[27][28] The cult of Athena may have also been influenced by those of Near Eastern warrior goddesses such as the East Semitic Ishtar and the Ugaritic Anat,[10] both of whom were often portrayed bearing arms. "[110][109], Hesiod states that Hera was so annoyed at Zeus for having given birth to a child on his own that she conceived and bore Hephaestus by herself,[101] but in Imagines 2. From her origin as an Aegean palace goddess, Athena was closely associated with the city. [53][129] Robert Graves was of the opinion that "Poseidon's attempts to take possession of certain cities are political myths",[128] which reflect the conflict between matriarchal and patriarchal religions. I believe you, I hear you, and I care . Athena, the patron goddess of the city of Athens, is associated with over a dozen sacred symbols from which she derived her powers. In the Iliad, Athena is the divine form of the heroic, martial ideal: she personifies excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. [189] She became so conceited of her skill as a weaver that she began claiming that her skill was greater than that of Athena herself. Omissions? Pallas Athena was the virgin goddess of war, wisdom, crafts, and the patron deity of the great city of Athens. The Goddess Athena represents wisdom, justice, and war. [citation needed] Athena taunted the gods who supported Troy, saying that they will too eventually end up like Ares and Aphrodite, which scared them, therefore proving her power and reputation among the other gods. [211] The Roman goddess Minerva adopted most of Athena's Greek iconographical associations,[213] but was also integrated into the Capitoline Triad. The Gorgon's face is not limited to divine armor, however, but also decorated the martial accoutrements of Greek soldiers, such as helmets, shields, and greaves (41.162.74 . Athena gave him a gleaming shield of bronze; his father Zeus gave him a sword; Hades provided a helmet of invisibility; and Hermes granted him winged sandals . [117], Athena also gets into a duel with Ares, the god of the brutal wars, and her male counterpart [203] Ares blames her for encouraging Diomedes to tear his beautiful flesh. [19] This could be connected with the Linear B Mycenaean expressions a-ta-na po-ti-ni-ja and di-u-ja or di-wi-ja (Diwia, "of Zeus" or, possibly, related to a homonymous goddess),[15] resulting in a translation "Athena of Zeus" or "divine Athena". Athena taught Arachne the art of weaving and Phalanx the art of war, but when brother and sister laid together in bed, Athena was so disgusted with them that she turned them both into spiders, animals forever doomed to be eaten by their own young. [193] Athena admitted that Arachne's work was flawless,[191][190][192] but was outraged at Arachne's offensive choice of subject, which displayed the failings and transgressions of the deities. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). It established their descent from earlier deities considered to remain powerful. [120] Distraught over what she had done, Athena took the name Pallas for herself as a sign of her grief. [230] Athena has occasionally appeared on modern coins, as she did on the ancient Athenian drachma. "[84][85] In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Athena is occasionally referred to as "Tritonia". In this context, Graves identifies the aegis as clearly belonging first to Athena. Photograph by Maria Daniels, courtesy of the Dewing Greek Numismatic Foundation "[233] Feminist views on Athena are sharply divided;[233] some feminists regard her as a symbol of female empowerment,[233] while others regard her as "the ultimate patriarchal sell out who uses her powers to promote and advance men rather than others of her sex. [156] In Aeschylus's tragedy Orestes, Athena intervenes to save Orestes from the wrath of the Erinyes and presides over his trial for the murder of his mother Clytemnestra. [62] Bells made of terracotta and bronze were used in Sparta as part of Athena's cult. Zeus, sympathizing with Apollo's grievances, discredited the pebble divination by rendering the pebbles useless. [201][202] When the Trojan women go to the temple of Athena on the Acropolis to plead her for protection from Diomedes, Athena ignores them. Updates? [161][146][162] It is not until he washes up on the shore of the island of the Phaeacians, where Nausicaa is washing her clothes that Athena arrives personally to provide more tangible assistance. Athena was the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and good counsel, war, the defence of towns, heroic endeavour, weaving, pottery and various other crafts. [134][180][181] Chariclo intervened on her son's behalf and begged Athena to have mercy. [citation needed] Athena picked up a massive boulder and threw it at Ares, who immediately crumpled to the ground. [172] Athena's push for Telemachos's journey helps him grow into the man role, that his father once held. To