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Athena

January 26, 2023

This article is about the Greek goddess. For other uses, see Athena (disambiguation).

"Athene", "Athina", and "Pallas Athena" redirect here. For other uses, see Athene (disambiguation), Athina (disambiguation), and Pallas Athena (disambiguation).

Athena[b] or Athene,[c] often given the epithet Pallas,[d] is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft[1] who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva.[4] Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece, particularly the city of Athens, from which she most likely received her name.[5] The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion. In art, she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear.

Athena
Goddess of wisdom, warfare, and handicraft[1]
Member of the Twelve Olympians
Mattei Athena at Louvre. Roman copy from the 1st century BC/AD after a Greek original of the 4th century BC attributed to Cephisodotos or Euphranor.
AbodeMount Olympus
AnimalsOwl, serpent, spider, horse
SymbolAegis, helmet, spear, armor, Gorgoneion, chariot, distaff
TreeOlive
Personal information
ParentsZeus and Metis[a][2]
SiblingsAeacus, Angelos, Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Dionysus, Eileithyia, Enyo, Eris, Ersa, Hebe, Helen of Troy, Hephaestus, Heracles, Hermes, Minos, Pandia, Persephone, Perseus, Rhadamanthus, the Graces, the Horae, the Litae, the Muses, the Moirai
ChildrenErichthonius (adopted)
Equivalents
Roman equivalentMinerva
Etruscan equivalentMenrva
Hinduism equivalentSarasvati
Canaanite equivalentAnat[3]
Egyptian equivalentNeith
Celtic equivalentSulis
This article contains special characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols.

From her origin as an Aegean palace goddess, Athena was closely associated with the city. She was known as Polias and Poliouchos (both derived from polis, meaning "city-state"), and her temples were usually located atop the fortified acropolis in the central part of the city. The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is dedicated to her, along with numerous other temples and monuments. As the patron of craft and weaving, Athena was known as Ergane. She was also a warrior goddess, and was believed to lead soldiers into battle as Athena Promachos. Her main festival in Athens was the Panathenaia, which was celebrated during the month of Hekatombaion in midsummer and was the most important festival on the Athenian calendar.

In Greek mythology, Athena was believed to have been born from the forehead of her father Zeus. In some versions of the story, Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus' forehead by parthenogenesis. In others, such as Hesiod's Theogony, Zeus swallows his consort Metis, who was pregnant with Athena; in this version, Athena is first born within Zeus and then escapes from his body through his forehead. In the founding myth of Athens, Athena bested Poseidon in a competition over patronage of the city by creating the first olive tree. She was known as Athena Parthenos "Athena the Virgin," but in one archaic Attic myth, the god Hephaestus tried and failed to rape her, resulting in Gaia giving birth to Erichthonius, an important Athenian founding hero. Athena was the patron goddess of heroic endeavor; she was believed to have aided the heroes Perseus, Heracles, Bellerophon, and Jason. Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War.

She plays an active role in the Iliad, in which she assists the Achaeans and, in the Odyssey, she is the divine counselor to Odysseus. In the later writings of the Roman poet Ovid, Athena was said to have competed against the mortal Arachne in a weaving competition, afterward transforming Arachne into the first spider; Ovid also describes how she transformed Medusa into a Gorgon after witnessing her being raped by Poseidon in her temple. Since the Renaissance, Athena has become an international symbol of wisdom, the arts, and classical learning. Western artists and allegorists have often used Athena as a symbol of freedom and democracy.

Etymology

 
The Acropolis at Athens (1846) by Leo von Klenze. Athena's name probably comes from the name of the city of Athens.[5][6]

Athena is associated with the city of Athens.[5][7] The name of the city in ancient Greek is Ἀθῆναι (Athȇnai), a plural toponym, designating the place where—according to myth—she presided over the Athenai, a sisterhood devoted to her worship.[6] In ancient times, scholars argued whether Athena was named after Athens or Athens after Athena.[5] Now scholars generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city;[5][7] the ending -ene is common in names of locations, but rare for personal names.[5] Testimonies from different cities in ancient Greece attest that similar city goddesses were worshipped in other cities[6] and, like Athena, took their names from the cities where they were worshipped.[6] For example, in Mycenae there was a goddess called Mykene, whose sisterhood was known as Mykenai,[6] whereas at Thebes an analogous deity was called Thebe, and the city was known under the plural form Thebai (or Thebes, in English, where the 's' is the plural formation).[6] The name Athenai is likely of Pre-Greek origin because it contains the presumably Pre-Greek morpheme *-ān-.[8]

In his dialogue Cratylus, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (428–347 BC) gives some rather imaginative etymologies of Athena's name, based on the theories of the ancient Athenians and his etymological speculations:

That is a graver matter, and there, my friend, the modern interpreters of Homer may, I think, assist in explaining the view of the ancients. Most of these in their explanations of the poet, assert that he meant by Athena "mind" [νοῦς, noũs] and "intelligence" [διάνοια, diánoia], 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" [θεοῦ νόησις, theoũ nóēsis], as though he would say: This is she who has the mind of God [ἁ θεονόα, a theonóa]. Perhaps, however, the name Theonoe may mean "she who knows divine things" [τὰ θεῖα νοοῦσα, ta theia noousa] better than others. Nor shall we be far wrong in supposing that the author of it wished to identify this Goddess with moral intelligence [εν έθει νόεσιν, en éthei nóesin], 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.

— Plato, Cratylus 407b

Thus, Plato believed that Athena's name was derived from Greek Ἀθεονόα, Atheonóa—which the later Greeks rationalised as from the deity's (θεός, theós) mind (νοῦς, noũs). 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.[9]

Origins

 
Fragment of a fresco from the Cult Center at Mycenae dating the late thirteenth century BC depicting a warrior goddess, possibly Athena, wearing a boar's tusk helmet and clutching a griffin.[10]

Athena was originally the Aegean goddess of the palace, who presided over household crafts and protected the king.[11][12][13][14] A single Mycenaean Greek inscription 𐀀𐀲𐀙𐀡𐀴𐀛𐀊 a-ta-na po-ti-ni-ja appears at Knossos in the Linear B tablets from the Late Minoan II-era "Room of the Chariot Tablets";[15][16][10] these comprise the earliest Linear B archive anywhere.[15] Although Athana potnia is often translated as "Mistress Athena", it could also mean "the Potnia of Athana", or the Lady of Athens.[10][17] However, any connection to the city of Athens in the Knossos inscription is uncertain.[18] A sign series a-ta-no-dju-wa-ja appears in the still undeciphered corpus of Linear A tablets, written in the unclassified Minoan language.[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". Similarly, in the Greek mythology and epic tradition, Athena figures as a daughter of Zeus (Διός θυγάτηρ; cfr. Dyeus).[20] However, the inscription quoted seems to be very similar to "a-ta-nū-tī wa-ya", quoted as SY Za 1 by Jan Best.[20] Best translates the initial a-ta-nū-tī, which is recurrent in line beginnings, as "I have given".[20]

A Mycenean fresco depicts two women extending their hands towards a central figure, who is covered by an enormous figure-eight shield; this may depict the warrior-goddess with her palladium, or her palladium in an aniconic representation.[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.[23] The early twentieth-century scholar Martin Persson Nilsson argued that the Minoan snake goddess figurines are early representations of Athena.[11][12]

Nilsson and others have claimed that, in early times, Athena was either an owl herself or a bird goddess in general.[24] In the third book of the Odyssey, she takes the form of a sea-eagle.[24] Proponents of this view argue that she dropped her prophylactic owl mask before she lost her wings. "Athena, by the time she appears in art," Jane Ellen Harrison remarks, "has completely shed her animal form, has reduced the shapes she once wore of snake and bird to attributes, but occasionally in black-figure vase-paintings she still appears with wings."[25]

 
Ancient Akkadian cylinder seal (dating c. 2334–2154 BC) depicting Inanna, the goddess of war, armored and carrying weapons, resting her foot on the back of a lion[26]

It is generally agreed that the cult of Athena preserves some aspects of the Proto-Indo-European transfunctional goddess.[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.[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.[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.[30][31]

Plato notes that the citizens of Sais in Egypt worshipped a goddess known as Neith,[e] whom he identifies with Athena.[32] Neith was the ancient Egyptian goddess of war and hunting, who was also associated with weaving; her worship began during the Egyptian Pre-Dynastic period. In Greek mythology, Athena was reported to have visited mythological sites in North Africa, including Libya's Triton River and the Phlegraean plain.[f] Based on these similarities, the Sinologist Martin Bernal created the "Black Athena" hypothesis, which claimed that Neith was brought to Greece from Egypt, along with "an enormous number of features of civilization and culture in the third and second millennia".[33][34] The "Black Athena" hypothesis stirred up widespread controversy near the end of the twentieth century,[35][36] but it has now been widely rejected by modern scholars.[37][38]

Cult and patronages

Panhellenic and Athenian cult

 
Athenian tetradrachm representing the goddess Athena
 
A new peplos was woven for Athena and ceremonially brought to dress her cult image (British Museum).

In her aspect of Athena Polias, Athena was venerated as the goddess of the city and the protectress of the citadel.[12][39][40] In Athens, the Plynteria, or "Feast of the Bath", was observed every year at the end of the month of Thargelion.[41] The festival lasted for five days. During this period, the priestesses of Athena, or plyntrídes, performed a cleansing ritual within the Erechtheion, a sanctuary devoted to Athena and Poseidon.[42] Here Athena's statue was undressed, her clothes washed, and body purified.[42] Athena was worshipped at festivals such as Chalceia as Athena Ergane,[43][40] the patroness of various crafts, especially weaving.[43][40] She was also the patron of metalworkers and was believed to aid in the forging of armor and weapons.[43] During the late fifth century BC, the role of goddess of philosophy became a major aspect of Athena's cult.[44]

As Athena Promachos, she was believed to lead soldiers into battle.[45][46] Athena represented the disciplined, strategic side of war, in contrast to her brother Ares, the patron of violence, bloodlust, and slaughter—"the raw force of war".[47][48] Athena was believed to only support those fighting for a just cause[47] and was thought to view war primarily as a means to resolve conflict.[47] The Greeks regarded Athena with much higher esteem than Ares.[47][48] Athena was especially worshipped in this role during the festivals of the Panathenaea and Pamboeotia,[49] both of which prominently featured displays of athletic and military prowess.[49] As the patroness of heroes and warriors, Athena was believed to favor those who used cunning and intelligence rather than brute strength.[50]

 
The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis, which is dedicated to Athena Parthenos[51]

In her aspect as a warrior maiden, Athena was known as Parthenos (Παρθένος "virgin"),[45][52][53] because, like her fellow goddesses Artemis and Hestia, she was believed to remain perpetually a virgin.[54][55][45][53][56] Athena's most famous temple, the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis, takes its name from this title.[56] According to Karl Kerényi, a scholar of Greek mythology, the name Parthenos is not merely an observation of Athena's virginity, but also a recognition of her role as enforcer of rules of sexual modesty and ritual mystery.[56] Even beyond recognition, the Athenians allotted the goddess value based on this pureness of virginity, which they upheld as a rudiment of female behavior.[56] Kerényi's study and theory of Athena explains her virginal epithet as a result of her relationship to her father Zeus and a vital, cohesive piece of her character throughout the ages.[56] This role is expressed in several stories about Athena. Marinus of Neapolis reports that when Christians removed the statue of the goddess from the Parthenon, a beautiful woman appeared in a dream to Proclus, a devotee of Athena, and announced that the "Athenian Lady" wished to dwell with him.[57]

