Virgil placed Medusa among the frightening figures encountered by Aeneas in the Underworld. This scene occurs in Book 6 of the Aeneid, when Aeneas enters the realm of the dead with the Sibyl of Cumae.
Virgil describes terrifying mythological beings near the entrance to the Underworld, including the Gorgons, Harpies, and other monsters. The Sibyl warns Aeneas about Medusa and protects him from seeing her directly. The episode adapts the familiar danger of Medusa’s petrifying gaze into a vision of the Roman afterlife.
Ovid is also strongly associated with Medusa because his Metamorphoses tells the story of her transformation and death. However, Ovid did not write the Aeneid. Virgil’s epic was composed in the first century BCE and became one of Rome’s foundational literary works.