the Romans an owl feather placed near sleeping people would prompt them to speak in their sleep and reveal their secrets. [197][134], The goddesses chose to place the matter before Zeus, who, not wanting to favor one of the goddesses, put the choice into the hands of Paris, a Trojan prince. [168][166][160] She disguises him as an elderly beggar so that he will not be recognized by the suitors or Penelope,[169][166] and helps him to defeat the suitors. Rank. [125] Athena was said to have carved the statue herself in the likeness of her dead friend Pallas. In the founding myth of Athens, Athena bested Poseidon in a competition over patronage of the city by creating the first olive tree. [192] It represented the unjust and discrediting behavior of the gods towards mortals. [23] The early twentieth-century scholar Martin Persson Nilsson argued that the Minoan snake goddess figurines are early representations of Athena. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. [125] Athena was infuriated by this violation of her protection. While the specifics of. [46] Burkert notes that the Athenians sometimes simply called Athena "the Goddess", h thes ( ), certainly an ancient title. [128], Afterwards, Poseidon was so angry over his defeat that he sent one of his sons, Halirrhothius, to cut down the tree. In some versions of the mythology, the owl was said to illuminate Athena's "blind side," allowing her to see the entire truth. [220][221] Andrea Mantegna's 1502 painting Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue uses Athena as the personification of Graeco-Roman learning chasing the vices of medievalism from the garden of modern scholarship. with 5 letters was last seen on the January 22, 2023. [67] Other epithets include Ageleia, Itonia and Aethyia, under which she was worshiped in Megara. Athena also helped many of the Greek heroes such as Hercules and Odysseus on their adventures. How was Athena usually pictured? [187] According to Ovid, Arachne (whose name means spider in ancient Greek[188]) was the daughter of a famous dyer in Tyrian purple in Hypaipa of Lydia, and a weaving student of Athena. [191][190], Athena wove the scene of her victory over Poseidon in the contest for the patronage of Athens. The second-century AD orator Aelius Aristides attempted to derive natural symbols from the etymological roots of Athena's names to be aether, air, earth, and moon. Most of these in their explanations of the poet, assert that he meant by Athena "mind" [, nos] and "intelligence" [, dinoia], and the maker of names appears to have had a singular notion about her; and indeed calls her by a still higher title, "divine intelligence" [ , theo nsis], as though he would say: This is she who has the mind of God [ , a theona]. She was depicted as a stately woman armed with a shield and spear, and wearing a long robe, crested helm, and the famed aegis - a snake-trimmed cape adorned with the monstrous visage of the Gorgon Medusa. A virgin deity, she was also - somewhat paradoxically - associated with peace and handicrafts, especially spinning and weaving. [198] Since the Renaissance, however, Western paintings have typically portrayed all three goddesses as completely naked. [59] In Arcadia, she was assimilated with the ancient goddess Alea and worshiped as Athena Alea. Athena is associated with courage and braveness. [172] He hears stories about some of Odysseus's journey. Majestic and stern, Athena surpassed everybody in both of her main domains. Perseus, the mortal son of Zeus and the Argive princess Danae, was a Greek hero, king, and slayer of monsters. [46] The epithet Ergane ( "the Industrious") pointed her out as the patron of craftsmen and artisans. [139] The serpent in the story may be the same one depicted coiled at Athena's feet in Pheidias's famous statue of the Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon. As the guardian of the welfare of kings, Athena became the goddess of good counsel, of prudent restraint and practical insight, as well as of war. [72][73], The Greek biographer Plutarch (AD 46120) refers to an instance during the construction of the Propylaia of her being called Athena Hygieia (, i.e. personified "Health") after inspiring a physician to a successful course of treatment. Nor shall we be far wrong in supposing that the author of it wished to identify this Goddess with moral intelligence [ , en thei nesin], and therefore gave her the name Etheonoe; which, however, either he or his successors have altered into what they thought a nicer form, and called her Athena. The aegis appears in works of art sometimes as an animal's skin thrown over Athena's shoulders and arms, occasionally with a border of snakes, usually also bearing the Gorgon head, the gorgoneion. [86] Several scholars have suggested a connection to the Rigvedic god Trita,[87] who was sometimes grouped in a body of three mythological poets. She instructs Laertes to throw his spear and