Regional cults

 
Reverse side of a Pergamene silver tetradrachm minted by Attalus I, showing Athena seated on a throne (c. 200 BC)

Athena was not only the patron goddess of Athens, but also other cities, including Argos, Sparta, Gortyn, Lindos, and Larisa.[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.[46] These cults were portals of a uniform socialization, even beyond mainland Greece.[46] Athena was frequently equated with Aphaea, a local goddess of the island of Aegina, originally from Crete and also associated with Artemis and the nymph Britomartis.[58] In Arcadia, she was assimilated with the ancient goddess Alea and worshiped as Athena Alea.[59] Sanctuaries dedicated to Athena Alea were located in the Laconian towns of Mantineia and Tegea. The temple of Athena Alea in Tegea was an important religious center of ancient Greece.[g] The geographer Pausanias was informed that the temenos had been founded by Aleus.[60]

Athena had a major temple on the Spartan Acropolis,[61][40] where she was venerated as Poliouchos and Khalkíoikos ("of the Brazen House", often latinized as Chalcioecus).[61][40] This epithet may refer to the fact that cult statue held there may have been made of bronze,[61] that the walls of the temple itself may have been made of bronze,[61] or that Athena was the patron of metal-workers.[61] Bells made of terracotta and bronze were used in Sparta as part of Athena's cult.[61] An Ionic-style temple to Athena Polias was built at Priene in the fourth century BC.[62] It was designed by Pytheos of Priene,[63] the same architect who designed the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.[63] The temple was dedicated by Alexander the Great[64] and an inscription from the temple declaring his dedication is now held in the British Museum.[62]

Epithets and attributes

See also: Category:Epithets of Athena
 
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 (c. 425 BC)

Athena was known as Atrytone (Άτρυτώνη "the Unwearying"), Parthenos (Παρθένος "Virgin"), and Promachos (Πρόμαχος "she who fights in front"). The epithet Polias (Πολιάς "of the city"), refers to Athena's role as protectress of the city.[46] The epithet Ergane (Εργάνη "the Industrious") pointed her out as the patron of craftsmen and artisans.[46] Burkert notes that the Athenians sometimes simply called Athena "the Goddess", hē theós (ἡ θεός), certainly an ancient title.[5] After serving as the judge at the trial of Orestes in which he was acquitted of having murdered his mother Clytemnestra, Athena won the epithet Areia (Αρεία).[46] Some have described Athena, along with the goddesses Hestia and Artemis as being asexual, this is mainly supported by the fact that in the Homeric Hymns, 5, To Aphrodite, where Aphrodite is described as having "no power" over the three goddesses.[65]

Athena was sometimes given the epithet Hippia (Ἵππια "of the horses", "equestrian"),[40][66] referring to her invention of the bit, bridle, chariot, and wagon.[40] The Greek geographer Pausanias mentions in his Guide to Greece that the temple of Athena Chalinitis ("the bridler")[66] in Corinth was located near the tomb of Medea's children.[66] Other epithets include Ageleia, Itonia and Aethyia, under which she was worshiped in Megara.[67][68] The word aíthyia (αἴθυια) 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.[69] In a temple at Phrixa in Elis, reportedly built by Clymenus, she was known as Cydonia (Κυδωνία).[70] Pausanias wrote that at Buporthmus there was a sanctuary of Athena Promachorma (Προμαχόρμα), meaning protector of the anchorage.[71][72]

The Greek biographer Plutarch (AD 46–120) refers to an instance during the construction of the Propylaia of her being called Athena Hygieia (Ὑγίεια, i. e. personified "Health") after inspiring a physician to a successful course of treatment.[73]

At Athens there is the temple of Athena Phratria, as patron of a phratry, in the Ancient Agora of Athens.[74]

Glaukopis

 
The owl of Athena, surrounded by an olive wreath. Reverse of an Athenian silver tetradrachm, c. 175 BC

In Homer's epic works, Athena's most common epithet is Glaukopis (γλαυκῶπις), which usually is translated as, "bright-eyed" or "with gleaming eyes".[75] The word is a combination of glaukós (γλαυκός, meaning "gleaming, silvery", and later, "bluish-green" or "gray")[76] and ṓps (ὤψ, "eye, face").[77]

The word glaúx (γλαύξ,[78] "little owl")[79] is from the same root, presumably according to some, because of the bird's own distinctive eyes. Athena was associated with the owl from very early on;[80] in archaic images, she is frequently depicted with an owl perched on her hand.[80] Through its association with Athena, the owl evolved into the national mascot of the Athenians and eventually became a symbol of wisdom.[4]

Tritogeneia

In the Iliad (4.514), the Odyssey (3.378), the Homeric Hymns, and in Hesiod's Theogony, Athena is also given the curious epithet Tritogeneia (Τριτογένεια), whose significance remains unclear.[81] It could mean various things, including "Triton-born", perhaps indicating that the homonymous sea-deity was her parent according to some early myths.[81] One myth relates the foster father relationship of this Triton towards the half-orphan Athena, whom he raised alongside his own daughter Pallas.[82] Kerényi suggests that "Tritogeneia did not mean that she came into the world on any particular river or lake, but that she was born of the water itself; for the name Triton seems to be associated with water generally."[83][84] In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Athena is occasionally referred to as "Tritonia".

Another possible meaning may be "triple-born" or "third-born", which may refer to a triad or to her status as the third daughter of Zeus or the fact she was born from Metis, Zeus, and herself; various legends list her as being the first child after Artemis and Apollo, though other legends identify her as Zeus' first child.[85] Several scholars have suggested a connection to the Rigvedic god Trita,[86] who was sometimes grouped in a body of three mythological poets.[86] Michael Janda has connected the myth of Trita to the scene in the Iliad in which the "three brothers" Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades divide the world between them, receiving the "broad sky", the sea, and the underworld respectively.[87][88] Janda further connects the myth of Athena being born of the head (i. e. the uppermost part) of Zeus, understanding Trito- (which perhaps originally meant "the third") as another word for "the sky".[87] In Janda's analysis of Indo-European mythology, this heavenly sphere is also associated with the mythological body of water surrounding the inhabited world (cfr. Triton's mother, Amphitrite).[87]

Yet another possible meaning is mentioned in Diogenes Laertius' biography of Democritus, that Athena was called "Tritogeneia" because three things, on which all mortal life depends, come from her.[89]

Mythology

Birth

 
Athena is "born" from Zeus's forehead as a result of him having swallowed her mother Metis, as he grasps the clothing of Eileithyia on the right; black-figured amphora, 550–525 BC, Louvre.
 
The Varvakeion Athena, the most faithful copy of the Athena Parthenos, as displayed in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens.

She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, and emerged full-grown from his forehead. There was an alternate story that Zeus swallowed Metis, the goddess of counsel, while she was pregnant with Athena and when she was fully grown she emerged from Zeus' forehead. Being the favorite child of Zeus, she had great power. In the classical Olympian pantheon, Athena was regarded as the favorite child of Zeus, born fully armed from his forehead.[90][91][92][h] The story of her birth comes in several versions.[93][94][95] The earliest mention is in Book V of the Iliad, when Ares accuses Zeus of being biased in favor of Athena because "autos egeinao" (literally "you fathered her", but probably intended as "you gave birth to her").[96][97] She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. In the version recounted by Hesiod in his Theogony, Zeus married the goddess Metis, who is described as the "wisest among gods and mortal men", and engaged in sexual intercourse with her.[98][99][97][100] After learning that Metis was pregnant, however, he became afraid that the unborn offspring would try to overthrow him, because Gaia and Ouranos had prophesied that Metis would bear children wiser than their father.[98][99][97][100] In order to prevent this, Zeus tricked Metis into letting him swallow her, but it was too late because Metis had already conceived.[98][101][97][100] 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.[102][103] According to this version of the story, Metis transformed into many different shapes in effort to escape Zeus,[102][103] but Zeus successfully raped her and swallowed her.[102][103]

After swallowing Metis, Zeus took six more wives in succession until he married his seventh and present wife, Hera.[100] Then Zeus experienced an enormous headache.[104][97][100] He was in such pain that he ordered someone (either Prometheus, Hephaestus, Hermes, Ares, or Palaemon, depending on the sources examined) to cleave his head open with the labrys, the double-headed Minoan axe.[105][97][106][103] Athena leaped from Zeus's head, fully grown and armed.[105][97][92][107] The "First Homeric Hymn to Athena" states in lines 9–16 that the gods were awestruck by Athena's appearance[108] and even Helios, the god of the sun, stopped his chariot in the sky.[108] 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."[109][108]

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,[100] but in Imagines 2. 27 (trans. Fairbanks), the third-century AD Greek rhetorician Philostratus the Elder writes that Hera "rejoices" at Athena's birth "as though Athena were her daughter also." The second-century AD Christian apologist Justin Martyr takes issue with those pagans who erect at springs images of Kore, whom he interprets as Athena: "They said that Athena was the daughter of Zeus not from intercourse, but when the god had in mind the making of a world through a word (logos) his first thought was Athena."[110] According to a version of the story in a scholium on the Iliad (found nowhere else), when Zeus swallowed Metis, she was pregnant with Athena by the Cyclops Brontes.[111] The Etymologicum Magnum[112] instead deems Athena the daughter of the Daktyl Itonos.[113] 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.[114][115]

Pallas Athena

 
Detail of a Roman fresco from Pompeii showing Ajax the Lesser dragging Cassandra away from the palladium during the fall of Troy, an event which provoked Athena's wrath against the Greek armies[116]

Athena's epithet Pallas is derived either from πάλλω, meaning "to brandish [as a weapon]", or, more likely, from παλλακίς and related words, meaning "youth, young woman".[117] On this topic, Walter Burkert says "she is the Pallas of Athens, Pallas Athenaie, just as Hera of Argos is Here Argeie."[5] In later times, after the original meaning of the name had been forgotten, the Greeks invented myths to explain its origins, such as those reported by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus and the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, which claim that Pallas was originally a separate entity, whom Athena had slain in combat.[118]

In one version of the myth, Pallas was the daughter of the sea-god Triton;[82] she and Athena were childhood friends, but Athena accidentally killed her during a friendly sparring match.[119] Distraught over what she had done, Athena took the name Pallas for herself as a sign of her grief.[119] In another version of the story, Pallas was a Gigante;[105] Athena slew him during the Gigantomachy and flayed off his skin to make her cloak, which she wore as a victory trophy.[105][12][120][121] In an alternative variation of the same myth, Pallas was instead Athena's father,[105][12] who attempted to assault his own daughter,[122] causing Athena to kill him and take his skin as a trophy.[123]

The palladium was a statue of Athena that was said to have stood in her temple on the Trojan Acropolis.[124] Athena was said to have carved the statue herself in the likeness of her dead friend Pallas.[124] The statue had special talisman-like properties[124] and it was thought that, as long as it was in the city, Troy could never fall.[124] When the Greeks captured Troy, Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, clung to the palladium for protection,[124] but Ajax the Lesser violently tore her away from it and dragged her over to the other captives.[124] Athena was infuriated by this violation of her protection.[116] Although Agamemnon attempted to placate her anger with sacrifices, Athena sent a storm at Cape Kaphereos to destroy almost the entire Greek fleet and scatter all of the surviving ships across the Aegean.[125]

