Medusa
One of the three Gorgons, daughter of Phorcys and Ceto. She was the only one of the Gorgons subject to mortality. She was celebrated for her personal charms and the beauty of her hair, which Minerva changed into serpents. According to Apollodorus and others, the Gorgons were born with snakes on their heads instead of hair, and with yellow wings and brazen hands. Perseus rendered himself famous by his conquest of Medusa.
He cut off her head and placed it on the aegis of Minerva. The head had the power of changing those who looked at it into stone.
Medusa, as we are informed by Lord Lytton, was an expression applied to Mary Queen of Scots in her own day, and in his brilliant poem, The Last Days of Queen Elizabeth, he speaks of the unfortunate queen as 'Thou soft Medusa of the fated line."
Mela or Mella, M. Annaeus. Youngest son of M.
Annaeus Seneca, the rhetorician, brother of L. Seneca, the philosopher, and father of the poet Lucan.