cleomenes I, King of Sparta (r. 520–490 BC) 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.