Lady of Athens

 
The Dispute of Minerva and Neptune by René-Antoine Houasse (c. 1689 or 1706)

In Homer's Iliad, Athena, as a war goddess, inspired and fought alongside the Greek heroes; her aid was synonymous with military prowess. Also in the Iliad, Zeus, the chief god, specifically assigned the sphere of war to Ares, the god of war, and Athena. Athena's moral and military superiority to Ares derived in part from the fact that she represented the intellectual and civilized side of war and the virtues of justice and skill, whereas Ares represented mere blood lust. 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. In the Iliad, Athena was the divine form of the heroic, martial ideal: she personified excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. The qualities that led to victory were found on the aegis, or breastplate, that Athena wore when she went to war: fear, strife, defense, and assault. Athena appears in Homer's Odyssey as the tutelary deity of Odysseus, and myths from later sources portray her similarly as the helper of Perseus and Heracles (Hercules). As the guardian of the welfare of kings, Athena became the goddess of good counsel, prudent restraint and practical insight, and war. In a founding myth reported by Pseudo-Apollodorus,[112] Athena competed with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens.[126] They agreed that each would give the Athenians one gift[126] and that Cecrops, the king of Athens, would determine which gift was better.[126] Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring sprang up;[126] this gave the Athenians access to trade and water.[127] Athens at its height was a significant sea power, defeating the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis[127]—but the water was salty and undrinkable.[127] In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil's Georgics,[112] Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse.[126] Athena offered the first domesticated olive tree.[126][53] Cecrops accepted this gift[126] and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens.[126] The olive tree brought wood, oil, and food,[127] and became a symbol of Athenian economic prosperity.[53][128] Robert Graves was of the opinion that "Poseidon's attempts to take possession of certain cities are political myths",[127] which reflect the conflict between matriarchal and patriarchal religions.[127]

 
The Athena Giustiniani, a Roman copy of a Greek statue of Pallas Athena. The guardian serpent of the Athenian Acropolis sits coiled at her feet.[129]

Afterwards, Poseidon was so angry over his defeat that he sent one of his sons, Halirrhothius, to cut down the tree. But as he swung his axe, he missed his aim and it fell in himself, killing him. This was supposedly the origin of calling Athena's sacred olive tree moria, for Halirrhotius's attempt at revenge proved fatal (moros in Greek). 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.[130][131]

Pseudo-Apollodorus[112] 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.[132][51][133] Athena wiped the semen off using a tuft of wool, which she tossed into the dust,[132][51][133] impregnating Gaia and causing her to give birth to Erichthonius.[132][51][133] Athena adopted Erichthonius as her son and raised him.[132][133] The Roman mythographer Hyginus[112] records a similar story in which Hephaestus demanded Zeus to let him marry Athena since he was the one who had smashed open Zeus's skull, allowing Athena to be born.[132] Zeus agreed to this and Hephaestus and Athena were married,[132] but, when Hephaestus was about to consummate the union, Athena vanished from the bridal bed, causing him to ejaculate on the floor, thus impregnating Gaia with Erichthonius.[132]

The geographer Pausanias[112] records that Athena placed the infant Erichthonius into a small chest[134] (cista), which she entrusted to the care of the three daughters of Cecrops: Herse, Pandrosos, and Aglauros of Athens.[134] She warned the three sisters not to open the chest,[134] but did not explain to them why or what was in it.[134] Aglauros, and possibly one of the other sisters,[134] opened the chest.[134] Differing reports say that they either found that the child itself was a serpent, that it was guarded by a serpent, that it was guarded by two serpents, or that it had the legs of a serpent.[135] In Pausanias's story, the two sisters were driven mad by the sight of the chest's contents and hurled themselves off the Acropolis, dying instantly,[136] but an Attic vase painting shows them being chased by the serpent off the edge of the cliff instead.[136]

Erichthonius was one of the most important founding heroes of Athens[51] and the legend of the daughters of Cecrops was a cult myth linked to the rituals of the Arrhephoria festival.[51][137] 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,[138] which they would carry on their heads down a natural underground passage.[138] They would leave the objects they had been given at the bottom of the passage and take another set of hidden objects,[138] which they would carry on their heads back up to the temple.[138] The ritual was performed in the dead of night[138] and no one, not even the priestess, knew what the objects were.[138] 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.[129] Many of the surviving sculptures of Athena show this serpent.[129]

Herodotus records that a serpent lived in a crevice on the north side of the summit of the Athenian Acropolis[129] and that the Athenians left a honey cake for it each month as an offering.[129] On the eve of the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, the serpent did not eat the honey cake[129] and the Athenians interpreted it as a sign that Athena herself had abandoned them.[129] Another version of the myth of the Athenian maidens is told in Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – 17 AD); in this late variant Hermes falls in love with Herse. Herse, Aglaulus, and Pandrosus go to the temple to offer sacrifices to Athena. Hermes demands help from Aglaulus to seduce Herse. Aglaulus demands money in exchange. Hermes gives her the money the sisters have already offered to Athena. As punishment for Aglaulus's greed, Athena asks the goddess Envy to make Aglaulus jealous of Herse. When Hermes arrives to seduce Herse, Aglaulus stands in his way instead of helping him as she had agreed. He turns her to stone.[139]

Athena gave her favour to an Attic girl named Myrsine, a chaste girl who outdid all her fellow athletes in both the palaestra and the race. Out of envy, the other athletes murdered her, but Athena took pity in her and transformed her dead body into a myrtle, a plant thereafter as favoured by her as the olive was.[140] An almost exact story was said about another girl, Elaea, who transformed into an olive, Athena's sacred tree.[141]

Patron of heroes

 
Attic red-figure kylix painting from c. 480-470 BC showing Athena observing as the Colchian dragon disgorges the hero Jason[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.[143][144] Pseudo-Apollodorus also records that Athena guided the hero Perseus in his quest to behead Medusa.[145][146][147] She and Hermes, the god of travelers, appeared to Perseus after he set off on his quest and gifted him with tools he would need to kill the Gorgon.[147][148] Athena gave Perseus a polished bronze shield to view Medusa's reflection rather than looking at her directly and thereby avoid being turned to stone.[147][149] Hermes gave him an adamantine scythe to cut off Medusa's head.[147][150] When Perseus swung his blade to behead Medusa, Athena guided it, allowing his scythe to cut it clean off.[147][149] According to Pindar's Thirteenth Olympian Ode, Athena helped the hero Bellerophon tame the winged horse Pegasus by giving him a bit.[151][152]

In ancient Greek art, Athena is frequently shown aiding the hero Heracles.[153] She appears in four of the twelve metopes on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia depicting Heracles's Twelve Labors,[154][153] including the first, in which she passively watches him slay the Nemean lion,[153] and the tenth, in which she is shown actively helping him hold up the sky.[155] She is presented as his "stern ally",[156] but also the "gentle... acknowledger of his achievements."[156] Artistic depictions of Heracles's apotheosis show Athena driving him to Mount Olympus in her chariot and presenting him to Zeus for his deification.[155] 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.[157] When half the jury votes to acquit and the other half votes to convict, Athena casts the deciding vote to acquit Orestes[157] and declares that, from then on, whenever a jury is tied, the defendant shall always be acquitted.[158]

In The Odyssey, Odysseus' cunning and shrewd nature quickly wins Athena's favour.[159][144] For the first part of the poem, however, she largely is confined to aiding him only from afar, mainly by implanting thoughts in his head during his journey home from Troy. Her guiding actions reinforce her role as the "protectress of heroes," or, as mythologian Walter Friedrich Otto dubbed her, the "goddess of nearness," due to her mentoring and motherly probing.[160][145][161] 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.[162] She appears in Nausicaa's dreams to ensure that the princess rescues Odysseus and plays a role in his eventual escort to Ithaca.[163] Athena appears to Odysseus upon his arrival, disguised as a herdsman;[164][165][159] she initially lies and tells him that Penelope, his wife, has remarried and that he is believed to be dead,[164] but Odysseus lies back to her, employing skillful prevarications to protect himself.[166][165] Impressed by his resolve and shrewdness, she reveals herself and tells him what he needs to know to win back his kingdom.[167][165][159] She disguises him as an elderly beggar so that he will not be recognized by the suitors or Penelope,[168][165] and helps him to defeat the suitors.[168][169][165] Athena also appears to Odysseus's son Telemachus.[170] Her actions lead him to travel around to Odysseus's comrades and ask about his father.[171] He hears stories about some of Odysseus's journey.[171] Athena's push for Telemachos's journey helps him grow into the man role, that his father once held.[172] She also plays a role in ending the resultant feud against the suitors' relatives. She instructs Laertes to throw his spear and to kill Eupeithes, the father of Antinous.

Punishment myths

 
Classical Greek depiction of Medusa from the fourth century BC

The Gorgoneion appears to have originated as an apotropaic symbol intended to ward off evil.[173] In a late myth invented to explain the origins of the Gorgon,[174] Medusa is described as having been a young priestess who served in the temple of Athena in Athens.[175] Poseidon lusted after Medusa, and raped her in the temple of Athena,[175] refusing to allow her vow of chastity to stand in his way.[175] Upon discovering the desecration of her temple, Athena transformed Medusa into a hideous monster with serpents for hair whose gaze would turn any mortal to stone.[176]

In his Twelfth Pythian Ode, Pindar recounts the story of how Athena invented the aulos, a kind of flute, in imitation of the lamentations of Medusa's sisters, the Gorgons, after she was beheaded by the hero Perseus.[177] According to Pindar, Athena gave the aulos to mortals as a gift.[177] Later, the comic playwright Melanippides of Melos (c. 480-430 BC) embellished the story in his comedy Marsyas,[177] claiming that Athena looked in the mirror while she was playing the aulos and saw how blowing into it puffed up her cheeks and made her look silly, so she threw the aulos away and cursed it so that whoever picked it up would meet an awful death.[177] The aulos was picked up by the satyr Marsyas, who was later killed by Apollo for his hubris.[177] Later, this version of the story became accepted as canonical[177] and the Athenian sculptor Myron created a group of bronze sculptures based on it, which was installed before the western front of the Parthenon in around 440 BC.[177]

A myth told by the early third-century BC Hellenistic poet Callimachus in his Hymn 5 begins with Athena bathing in a spring on Mount Helicon at midday with one of her favorite companions, the nymph Chariclo.[133][178] Chariclo's son Tiresias happened to be hunting on the same mountain and came to the spring searching for water.[133][178] He inadvertently saw Athena naked, so she struck him blind to ensure he would never again see what man was not intended to see.[133][179][180] Chariclo intervened on her son's behalf and begged Athena to have mercy.[133][180][181] Athena replied that she could not restore Tiresias's eyesight,[133][180][181] so, instead, she gave him the ability to understand the language of the birds and thus foretell the future.[182][181][133]

Myrmex was a clever and chaste Attic girl who became quickly a favourite of Athena. However when Athena invented the plough, Myrmex went to the Atticans and told them that it was in fact her own invention. Hurt by the girl's betrayal, Athena transformed her into the small insect bearing her name, the ant.[183]

