A Scenario for Stesichorus’ Portrayal of the Monster Geryon in the Geryoneis

Abstract

: My reading of Stesichorus’ Geryoneis in this article is that of a poem that presents a different idea of relations between settlers and settled-upons and one that accommodates change through the adjustments in the representation of the monster Geryon – a reflection of and reaction to colonial encounters with non-Greeks in the West, both in Himera (Stesichorus’ hometown and the furthest Western colony of Sicily) and in Spain, where the poet sets the myth and the site of a Greek emporion in the sixth century BCE.