to kill Eupeithes, the father of Antinous. Symbols associated with Athena are many, and among them are the owl, the Aegis (her shield), the spear, and snakes. During this period, the priestesses of Athena, or plyntrdes, performed a cleansing ritual within the Erechtheion, a sanctuary devoted to Athena and Poseidon. [68][69] The word athyia () signifies a "diver", also some diving bird species (possibly the shearwater) and figuratively, a "ship", so the name must reference Athena teaching the art of shipbuilding or navigation. [114] Fragments attributed by the Christian Eusebius of Caesarea to the semi-legendary Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon, which Eusebius thought had been written before the Trojan war, make Athena instead the daughter of Cronus, a king of Byblos who visited "the inhabitable world" and bequeathed Attica to Athena. According to other sources, it was not a shield but rather an animal skin worn over the garments of the gods as extra protection. from the Gigantomachy Frieze on the Pergamon Altar (early second century BC), Classical mosaic from a villa at Tusculum, 3rd century AD, now at Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican, Athena portrait by Eukleidas on a tetradrachm from Syracuse, Sicily c. 400 BC, Mythological scene with Athena (left) and Herakles (right), on a stone palette of the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, India, Atena farnese, Roman copy of a Greek original from Phidias' circle, c. 430 AD, Museo Archeologico, Naples, Athena (2nd century BC) in the art of Gandhara, displayed at the Lahore Museum, Pakistan, Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria and Firmicus, denigrated Athena as representative of all the things that were detestable about paganism;[215] they condemned her as "immodest and immoral". [127] Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring sprang up;[127] this gave the Athenians access to trade and water. [101] Then Zeus experienced an enormous headache. Hermes demands help from Aglaulus to seduce Herse. Western artists and allegorists have often used Athena as a symbol of freedom and democracy. There was an alternative story that Zeus swallowed Metis, the goddess of counsel, while she was pregnant with Athena, so that Athena finally emerged from Zeus. [222][221][223] Athena is also used as the personification of wisdom in Bartholomeus Spranger's 1591 painting The Triumph of Wisdom or Minerva Victorious over Ignorance. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. [9], Athena was originally the Aegean goddess of the palace, who presided over household crafts and protected the king. She may not have been described as a virgin originally, but virginity was attributed to her very early and was the basis for the interpretation of her epithets Pallas and Parthenos. Athena placed on her aegis a symbolic representation of the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa. [226] Instead, Athena was transformed into the personification of freedom and the republic[226] and a statue of the goddess stood in the center of the Place de la Revolution in Paris. The modern concept of doing something "under someone's aegis" means doing something under the protection of a powerful, knowledgeable, or benevolent source. She was a child of Zeus and Metis (Titaness), Zeus' first wife. [208][209] She is especially prominent in works produced in Athens. [29] Athena's birth from the head of Zeus may be derived from the earlier Sumerian myth of Inanna's descent into and return from the Underworld. [63] It was designed by Pytheos of Priene,[64] the same architect who designed the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. [135] She warned the three sisters not to open the chest,[135] but did not explain to them why or what was in it. Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. Introduction Hi! The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is dedicated to her, along with numerous other temples and monuments. She is also associated with craftsmanship and handiwork. [82] It could mean various things, including "Triton-born", perhaps indicating that the homonymous sea-deity was her parent according to some early myths. [238] Her owl is also a symbol of the fraternity.