The fable of Arachne appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses (8 AD) (vi.5–54 and 129–145),[184][185][186] which is nearly the only extant source for the legend.[185][186] The story does not appear to have been well known prior to Ovid's rendition of it[185] and the only earlier reference to it is a brief allusion in Virgil's Georgics, (29 BC) (iv, 246) that does not mention Arachne by name.[186] According to Ovid, Arachne (whose name means spider in ancient Greek[187]) was the daughter of a famous dyer in Tyrian purple in Hypaipa of Lydia, and a weaving student of Athena.[188] She became so conceited of her skill as a weaver that she began claiming that her skill was greater than that of Athena herself.[188][189] Athena gave Arachne a chance to redeem herself by assuming the form of an old woman and warning Arachne not to offend the deities.[184][189] Arachne scoffed and wished for a weaving contest, so she could prove her skill.[190][189]

Athena wove the scene of her victory over Poseidon in the contest for the patronage of Athens.[190][191][189] Athena's tapestry also depicted the 12 Olympian gods and defeat of mythological figures who challenged their authority.[192] Arachne's tapestry featured twenty-one episodes of the deities' infidelity,[190][191][189] including Zeus being unfaithful with Leda, with Europa, and with Danaë.[191] It represented the unjust and discrediting behavior of the gods towards mortals.[192] Athena admitted that Arachne's work was flawless,[190][189][191] but was outraged at Arachne's offensive choice of subject, which displayed the failings and transgressions of the deities.[190][189][191] Finally, losing her temper, Athena destroyed Arachne's tapestry and loom, striking it with her shuttle.[190][189][191] Athena then struck Arachne across the face with her staff four times.[190][189][191] Arachne hanged herself in despair,[190][189][191] but Athena took pity on her and brought her back from the dead in the form of a spider.[190][189][191]

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. 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]

Trojan War

Main article: Judgement of Paris
 
Ancient Greek mosaic from Antioch dating to the second century AD, depicting the Judgement of Paris

The myth of the Judgement of Paris is mentioned briefly in the Iliad,[194] but is described in depth in an epitome of the Cypria, a lost poem of the Epic Cycle,[195] which records that all the gods and goddesses as well as various mortals were invited to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (the eventual parents of Achilles).[194] Only Eris, goddess of discord, was not invited.[195] She was annoyed at this, so she arrived with a golden apple inscribed with the word καλλίστῃ (kallistēi, "for the fairest"), which she threw among the goddesses.[196] Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena all claimed to be the fairest, and thus the rightful owner of the apple.[196][133]

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.[196][133] After bathing in the spring of Mount Ida where Troy was situated, the goddesses appeared before Paris for his decision.[196] In the extant ancient depictions of the Judgement of Paris, Aphrodite is only occasionally represented nude, and Athena and Hera are always fully clothed.[197] Since the Renaissance, however, Western paintings have typically portrayed all three goddesses as completely naked.[197]

All three goddesses were ideally beautiful and Paris could not decide between them, so they resorted to bribes.[196] Hera tried to bribe Paris with power over all Asia and Europe,[196][133] and Athena offered fame and glory in battle,[196][133] but Aphrodite promised Paris that, if he were to choose her as the fairest, she would let him marry the most beautiful woman on earth.[198][133] This woman was Helen, who was already married to King Menelaus of Sparta.[198] Paris selected Aphrodite and awarded her the apple.[198][133] The other two goddesses were enraged and, as a direct result, sided with the Greeks in the Trojan War.[198][133]

In Books V–VI of the Iliad, Athena aids the hero Diomedes, who, in the absence of Achilles, proves himself to be the most effective Greek warrior.[199][144] Several artistic representations from the early sixth century BC may show Athena and Diomedes,[199] including an early sixth-century BC shield band depicting Athena and an unidentified warrior riding on a chariot, a vase painting of a warrior with his charioteer facing Athena, and an inscribed clay plaque showing Diomedes and Athena riding in a chariot.[199] Numerous passages in the Iliad also mention Athena having previously served as the patron of Diomedes's father Tydeus.[200][201] When the Trojan women go to the temple of Athena on the Acropolis to plead her for protection from Diomedes, Athena ignores them.[116]

Athena also gets into a duel with Ares, the god of the brutal wars, and her male counterpart [202] Ares blames her for encouraging Diomedes to tear his beautiful flesh.[citation needed] He curses her and strikes with all his strength.[citation needed] Athena deflects his blow with her aegis, a powerful shield that even Zeus's thunderbolt and lightning cannot blast through.[citation needed] Athena picked up a massive boulder and threw it at Ares, who immediately crumpled to the ground.[citation needed] Aphrodite, who was a lover of Ares, came down from Olympus to carry Ares away but was struck by Athena's golden spear and fell.[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.[citation needed]

In Book XXII of the Iliad, while Achilles is chasing Hector around the walls of Troy, Athena appears to Hector disguised as his brother Deiphobus[203] and persuades him to hold his ground so that they can fight Achilles together.[203] Then, Hector throws his spear at Achilles and misses, expecting Deiphobus to hand him another,[204] but Athena disappears instead, leaving Hector to face Achilles alone without his spear.[204] In Sophocles's tragedy Ajax, she punishes Odysseus's rival Ajax the Great, driving him insane and causing him to massacre the Achaeans' cattle, thinking that he is slaughtering the Achaeans themselves.[205] Even after Odysseus himself expresses pity for Ajax,[206] Athena declares, "To laugh at your enemies - what sweeter laughter can there be than that?" (lines 78–9).[206] Ajax later commits suicide as a result of his humiliation.[206]

Classical art

Athena appears frequently in classical Greek art, including on coins and in paintings on ceramics.[207][208] She is especially prominent in works produced in Athens.[207] In classical depictions, Athena is usually portrayed standing upright, wearing a full-length chiton.[209] She is most often represented dressed in armor like a male soldier[208][209][7] and wearing a Corinthian helmet raised high atop her forehead.[210][7][208] Her shield bears at its centre the aegis with the head of the gorgon (gorgoneion) in the center and snakes around the edge.[174] Sometimes she is shown wearing the aegis as a cloak.[208] As Athena Promachos, she is shown brandishing a spear.[207][7][208] Scenes in which Athena was represented include her birth from the head of Zeus, her battle with the Gigantes, the birth of Erichthonius, and the Judgement of Paris.[207]

The Mourning Athena or Athena Meditating is a famous relief sculpture dating to around 470-460 BC[210][207] that has been interpreted to represent Athena Polias.[210] The most famous classical depiction of Athena was the Athena Parthenos, a now-lost 11.5 m (38 ft)[211] gold and ivory statue of her in the Parthenon created by the Athenian sculptor Phidias.[209][207] 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.[207] Athena Polias is also represented in a Neo-Attic relief now held in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,[210] which depicts her holding an owl in her hand[i] and wearing her characteristic Corinthian helmet while resting her shield against a nearby herma.[210] The Roman goddess Minerva adopted most of Athena's Greek iconographical associations,[212] but was also integrated into the Capitoline Triad.[212]

Post-classical culture

Art and symbolism

 
Statue of Pallas Athena in front of the Austrian Parliament Building. Athena has been used throughout Western history as a symbol of freedom and democracy.[213]

Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria and Firmicus, denigrated Athena as representative of all the things that were detestable about paganism;[214] they condemned her as "immodest and immoral".[215] During the Middle Ages, however, many attributes of Athena were given to the Virgin Mary,[215] who, in fourth-century portrayals, was often depicted wearing the Gorgoneion.[215] Some even viewed the Virgin Mary as a warrior maiden, much like Athena Parthenos;[215] one anecdote tells that the Virgin Mary once appeared upon the walls of Constantinople when it was under siege by the Avars, clutching a spear and urging the people to fight.[216] During the Middle Ages, Athena became widely used as a Christian symbol and allegory, and she appeared on the family crests of certain noble houses.[217]

During the Renaissance, Athena donned the mantle of patron of the arts and human endeavor;[218] allegorical paintings involving Athena were a favorite of the Italian Renaissance painters.[218] In Sandro Botticelli's painting Pallas and the Centaur, probably painted sometime in the 1480s, Athena is the personification of chastity, who is shown grasping the forelock of a centaur, who represents lust.[219][220] 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.[221][220][222] Athena is also used as the personification of wisdom in Bartholomeus Spranger's 1591 painting The Triumph of Wisdom or Minerva Victorious over Ignorance.[212]

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Athena was used as a symbol for female rulers.[223] In his book A Revelation of the True Minerva (1582), Thomas Blennerhassett portrays Queen Elizabeth I of England as a "new Minerva" and "the greatest goddesse nowe on earth".[224] A series of paintings by Peter Paul Rubens depict Athena as Marie de' Medici's patron and mentor;[225] the final painting in the series goes even further and shows Marie de' Medici with Athena's iconography, as the mortal incarnation of the goddess herself.[225] The Flemish sculptor Jean-Pierre-Antoine Tassaert (Jan Peter Anton Tassaert) later portrayed Catherine II of Russia as Athena in a marble bust in 1774.[212] During the French Revolution, statues of pagan gods were torn down all throughout France, but statues of Athena were not.[225] Instead, Athena was transformed into the personification of freedom and the republic[225] and a statue of the goddess stood in the center of the Place de la Revolution in Paris.[225] In the years following the Revolution, artistic representations of Athena proliferated.[226]

A statue of Athena stands directly in front of the Austrian Parliament Building in Vienna,[227] and depictions of Athena have influenced other symbols of Western freedom, including the Statue of Liberty and Britannia.[227] For over a century, a full-scale replica of the Parthenon has stood in Nashville, Tennessee.[228] In 1990, the curators added a gilded forty-two-foot (12.5 m) tall replica of Phidias's Athena Parthenos, built from concrete and fiberglass.[228] The Great Seal of California bears the image of Athena kneeling next to a brown grizzly bear.[229] Athena has occasionally appeared on modern coins, as she did on the ancient Athenian drachma. Her head appears on the $50 1915-S Panama-Pacific commemorative coin.[230]

Modern interpretations

 
Modern Neopagan Hellenist altar dedicated to Athena and Apollo

One of Sigmund Freud's most treasured possessions was a small, bronze sculpture of Athena, which sat on his desk.[231] Freud once described Athena as "a woman who is unapproachable and repels all sexual desires - since she displays the terrifying genitals of the Mother."[232] Feminist views on Athena are sharply divided;[232] some feminists regard her as a symbol of female empowerment,[232] 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."[232] In contemporary Wicca, Athena is venerated as an aspect of the Goddess[233] and some Wiccans believe that she may bestow the "Owl Gift" ("the ability to write and communicate clearly") upon her worshippers.[233] Due to her status as one of the twelve Olympians, Athena is a major deity in Hellenismos,[234] a Neopagan religion which seeks to authentically revive and recreate the religion of ancient Greece in the modern world.[235]

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.[236] It is traditional at exam time for students to leave offerings to the goddess with a note asking for good luck,[236] or to repent for accidentally breaking any of the college's numerous other traditions.[236] Pallas Athena is the tutelary goddess of the international social fraternity Phi Delta Theta.[237] Her owl is also a symbol of the fraternity.[237]

Genealogy

See also

Notes

  1. ^ In other traditions, Athena's father is sometimes listed as Zeus by himself or Pallas, Brontes, or Itonos.
  2. ^ /əˈθiːnə/; Attic Greek: Ἀθηνᾶ, Athēnâ, or Ἀθηναία, Athēnaía; Epic: Ἀθηναίη, Athēnaíē; Doric: Ἀθάνα, Athā́nā
  3. ^ /əˈθiːniː/; Ionic: Ἀθήνη, Athḗnē
  4. ^ /ˈpæləs/; Παλλάς Pallás
  5. ^ "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." (Timaeus 21e.)
  6. ^ Aeschylus, Eumenides, v. 292 f. Cf. the tradition that she was the daughter of Neilos: see, e. g. Clement of Alexandria Protr. 2.28.2; Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3.59.
  7. ^ "This sanctuary had been respected from early days by all the Peloponnesians, and afforded peculiar safety to its suppliants" (Pausanias, Description of Greece iii.5.6)
  8. ^ Jane Ellen Harrison's famous characterization of this myth-element as, "a desperate theological expedient to rid an earth-born Kore of her matriarchal conditions" (Harrison 1922:302) has never been refuted nor confirmed.
  9. ^ The owl's role as a symbol of wisdom originates in this association with Athena.
  10. ^ According to Homer, Iliad 1.570–579, 14.338, Odyssey 8.312, Hephaestus was apparently the son of Hera and Zeus, see Gantz, p. 74.
  11. ^ According to Hesiod, Theogony 927–929, Hephaestus was produced by Hera alone, with no father, see Gantz, p. 74.
  12. ^ According to Hesiod, Theogony 183–200, Aphrodite was born from Uranus' severed genitals, see Gantz, pp. 99–100.
  13. ^ According to Homer, Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus (Iliad 3.374, 20.105; Odyssey 8.308, 320) and Dione (Iliad 5.370–71), see Gantz, pp. 99–100.

References

  1. ^ a b Inc, Merriam-Webster (1995). Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature. Merriam-Webster. p. 81. ISBN 9780877790426. {{cite book}}: |last1= has generic name (help)
  2. ^ Kerényi 1951, pp. 121–122.
  3. ^ L. Day 1999, p. 39.
  4. ^ a b Deacy & Villing 2001.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Burkert 1985, p. 139.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Ruck & Staples 1994, p. 24.
  7. ^ a b c d e Powell 2012, p. 230.
  8. ^ Beekes 2009, p. 29.
  9. ^ Johrens 1981, pp. 438–452.
  10. ^ a b c d Hurwit 1999, p. 14.
  11. ^ a b Nilsson 1967, pp. 347, 433.
  12. ^ a b c d e f Burkert 1985, p. 140.
  13. ^ Puhvel 1987, p. 133.
  14. ^ Kinsley 1989, pp. 141–142.
  15. ^ a b c Ventris & Chadwick 1973, p. 126.
  16. ^ Chadwick 1976, pp. 88–89.
  17. ^ Palaima 2004, p. 444.
  18. ^ Burkert 1985, p. 44.
  19. ^ KO Za 1 inscription, line 1.
  20. ^ a b c Best 1989, p. 30.
  21. ^ Mylonas 1966, p. 159.
  22. ^ Hurwit 1999, pp. 13–14.
  23. ^ Fururmark 1978, p. 672.
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External links