[238]. [24] Proponents of this view argue that she dropped her prophylactic owl mask before she lost her wings. Athena and Heracles on an Attic red-figure kylix, 480470 BC, Athena, detail from a silver kantharos with Theseus in Crete (c. 440-435 BC), part of the Vassil Bojkov collection, Sofia, Bulgaria, Silver coin showing Athena with Scylla decorated helmet and Heracles fighting the Nemean lion (Heraclea Lucania, 390-340 BC), Paestan red-figure bell-krater (c. 330 BC), showing Orestes at Delphi flanked by Athena and Pylades among the Erinyes and priestesses of Apollo, with the Pythia sitting behind them on her tripod, The Gorgoneion appears to have originated as an apotropaic symbol intended to ward off evil. As the patron of craft and weaving, Athena was known as Ergane. Occasionally, another god used ite.g., Apollo in the Iliad, where it provoked terror. In every city and village in ancient Greece Athena, the goddess of war and wisdom, was one of the most venerated beings in the entire pantheon. Athena, also spelled Athene, in Greek religion, the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva. "to quickly move, to shoot, dart, to put in motion": Part I, section I (Warner Books' United States Paperback Edition), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aegis&oldid=1138900742, Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopdia Britannica, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2016, Wikipedia articles with style issues from January 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. Her emergence there as city goddess, Athena Polias (Athena, Guardian of the City), accompanied the ancient city-states transition from monarchy to democracy. Dewing 1595, silver Athenian tetradrachm (=4 drachmas), ca. She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, so that she emerged full-grown from his forehead. Her superiority also derived in part from the vastly greater variety and importance of her functions and the patriotism of Homer's predecessors, Ares being of foreign origin. [124], The palladium was a statue of Athena that was said to have stood in her temple on the Trojan Acropolis. Similarly, in the Greek mythology and epic tradition, Athena figures as a daughter of Zeus ( ; cfr. Dyeus). [144][145] Pseudo-Apollodorus also records that Athena guided the hero Perseus in his quest to behead Medusa. As a war goddess Athena could not be dominated by other goddesses, such as Aphrodite, and as a palace goddess she could not be violated. [130], Herodotus records that a serpent lived in a crevice on the north side of the summit of the Athenian Acropolis[130] and that the Athenians left a honey cake for it each month as an offering. [78], The word glax (,[79] "little owl")[80] is from the same root, presumably according to some, because of the bird's own distinctive eyes. . [127] The olive tree brought wood, oil, and food,[128] and became a symbol of Athenian economic prosperity. Her materialistic symbols include her spear, the distaff and a goatskin shield called the aegis. However, Zeus is normally portrayed in classical sculpture holding a thunderbolt or lightning, bearing neither a shield nor a breastplate. [12] Classical scholar Charles Penglase notes that Athena resembles Inanna in her role as a "terrifying warrior goddess"[29] and that both goddesses were closely linked with creation. Thus, Plato believed that Athena's name was derived from Greek , Atheonawhich the later Greeks rationalised as from the deity's (, thes) mind (, nos). Poseidon in fury accused Ares of murder, and the matter was eventually settled on the Areopagus ("hill of Ares") in favour of Ares, which was thereafter named after the event. [44], As Athena Promachos, she was believed to lead soldiers into battle. [207] Ajax later commits suicide as a result of his humiliation. Also known as Pallas Athena, she wore a breastplate made out of goatskin called the Aegis, which was given to her by her father, Zeus. [131][132], Pseudo-Apollodorus[113] records an archaic legend, which claims that Hephaestus once attempted to rape Athena, but she pushed him away, causing him to ejaculate on her thigh. [106][98][107][104] Athena leaped from Zeus's head, fully grown and armed. (, "This sanctuary had been respected from early days by all the. There may be a connection with a deity named Aex or Aix, a daughter of Helios and a nurse of Zeus or alternatively a mistress of Zeus (Hyginus, Astronomica 2. [64] The temple was dedicated by Alexander the Great[65] and an inscription from the temple declaring his dedication is now held in the British Museum. [195] Only Eris, goddess of discord, was not invited. Corrections? Born from Zeus's head, she was his favorite daughter and possessed great wisdom, bravery, and resourcefulness. After he and his mother were exiled from their homeland, Perseus was raised on a remote island where he grew up protecting his mother from the cruel King Polydectes. [57], Athena was also credited with creating the pebble-based form of divination. [175] Sometimes she is shown wearing the aegis as a cloak. [210][208] Copies reveal that this statue depicted Athena holding her shield in her left hand with Nike, the winged goddess of victory, standing in her right. The Douris cup shows that the aegis was represented exactly as the skin of the great serpent, with its scales clearly delineated. [119], In one version of the myth, Pallas was the daughter of the sea-god Triton;[83] she and Athena were childhood friends, but Athena accidentally killed her during a friendly sparring match. Herse, Aglaulus, and Pandrosus go to the temple to