 
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January 26, 2023
athena, this, article, about, greek, goddess, other, uses, disambiguation, athene, athina, pallas, redirect, here, other, uses, athene, disambiguation, athina, disambiguation, pallas, disambiguation, athene, often, given, epithet, pallas, ancient, greek, godde. This article is about the Greek goddess For other uses see Athena disambiguation Athene Athina and Pallas Athena redirect here For other uses see Athene disambiguation Athina disambiguation and Pallas Athena disambiguation Athena b or Athene c often given the epithet Pallas d is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom warfare and handicraft 1 who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva 4 Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece particularly the city of Athens from which she most likely received her name 5 The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her Her major symbols include owls olive trees snakes and the Gorgoneion In art she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear AthenaGoddess of wisdom warfare and handicraft 1 Member of the Twelve OlympiansMattei Athena at Louvre Roman copy from the 1st century BC AD after a Greek original of the 4th century BC attributed to Cephisodotos or Euphranor AbodeMount OlympusAnimalsOwl serpent spider horseSymbolAegis helmet spear armor Gorgoneion chariot distaffTreeOlivePersonal informationParentsZeus and Metis a 2 SiblingsAeacus Angelos Aphrodite Apollo Ares Artemis Dionysus Eileithyia Enyo Eris Ersa Hebe Helen of Troy Hephaestus Heracles Hermes Minos Pandia Persephone Perseus Rhadamanthus the Graces the Horae the Litae the Muses the MoiraiChildrenErichthonius adopted EquivalentsRoman equivalentMinervaEtruscan equivalentMenrvaHinduism equivalentSarasvatiCanaanite equivalentAnat 3 Egyptian equivalentNeithCeltic equivalentSulisThis article contains special characters Without proper rendering support you may see question marks boxes or other symbols From her origin as an Aegean palace goddess Athena was closely associated with the city She was known as Polias and Poliouchos both derived from polis meaning city state and her temples were usually located atop the fortified acropolis in the central part of the city The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is dedicated to her along with numerous other temples and monuments As the patron of craft and weaving Athena was known as Ergane She was also a warrior goddess and was believed to lead soldiers into battle as Athena Promachos Her main festival in Athens was the Panathenaia which was celebrated during the month of Hekatombaion in midsummer and was the most important festival on the Athenian calendar In Greek mythology Athena was believed to have been born from the forehead of her father Zeus In some versions of the story Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus forehead by parthenogenesis In others such as Hesiod s Theogony Zeus swallows his consort Metis who was pregnant with Athena in this version Athena is first born within Zeus and then escapes from his body through his forehead In the founding myth of Athens Athena bested Poseidon in a competition over patronage of the city by creating the first olive tree She was known as Athena Parthenos Athena the Virgin but in one archaic Attic myth the god Hephaestus tried and failed to rape her resulting in Gaia giving birth to Erichthonius an important Athenian founding hero Athena was the patron goddess of heroic endeavor she was believed to have aided the heroes Perseus Heracles Bellerophon and Jason Along with Aphrodite and Hera Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War She plays an active role in the Iliad in which she assists the Achaeans and in the Odyssey she is the divine counselor to Odysseus In the later writings of the Roman poet Ovid Athena was said to have competed against the mortal Arachne in a weaving competition afterward transforming Arachne into the first spider Ovid also describes how she transformed Medusa into a Gorgon after witnessing her being raped by Poseidon in her temple Since the Renaissance Athena has become an international symbol of wisdom the arts and classical learning Western artists and allegorists have often used Athena as a symbol of freedom and democracy Contents 1 Etymology 2 Origins 3 Cult and patronages 3 1 Panhellenic and Athenian cult 3 2 Regional cults 4 Epithets and attributes 4 1 Glaukopis 4 2 Tritogeneia 5 Mythology 5 1 Birth 5 2 Pallas Athena 5 3 Lady of Athens 5 4 Patron of heroes 5 5 Punishment myths 5 6 Trojan War 6 Classical art 7 Post classical culture 7 1 Art and symbolism 7 2 Modern interpretations 8 Genealogy 9 See also 10 Notes 11 References 12 Bibliography 12 1 Ancient sources 12 2 Modern sources 13 External linksEtymology The Acropolis at Athens 1846 by Leo von Klenze Athena s name probably comes from the name of the city of Athens 5 6 Athena is associated with the city of Athens 5 7 The name of the city in ancient Greek is Ἀ8ῆnai Athȇnai a plural toponym designating the place where according to myth she presided over the Athenai a sisterhood devoted to her worship 6 In ancient times scholars argued whether Athena was named after Athens or Athens after Athena 5 Now scholars generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city 5 7 the ending ene is common in names of locations but rare for personal names 5 Testimonies from different cities in ancient Greece attest that similar city goddesses were worshipped in other cities 6 and like Athena took their names from the cities where they were worshipped 6 For example in Mycenae there was a goddess called Mykene whose sisterhood was known as Mykenai 6 whereas at Thebes an analogous deity was called Thebe and the city was known under the plural form Thebai or Thebes in English where the s is the plural formation 6 The name Athenai is likely of Pre Greek origin because it contains the presumably Pre Greek morpheme an 8 In his dialogue Cratylus the ancient Greek philosopher Plato 428 347 BC gives some rather imaginative etymologies of Athena s name based on the theories of the ancient Athenians and his etymological speculations That is a graver matter and there my friend the modern interpreters of Homer may I think assist in explaining the view of the ancients Most of these in their explanations of the poet assert that he meant by Athena mind noῦs noũs and intelligence dianoia dianoia 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 8eoῦ nohsis theoũ noesis as though he would say This is she who has the mind of God ἁ 8eonoa a theonoa Perhaps however the name Theonoe may mean she who knows divine things tὰ 8eῖa nooῦsa ta theia noousa better than others Nor shall we be far wrong in supposing that the author of it wished to identify this Goddess with moral intelligence en e8ei noesin en ethei noesin 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 Plato Cratylus 407b Thus Plato believed that Athena s name was derived from Greek Ἀ8eonoa Atheonoa which the later Greeks rationalised as from the deity s 8eos theos mind noῦs noũs 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 9 Origins Fragment of a fresco from the Cult Center at Mycenae dating the late thirteenth century BC depicting a warrior goddess possibly Athena wearing a boar s tusk helmet and clutching a griffin 10 Athena was originally the Aegean goddess of the palace who presided over household crafts and protected the king 11 12 13 14 A single Mycenaean Greek inscription 𐀀𐀲𐀙𐀡𐀴𐀛𐀊 a ta na po ti ni ja appears at Knossos in the Linear B tablets from the Late Minoan II era Room of the Chariot Tablets 15 16 10 these comprise the earliest Linear B archive anywhere 15 Although Athana potnia is often translated as Mistress Athena it could also mean the Potnia of Athana or the Lady of Athens 10 17 However any connection to the city of Athens in the Knossos inscription is uncertain 18 A sign series a ta no dju wa ja appears in the still undeciphered corpus of Linear A tablets written in the unclassified Minoan language 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 Similarly in the Greek mythology and epic tradition Athena figures as a daughter of Zeus Dios 8ygathr cfr Dyeus 20 However the inscription quoted seems to be very similar to a ta nu ti wa ya quoted as SY Za 1 by Jan Best 20 Best translates the initial a ta nu ti which is recurrent in line beginnings as I have given 20 A Mycenean fresco depicts two women extending their hands towards a central figure who is covered by an enormous figure eight shield this may depict the warrior goddess with her palladium or her palladium in an aniconic representation 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 23 The early twentieth century scholar Martin Persson Nilsson argued that the Minoan snake goddess figurines are early representations of Athena 11 12 Nilsson and others have claimed that in early times Athena was either an owl herself or a bird goddess in general 24 In the third book of the Odyssey she takes the form of a sea eagle 24 Proponents of this view argue that she dropped her prophylactic owl mask before she lost her wings Athena by the time she appears in art Jane Ellen Harrison remarks has completely shed her animal form has reduced the shapes she once wore of snake and bird to attributes but occasionally in black figure vase paintings she still appears with wings 25 Ancient Akkadian cylinder seal dating c 2334 2154 BC depicting Inanna the goddess of war armored and carrying weapons resting her foot on the back of a lion 26 It is generally agreed that the cult of Athena preserves some aspects of the Proto Indo European transfunctional goddess 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 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 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 30 31 Plato notes that the citizens of Sais in Egypt worshipped a goddess known as Neith e whom he identifies with Athena 32 Neith was the ancient Egyptian goddess of war and hunting who was also associated with weaving her worship began during the Egyptian Pre Dynastic period In Greek mythology Athena was reported to have visited mythological sites in North Africa including Libya s Triton River and the Phlegraean plain f Based on these similarities the Sinologist Martin Bernal created the Black Athena hypothesis which claimed that Neith was brought to Greece from Egypt along with an enormous number of features of civilization and culture in the third and second millennia 33 34 The Black Athena hypothesis stirred up widespread controversy near the end of the twentieth century 35 36 but it has now been widely rejected by modern scholars 37 38 Cult and patronagesPanhellenic and Athenian cult Athenian tetradrachm representing the goddess Athena A new peplos was woven for Athena and ceremonially brought to dress her cult image British Museum In her aspect of Athena Polias Athena was venerated as the goddess of the city and the protectress of the citadel 12 39 40 In Athens the Plynteria or Feast of the Bath was observed every year at the end of the month of Thargelion 41 The festival lasted for five days During this period the priestesses of Athena or plyntrides performed a cleansing ritual within the Erechtheion a sanctuary devoted to Athena and Poseidon 42 Here Athena s statue was undressed her clothes washed and body purified 42 Athena was worshipped at festivals such as Chalceia as Athena Ergane 43 40 the patroness of various crafts especially weaving 43 40 She was also the patron of metalworkers and was believed to aid in the forging of armor and weapons 43 During the late fifth century BC the role of goddess of philosophy became a major aspect of Athena s cult 44 As Athena Promachos she was believed to lead soldiers into battle 45 46 Athena represented the disciplined strategic side of war in contrast to her brother Ares the patron of violence bloodlust and slaughter the raw force of war 47 48 Athena was believed to only support those fighting for a just cause 47 and was thought to view war primarily as a means to resolve conflict 47 The Greeks regarded Athena with much higher esteem than Ares 47 48 Athena was especially worshipped in this role during the festivals of the Panathenaea and Pamboeotia 49 both of which prominently featured displays of athletic and military prowess 49 As the patroness of heroes and warriors Athena was believed to favor those who used cunning and intelligence rather than brute strength 50 The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis which is dedicated to Athena Parthenos 51 In her aspect as a warrior maiden Athena was known as Parthenos Par8enos virgin 45 52 53 because like her fellow goddesses Artemis and Hestia she was believed to remain perpetually a virgin 54 55 45 53 56 Athena s most famous temple the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis takes its name from this title 56 According to Karl Kerenyi a scholar of Greek mythology the name Parthenos is not merely an observation of Athena s virginity but also a recognition of her role as enforcer of rules of sexual modesty and ritual mystery 56 Even beyond recognition the Athenians allotted the goddess value based on this pureness of virginity which they upheld as a rudiment of female behavior 56 Kerenyi s study and theory of Athena explains her virginal epithet as a result of her relationship to her father Zeus and a vital cohesive piece of her character throughout the ages 56 This role is expressed in several stories about Athena Marinus of Neapolis reports that when Christians removed the statue of the goddess from the Parthenon a beautiful woman appeared in a dream to Proclus a devotee of Athena and announced that the Athenian Lady wished to dwell with him 57 Regional cults Reverse side of a Pergamene silver tetradrachm minted by Attalus I showing Athena seated on a throne c 200 BC Athena was not only the patron goddess of Athens but also other cities including Argos Sparta Gortyn Lindos and Larisa 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 46 These cults were portals of a uniform socialization even beyond mainland Greece 46 Athena was frequently equated with Aphaea a local goddess of the island of Aegina originally from Crete and also associated with Artemis and the nymph Britomartis 58 In Arcadia she was assimilated with the ancient goddess Alea and worshiped as Athena Alea 59 Sanctuaries dedicated to Athena Alea were located in the Laconian towns of Mantineia and Tegea The temple of Athena Alea in Tegea was an important religious center of ancient Greece g The geographer Pausanias was informed that the temenos had been founded by Aleus 60 Athena had a major temple on the Spartan Acropolis 61 40 where she was venerated as Poliouchos and Khalkioikos of the Brazen House often latinized as Chalcioecus 61 40 This epithet may refer to the fact that cult statue held there may have been made of bronze 61 that the walls of the temple itself may have been made of bronze 61 or that Athena was the patron of metal workers 61 Bells made of terracotta and bronze were used in Sparta as part of Athena s cult 61 An Ionic style temple to Athena Polias was built at Priene in the fourth century BC 62 It was designed by Pytheos of Priene 63 the same architect who designed the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus 63 The temple was dedicated by Alexander the Great 64 and an inscription from the temple declaring his dedication is now held in the British Museum 62 Epithets and attributesSee also Category Epithets of Athena 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 c 425 BC Athena was known as Atrytone Atrytwnh the Unwearying Parthenos Par8enos Virgin and Promachos Promaxos she who fights in front The epithet Polias Polias of the city refers to Athena s role as protectress of the city 46 The epithet Ergane Erganh the Industrious pointed her out as the patron of craftsmen and artisans 46 Burkert notes that the Athenians sometimes simply called Athena the Goddess he theos ἡ 8eos certainly an ancient title 5 After serving as the judge at the trial of Orestes in which he was acquitted of having murdered his mother Clytemnestra Athena won the epithet Areia Areia 46 Some have described Athena along with the goddesses Hestia and Artemis as being asexual this is mainly supported by the fact that in the Homeric Hymns 5 To Aphrodite where Aphrodite is described as having no power over the three goddesses 65 Athena was sometimes given the epithet Hippia Ἵppia of the horses equestrian 40 66 referring to her invention of the bit bridle chariot and wagon 40 The Greek geographer Pausanias mentions in his Guide to Greece that the temple of Athena Chalinitis the bridler 66 in Corinth was located near the tomb of Medea s children 66 Other epithets include Ageleia Itonia and Aethyia under which she was worshiped in Megara 67 68 