offer sacrifices to Athena. Athena was associated with the owl from very early on;[81] in archaic images, she is frequently depicted with an owl perched on her hand. [6] In ancient times, scholars argued whether Athena was named after Athens or Athens after Athena. [60] Sanctuaries dedicated to Athena Alea were located in the Laconian towns of Mantineia and Tegea. [51][138] Pausanias records that, during the Arrhephoria, two young girls known as the Arrhephoroi, who lived near the temple of Athena Polias, would be given hidden objects by the priestess of Athena,[139] which they would carry on their heads down a natural underground passage. Those pebbles were called thriai, which was also the collective name of a group of nymphs with prophetic powers. In a late rendering by Gaius Julius Hyginus (Poetical Astronomy ii. [196] She was annoyed at this, so she arrived with a golden apple inscribed with the word (kallisti, "for the fairest"), which she threw among the goddesses. [134][181][182] Athena replied that she could not restore Tiresias's eyesight,[134][181][182] so, instead, she gave him the ability to understand the language of the birds and thus foretell the future. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion. [109] Pindar, in his "Seventh Olympian Ode", states that she "cried aloud with a mighty shout" and that "the Sky and mother Earth shuddered before her. . [99][102][98][101] A later account of the story from the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, written in the second century AD, makes Metis Zeus's unwilling sexual partner, rather than his wife. [236], Athena is a natural patron of universities: At Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, a statue of Athena (a replica of the original bronze one in the arts and archaeology library) resides in the Great Hall. The best known image of Athena's owl, the Little Owl, is seen on ancient Athenian coins dating from the fifth century BCE. In some versions of the story, Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus' forehead by parthenogenesis. Athena became the goddess of crafts and skilled peacetime pursuits in general. [37][38], In her aspect of Athena Polias, Athena was venerated as the goddess of the city and the protectress of the citadel. You can easily improve your search by specifying the number of letters in the answer. [133][51][134] Athena adopted Erichthonius as her son and raised him. As punishment for Aglaulus's greed, Athena asks the goddess Envy to make Aglaulus jealous of Herse. Symbology. [184], The fable of Arachne appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses (8 AD) (vi.554 and 129145),[185][186][187] which is nearly the only extant source for the legend. Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War . Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War. [47] The Greeks regarded Athena with much higher esteem than Ares. [42] Here Athena's statue was undressed, her clothes washed, and body purified. [191][190][192], In a rarer version, surviving in the scholia of an unnamed scholiast on Nicander, whose works heavily influenced Ovid, Arachne is placed in Attica instead and has a brother named Phalanx. Being the favorite child of Zeus, she had great power. Athena's name probably comes from the name of the city of Athens. [142], According to Pseudo-Apollodorus's Bibliotheca, Athena advised Argos, the builder of the Argo, the ship on which the hero Jason and his band of Argonauts sailed, and aided in the ship's construction. Athena. [46] The various cults of Athena were all branches of her panhellenic cult[46] and often proctored various initiation rites of Grecian youth, such as the passage into citizenship by young men or the passage of young women into marriage. For other uses, see, Goddess of wisdom, warfare, and handicraft, Cult statue of Athena with the face of the Carpegna type (late 1st century BC to early 1st century AD), from the Piazza dell'Emporio, Rome, Bust of the Velletri Pallas type, copy after a votive statue of Kresilas in Athens (, In other traditions, Athena's father is sometimes listed as Zeus by himself or, "The citizens have a deity for their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith and is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athena; they are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them." [127][53] Cecrops accepted this gift[127] and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens. [21][22] In the "Procession Fresco" at Knossos, which was reconstructed by the Mycenaeans, two rows of figures carrying vessels seem to meet in front of a central figure, which is probably the Minoan precursor to Athena. The word aegis is identified with protection by a strong force with its roots in Greek mythology and adopted by the Romans; there are parallels in Norse mythology and in Egyptian mythology as well,[citation needed] where the Greek word aegis is applied by extension.