The word aithyia aἴ8yia 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 69 In a temple at Phrixa in Elis reportedly built by Clymenus she was known as Cydonia Kydwnia 70 Pausanias wrote that at Buporthmus there was a sanctuary of Athena Promachorma Promaxorma meaning protector of the anchorage 71 72 The Greek biographer Plutarch AD 46 120 refers to an instance during the construction of the Propylaia of her being called Athena Hygieia Ὑgieia i e personified Health after inspiring a physician to a successful course of treatment 73 At Athens there is the temple of Athena Phratria as patron of a phratry in the Ancient Agora of Athens 74 Glaukopis The owl of Athena surrounded by an olive wreath Reverse of an Athenian silver tetradrachm c 175 BC In Homer s epic works Athena s most common epithet is Glaukopis glaykῶpis which usually is translated as bright eyed or with gleaming eyes 75 The word is a combination of glaukos glaykos meaning gleaming silvery and later bluish green or gray 76 and ṓps ὤps eye face 77 The word glaux glay3 78 little owl 79 is from the same root presumably according to some because of the bird s own distinctive eyes Athena was associated with the owl from very early on 80 in archaic images she is frequently depicted with an owl perched on her hand 80 Through its association with Athena the owl evolved into the national mascot of the Athenians and eventually became a symbol of wisdom 4 Tritogeneia In the Iliad 4 514 the Odyssey 3 378 the Homeric Hymns and in Hesiod s Theogony Athena is also given the curious epithet Tritogeneia Tritogeneia whose significance remains unclear 81 It could mean various things including Triton born perhaps indicating that the homonymous sea deity was her parent according to some early myths 81 One myth relates the foster father relationship of this Triton towards the half orphan Athena whom he raised alongside his own daughter Pallas 82 Kerenyi suggests that Tritogeneia did not mean that she came into the world on any particular river or lake but that she was born of the water itself for the name Triton seems to be associated with water generally 83 84 In Ovid s Metamorphoses Athena is occasionally referred to as Tritonia Another possible meaning may be triple born or third born which may refer to a triad or to her status as the third daughter of Zeus or the fact she was born from Metis Zeus and herself various legends list her as being the first child after Artemis and Apollo though other legends identify her as Zeus first child 85 Several scholars have suggested a connection to the Rigvedic god Trita 86 who was sometimes grouped in a body of three mythological poets 86 Michael Janda has connected the myth of Trita to the scene in the Iliad in which the three brothers Zeus Poseidon and Hades divide the world between them receiving the broad sky the sea and the underworld respectively 87 88 Janda further connects the myth of Athena being born of the head i e the uppermost part of Zeus understanding Trito which perhaps originally meant the third as another word for the sky 87 In Janda s analysis of Indo European mythology this heavenly sphere is also associated with the mythological body of water surrounding the inhabited world cfr Triton s mother Amphitrite 87 Yet another possible meaning is mentioned in Diogenes Laertius biography of Democritus that Athena was called Tritogeneia because three things on which all mortal life depends come from her 89 MythologyBirth Athena is born from Zeus s forehead as a result of him having swallowed her mother Metis as he grasps the clothing of Eileithyia on the right black figured amphora 550 525 BC Louvre The Varvakeion Athena the most faithful copy of the Athena Parthenos as displayed in the National Archaeological Museum Athens She was the daughter of Zeus produced without a mother and emerged full grown from his forehead There was an alternate story that Zeus swallowed Metis the goddess of counsel while she was pregnant with Athena and when she was fully grown she emerged from Zeus forehead Being the favorite child of Zeus she had great power In the classical Olympian pantheon Athena was regarded as the favorite child of Zeus born fully armed from his forehead 90 91 92 h The story of her birth comes in several versions 93 94 95 The earliest mention is in Book V of the Iliad when Ares accuses Zeus of being biased in favor of Athena because autos egeinao literally you fathered her but probably intended as you gave birth to her 96 97 She was essentially urban and civilized the antithesis in many respects of Artemis goddess of the outdoors Athena was probably a pre Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks In the version recounted by Hesiod in his Theogony Zeus married the goddess Metis who is described as the wisest among gods and mortal men and engaged in sexual intercourse with her 98 99 97 100 After learning that Metis was pregnant however he became afraid that the unborn offspring would try to overthrow him because Gaia and Ouranos had prophesied that Metis would bear children wiser than their father 98 99 97 100 In order to prevent this Zeus tricked Metis into letting him swallow her but it was too late because Metis had already conceived 98 101 97 100 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 102 103 According to this version of the story Metis transformed into many different shapes in effort to escape Zeus 102 103 but Zeus successfully raped her and swallowed her 102 103 After swallowing Metis Zeus took six more wives in succession until he married his seventh and present wife Hera 100 Then Zeus experienced an enormous headache 104 97 100 He was in such pain that he ordered someone either Prometheus Hephaestus Hermes Ares or Palaemon depending on the sources examined to cleave his head open with the labrys the double headed Minoan axe 105 97 106 103 Athena leaped from Zeus s head fully grown and armed 105 97 92 107 The First Homeric Hymn to Athena states in lines 9 16 that the gods were awestruck by Athena s appearance 108 and even Helios the god of the sun stopped his chariot in the sky 108 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 109 108 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 100 but in Imagines 2 27 trans Fairbanks the third century AD Greek rhetorician Philostratus the Elder writes that Hera rejoices at Athena s birth as though Athena were her daughter also The second century AD Christian apologist Justin Martyr takes issue with those pagans who erect at springs images of Kore whom he interprets as Athena They said that Athena was the daughter of Zeus not from intercourse but when the god had in mind the making of a world through a word logos his first thought was Athena 110 According to a version of the story in a scholium on the Iliad found nowhere else when Zeus swallowed Metis she was pregnant with Athena by the Cyclops Brontes 111 The Etymologicum Magnum 112 instead deems Athena the daughter of the Daktyl Itonos 113 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 114 115 Pallas Athena Detail of a Roman fresco from Pompeii showing Ajax the Lesser dragging Cassandra away from the palladium during the fall of Troy an event which provoked Athena s wrath against the Greek armies 116 Athena s epithet Pallas is derived either from pallw meaning to brandish as a weapon or more likely from pallakis and related words meaning youth young woman 117 On this topic Walter Burkert says she is the Pallas of Athens Pallas Athenaie just as Hera of Argos is Here Argeie 5 In later times after the original meaning of the name had been forgotten the Greeks invented myths to explain its origins such as those reported by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus and the Bibliotheca of Pseudo Apollodorus which claim that Pallas was originally a separate entity whom Athena had slain in combat 118 In one version of the myth Pallas was the daughter of the sea god Triton 82 she and Athena were childhood friends but Athena accidentally killed her during a friendly sparring match 119 Distraught over what she had done Athena took the name Pallas for herself as a sign of her grief 119 In another version of the story Pallas was a Gigante 105 Athena slew him during the Gigantomachy and flayed off his skin to make her cloak which she wore as a victory trophy 105 12 120 121 In an alternative variation of the same myth Pallas was instead Athena s father 105 12 who attempted to assault his own daughter 122 causing Athena to kill him and take his skin as a trophy 123 The palladium was a statue of Athena that was said to have stood in her temple on the Trojan Acropolis 124 Athena was said to have carved the statue herself in the likeness of her dead friend Pallas 124 The statue had special talisman like properties 124 and it was thought that as long as it was in the city Troy could never fall 124 When the Greeks captured Troy Cassandra the daughter of Priam clung to the palladium for protection 124 but Ajax the Lesser violently tore her away from it and dragged her over to the other captives 124 Athena was infuriated by this violation of her protection 116 Although Agamemnon attempted to placate her anger with sacrifices Athena sent a storm at Cape Kaphereos to destroy almost the entire Greek fleet and scatter all of the surviving ships across the Aegean 125 Lady of Athens The Dispute of Minerva and Neptune by Rene Antoine Houasse c 1689 or 1706 In Homer s Iliad Athena as a war goddess inspired and fought alongside the Greek heroes her aid was synonymous with military prowess Also in the Iliad Zeus the chief god specifically assigned the sphere of war to Ares the god of war and Athena Athena s moral and military superiority to Ares derived in part from the fact that she represented the intellectual and civilized side of war and the virtues of justice and skill whereas Ares represented mere blood lust 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 In the Iliad Athena was the divine form of the heroic martial ideal she personified excellence in close combat victory and glory The qualities that led to victory were found on the aegis or breastplate that Athena wore when she went to war fear strife defense and assault Athena appears in Homer s Odyssey as the tutelary deity of Odysseus and myths from later sources portray her similarly as the helper of Perseus and Heracles Hercules As the guardian of the welfare of kings Athena became the goddess of good counsel prudent restraint and practical insight and war In a founding myth reported by Pseudo Apollodorus 112 Athena competed with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens 126 They agreed that each would give the Athenians one gift 126 and that Cecrops the king of Athens would determine which gift was better 126 Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring sprang up 126 this gave the Athenians access to trade and water 127 Athens at its height was a significant sea power defeating the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis 127 but the water was salty and undrinkable 127 In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil s Georgics 112 Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse 126 Athena offered the first domesticated olive tree 126 53 Cecrops accepted this gift 126 and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens 126 The olive tree brought wood oil and food 127 and became a symbol of Athenian economic prosperity 53 128 Robert Graves was of the opinion that Poseidon s attempts to take possession of certain cities are political myths 127 which reflect the conflict between matriarchal and patriarchal religions 127 The Athena Giustiniani a Roman copy of a Greek statue of Pallas Athena The guardian serpent of the Athenian Acropolis sits coiled at her feet 129 Afterwards Poseidon was so angry over his defeat that he sent one of his sons Halirrhothius to cut down the tree But as he swung his axe he missed his aim and it fell in himself killing him This was supposedly the origin of calling Athena s sacred olive tree moria for Halirrhotius s attempt at revenge proved fatal moros in Greek 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 130 131 Pseudo Apollodorus 112 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 132 51 133 Athena wiped the semen off using a tuft of wool which she tossed into the dust 132 51 133 impregnating Gaia and causing her to give birth to Erichthonius 132 51 133 Athena adopted Erichthonius as her son and raised him 132 133 The Roman mythographer Hyginus 112 records a similar story in which Hephaestus demanded Zeus to let him marry Athena since he was the one who had smashed open Zeus s skull allowing Athena to be born 132 Zeus agreed to this and Hephaestus and Athena were married 132 but when Hephaestus was about to consummate the union Athena vanished from the bridal bed causing him to ejaculate on the floor thus impregnating Gaia with Erichthonius 132 The geographer Pausanias 112 records that Athena placed the infant Erichthonius into a small chest 134 cista which she entrusted to the care of the three daughters of Cecrops Herse Pandrosos and Aglauros of Athens 134 She warned the three sisters not to open the chest 134 but did not explain to them why or what was in it 134 Aglauros and possibly one of the other sisters 134 opened the chest 134 Differing reports say that they either found that the child itself was a serpent that it was guarded by a serpent that it was guarded by two serpents or that it had the legs of a serpent 135 In Pausanias s story the two sisters were driven mad by the sight of the chest s contents and hurled themselves off the Acropolis dying instantly 136 but an Attic vase painting shows them being chased by the serpent off the edge of the cliff instead 136 Erichthonius was one of the most important founding heroes of Athens 51 and the legend of the daughters of Cecrops was a cult myth linked to the rituals of the Arrhephoria festival 51 137 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 138 which they would carry on their heads down a natural underground passage 138 They would leave the objects they had been given at the bottom of the passage and take another set of hidden objects 138 which they would carry on their heads back up to the temple 138 The ritual was performed in the dead of night 138 and no one not even the priestess knew what the objects were 138 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 129 Many of the surviving sculptures of Athena show this serpent 129 Herodotus records that a serpent lived in a crevice on the north side of the summit of the Athenian Acropolis 129 and that the Athenians left a honey cake for it each month as an offering 129 On the eve of the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC the serpent did not eat the honey cake 129 and the Athenians interpreted it as a sign that Athena herself had abandoned them 129 Another version of the myth of the Athenian maidens is told in Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid 43 BC 17 AD in this late variant Hermes falls in love with Herse Herse Aglaulus and Pandrosus go to the temple to offer sacrifices to Athena Hermes demands help from Aglaulus to seduce Herse Aglaulus demands money in exchange Hermes gives her the money the sisters have already offered to Athena As punishment for Aglaulus s greed Athena asks the goddess Envy to make Aglaulus jealous of Herse When Hermes arrives to seduce Herse Aglaulus stands in his way instead of helping him as she had agreed He turns her to stone 139 Athena gave her favour to an Attic girl named Myrsine a chaste girl who outdid all her fellow athletes in both the palaestra and the race Out of envy the other athletes murdered her but Athena took pity in her and transformed her dead body into a myrtle a plant thereafter as favoured by her as the olive was 140 An almost exact story was said about another girl Elaea who transformed into an olive Athena s sacred tree 141 Patron of heroes Attic red figure kylix painting from c 480 470 BC showing Athena observing as the Colchian dragon disgorges the hero Jason 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 143 144 Pseudo Apollodorus also records that Athena guided the hero Perseus in his quest to behead Medusa 145 146 147 She and Hermes the god of travelers appeared to Perseus after he set off on his quest and gifted him with tools he would need to kill the Gorgon 147 148 Athena gave Perseus a polished bronze shield to view Medusa s reflection rather than looking at her directly and thereby avoid being turned to stone 147 149 Hermes gave him an adamantine scythe to cut off Medusa s head 147 150 When Perseus swung his blade to behead Medusa Athena guided it allowing his scythe to cut it clean off 147 149 According to Pindar s Thirteenth Olympian Ode Athena helped the hero Bellerophon tame the winged horse Pegasus by giving him a bit 151 152 In ancient Greek art Athena is frequently shown aiding the hero Heracles 153 She appears in four of the twelve metopes on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia depicting Heracles s Twelve Labors 154 153 including the first in which she passively watches him slay the Nemean lion 153 and the tenth in which she is shown actively helping him hold up the sky 155 She is presented as his stern ally 156 but also the gentle acknowledger of his achievements 156 Artistic depictions of Heracles s apotheosis show Athena driving him to Mount Olympus in her chariot and presenting him to Zeus for his deification 155 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 157 When half the jury votes to acquit and the other half votes to convict Athena casts the deciding vote to acquit Orestes 157 and declares that from then on whenever a jury is tied the defendant shall always be acquitted 158 In The Odyssey Odysseus cunning and shrewd nature quickly wins Athena s favour 159 144 For the first part of the poem however she largely is confined to aiding him only from afar mainly by implanting thoughts in his head during his journey home from Troy Her guiding actions reinforce her role as the protectress of heroes or as mythologian Walter Friedrich Otto dubbed her the goddess of nearness due to her mentoring and motherly probing 160 145 161 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 162 She appears in Nausicaa s dreams to ensure that the princess rescues Odysseus and plays a role in his eventual escort to Ithaca 163 Athena appears to Odysseus upon his arrival disguised as a herdsman 164 165 159 she initially lies and tells him that Penelope his wife has remarried and that he is believed to be dead 164 but Odysseus lies back to her employing skillful prevarications to protect himself 166 165 Impressed by his resolve and shrewdness she reveals herself and tells him what he needs to know to win back his kingdom 167 165 159 She disguises him as an elderly beggar so that he will not be recognized by the suitors or Penelope 168 165 and helps him to defeat the suitors 168 169 165 Athena also appears to Odysseus s son Telemachus 170 Her actions lead him to travel around to Odysseus s comrades and ask about his father 171 He hears stories about some of Odysseus s journey 171 Athena s push for Telemachos s journey helps him grow into the man role that his father once held 172 She also plays a role in ending the resultant feud against the suitors relatives She instructs Laertes to throw his spear and to kill Eupeithes the father of Antinous Athena and Heracles on an Attic red figure kylix 480 470 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 tripodPunishment myths Classical Greek depiction of Medusa from the fourth century BC The Gorgoneion appears to have originated as an apotropaic symbol intended to ward off evil 173 In a late myth invented to explain the origins of the Gorgon 174 Medusa is described as having been a young priestess who served in the temple of Athena in Athens 175 Poseidon lusted after Medusa and raped her in the temple of Athena 175 refusing to allow her vow of chastity to stand in his way 175 Upon discovering the desecration of her temple Athena transformed Medusa into a hideous monster with serpents for hair whose gaze would turn any mortal to stone 176 In his Twelfth Pythian Ode Pindar recounts the story of how Athena invented the aulos a kind of flute in imitation of the lamentations of Medusa s sisters the Gorgons after she was beheaded by the hero Perseus 177 According to Pindar Athena gave the aulos to mortals as a gift 177 Later the comic playwright Melanippides of Melos c 480 430 BC embellished the story in his comedy Marsyas 177 claiming that Athena looked in the mirror while she was playing the aulos and saw how blowing into it puffed up her cheeks and made her look silly so she threw the aulos away and cursed it so that whoever picked it up would meet an awful death 177 The aulos was picked up by the satyr Marsyas who was later killed by Apollo for his hubris 177 Later this version of the story became accepted as canonical 177 and the Athenian sculptor Myron created a group of bronze sculptures based on it which was installed before the western front of the Parthenon in around 440 BC 177 A myth told by the early third century BC Hellenistic poet Callimachus in his Hymn 5 begins with Athena bathing in a spring on Mount Helicon at midday with one of her favorite companions the nymph Chariclo 133 178 Chariclo s son Tiresias happened to be hunting on the same mountain and came to the spring searching for water 133 178 He inadvertently saw Athena naked so she struck him blind to ensure he would never again see what man was not intended to see 133 179 180 Chariclo intervened on her son s behalf and begged Athena to have mercy 133 180 181 Athena replied that she could not restore Tiresias s eyesight 133 180 181 so instead she gave him the ability to understand the language of the birds and thus foretell the future 182 181 133 Myrmex was a clever and chaste Attic girl who became quickly a favourite of Athena However when Athena invented the plough Myrmex went to the Atticans and told them that it was in fact her own invention Hurt by the girl s betrayal Athena transformed her into the small insect bearing her name the ant 183 Minerva and Arachne by Rene Antoine Houasse 1706 The fable of Arachne appears in Ovid s Metamorphoses 8 AD vi 5 54 and 129 145 184 185 186 which is nearly the only extant source for the legend 185 186 The story does not appear to have been well known prior to Ovid s rendition of it 185 and the only earlier reference to it is a brief allusion in Virgil s Georgics 29 BC iv 246 that does not mention Arachne by name 186 According to Ovid Arachne whose name means spider in ancient Greek 187 was the daughter of a famous dyer in Tyrian purple in Hypaipa of Lydia and a weaving student of Athena 188 She became so conceited of her skill as a weaver that she began claiming that her skill was greater than that of Athena herself 188 189 Athena gave Arachne a chance to redeem herself by assuming the form of an old woman and warning Arachne not to offend the deities 184 189 Arachne scoffed and wished for a weaving contest so she could prove her skill 190 189 Athena wove the scene of her victory over Poseidon in the contest for the patronage of Athens 190 191 189 Athena s tapestry also depicted the 12 Olympian gods and defeat of mythological figures who challenged their authority 192 Arachne s tapestry featured twenty one episodes of the deities infidelity 190 191 189 including Zeus being unfaithful with Leda with Europa and with Danae 191 It represented the unjust and discrediting behavior of the gods towards mortals 192 Athena admitted that Arachne s work was flawless 190 189 191 but was outraged at Arachne s offensive choice of subject which displayed the failings and transgressions of the deities 190 189 191 Finally losing her temper Athena destroyed Arachne s tapestry and loom striking it with her shuttle 190 189 191 Athena then struck Arachne across the face with her staff four times 190 189 191 Arachne hanged herself in despair 190 189 191 but Athena took pity on her and brought her back from the dead in the form of a spider 190 189 191 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 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 Trojan War Main article Judgement of Paris Ancient Greek mosaic from Antioch dating to the second century AD depicting the Judgement of Paris The myth of the Judgement of Paris is mentioned briefly in the Iliad 194 but is described in depth in an epitome of the Cypria a lost poem of the Epic Cycle 195 which records that all the gods and goddesses as well as various mortals were invited to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis the eventual parents of Achilles 194 Only Eris goddess of discord was not invited 195 She was annoyed at this so she arrived with a golden apple inscribed with the word kallistῃ kallistei for the fairest which she threw among the goddesses 196 Aphrodite Hera and Athena all claimed to be the fairest and thus the rightful owner of the apple 196 133 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 196 133 After bathing in the spring of Mount Ida where Troy was situated the goddesses appeared before Paris for his decision 196 In the extant ancient depictions of the Judgement of Paris Aphrodite is only occasionally represented nude and Athena and Hera are always fully clothed 197 Since the Renaissance however Western paintings have typically portrayed all three goddesses as completely naked 197 All three goddesses were ideally beautiful and Paris could not decide between them so they resorted to bribes 196 Hera tried to bribe Paris with power over all Asia and Europe 196 133 and Athena offered fame and glory in battle 196 133 but Aphrodite promised Paris that if he were to choose her as the fairest she would let him marry the most beautiful woman on earth 198 133 This woman was Helen who was already married to King Menelaus of Sparta 198 Paris selected Aphrodite and awarded her the apple 198 133 The other two goddesses were enraged and as a direct result sided with the Greeks in the Trojan War 198 133 In Books V VI of the Iliad Athena aids the hero Diomedes who in the absence of Achilles proves himself to be the most effective Greek warrior 199 144 Several artistic representations from the early sixth century BC may show Athena and Diomedes 199 including an early sixth century BC shield band depicting Athena and an unidentified warrior riding on a chariot a vase painting of a warrior with his charioteer facing Athena and an inscribed clay plaque showing Diomedes and Athena riding in a chariot 199 Numerous passages in the Iliad also mention Athena having previously served as the patron of Diomedes s father Tydeus 200 201 When the Trojan women go to the temple of Athena on the Acropolis to plead her for protection from Diomedes Athena ignores them 116 Athena also gets into a duel with Ares the god of the brutal wars and her male counterpart 202 Ares blames her for encouraging Diomedes to tear his beautiful flesh citation needed He curses her and strikes with all his strength citation needed Athena deflects his blow with her aegis a powerful shield that even Zeus s thunderbolt and lightning cannot blast through citation needed Athena picked up a massive boulder and threw it at Ares who immediately crumpled to the ground citation needed Aphrodite who was a lover of Ares came down from Olympus to carry Ares away but was struck by Athena s golden spear and fell 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 citation needed In Book XXII of the Iliad while Achilles is chasing Hector around the walls of Troy Athena appears to Hector disguised as his brother Deiphobus 203 and persuades him to hold his ground so that they can fight Achilles together 203 Then Hector throws his spear at Achilles and misses expecting Deiphobus to hand him another 204 but Athena disappears instead leaving Hector to face Achilles alone without his spear 204 In Sophocles s tragedy Ajax she punishes Odysseus s rival Ajax the Great driving him insane and causing him to massacre the Achaeans cattle thinking that he is slaughtering the Achaeans themselves 205 Even after Odysseus himself expresses pity for Ajax 206 Athena declares To laugh at your enemies what sweeter laughter can there be than that lines 78 9 206 Ajax later commits suicide as a result of his humiliation 206 Classical artAthena appears frequently in classical Greek art including on coins and in paintings on ceramics 207 208 She is especially prominent in works produced in Athens 207 In classical depictions Athena is usually portrayed standing upright wearing a full length chiton 209 She is most often represented dressed in armor like a male soldier 208 209 7 and wearing a Corinthian helmet raised high atop her forehead 210 7 208 Her shield bears at its centre the aegis with the head of the gorgon gorgoneion in the center and snakes around the edge 174 Sometimes she is shown wearing the aegis as a cloak 208 As Athena Promachos she is shown brandishing a spear 207 7 208 Scenes in which Athena was represented include her birth from the head of Zeus her battle with the Gigantes the birth of Erichthonius and the Judgement of Paris 207 The Mourning Athena or Athena Meditating is a famous relief sculpture dating to around 470 460 BC 210 207 that has been interpreted to represent Athena Polias 210 The most famous classical depiction of Athena was the Athena Parthenos a now lost 11 5 m 38 ft 211 gold and ivory statue of her in the Parthenon created by the Athenian sculptor Phidias 209 207 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 207 Athena Polias is also represented in a Neo Attic relief now held in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts 210 which depicts her holding an owl in her hand i and wearing her characteristic Corinthian helmet while resting her shield against a nearby herma 210 The Roman goddess Minerva adopted most of Athena s Greek iconographical associations 212 but was also integrated into the Capitoline Triad 212 Attic black figure exaleiptron of the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus c 570 560 BC by the C Painter 207 Attic red figure kylix of Athena Promachos holding a spear and standing beside a Doric column c 500 490 BC Restoration of the polychrome decoration of the Athena statue from the Aphaea temple at Aegina c 490 BC from the exposition Bunte Gotter by the Munich Glyptothek The Mourning Athena relief c 470 460 BC 210 207 Attic red figure kylix showing Athena slaying the Gigante Enceladus c 550 500 BC Relief of Athena and Nike slaying the Gigante Alkyoneus 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 PakistanPost classical cultureArt and symbolism Statue of Pallas Athena in front of the Austrian Parliament Building Athena has been used throughout Western history as a symbol of freedom and democracy 213 Early Christian writers such as Clement of Alexandria and Firmicus denigrated Athena as representative of all the things that were detestable about paganism 214 they condemned her as immodest and immoral 215 During the Middle Ages however many attributes of Athena were given to the Virgin Mary 215 who in fourth century portrayals was often depicted wearing the Gorgoneion 215 Some even viewed the Virgin Mary as a warrior maiden much like Athena Parthenos 215 one anecdote tells that the Virgin Mary once appeared upon the walls of Constantinople when it was under siege by the Avars clutching a spear and urging the people to fight 216 During the Middle Ages Athena became widely used as a Christian symbol and allegory and she appeared on the family crests of certain noble houses 217 During the Renaissance Athena donned the mantle of patron of the arts and human endeavor 218 allegorical paintings involving Athena were a favorite of the Italian Renaissance painters 218 In Sandro Botticelli s painting Pallas and the Centaur probably painted sometime in the 1480s Athena is the personification of chastity who is shown grasping the forelock of a centaur who represents lust 219 220 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 221 220 222 Athena is also used as the personification of wisdom in Bartholomeus Spranger s 1591 painting The Triumph of Wisdom or Minerva Victorious over Ignorance 212 During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Athena was used as a symbol for female rulers 223 In his book A Revelation of the True Minerva 1582 Thomas Blennerhassett portrays Queen Elizabeth I of England as a new Minerva and the greatest goddesse nowe on earth 224 A series of paintings by Peter Paul Rubens depict Athena as Marie de Medici s patron and mentor 225 the final painting in the series goes even further and shows Marie de Medici with Athena s iconography as the mortal incarnation of the goddess herself 225 The Flemish sculptor Jean Pierre Antoine Tassaert Jan Peter Anton Tassaert later portrayed Catherine II of Russia as Athena in a marble bust in 1774 212 During the French Revolution statues of pagan gods were torn down all throughout France but statues of Athena were not 225 Instead Athena was transformed into the personification of freedom and the republic 225 and a statue of the goddess stood in the center of the Place de la Revolution in Paris 225 In the years following the Revolution artistic representations of Athena proliferated 226 A statue of Athena stands directly in front of the Austrian Parliament Building in Vienna 227 and depictions of Athena have influenced other symbols of Western freedom including the Statue of Liberty and Britannia 227 For over a century a full scale replica of the Parthenon has stood in Nashville Tennessee 228 In 1990 the curators added a gilded forty two foot 12 5 m tall replica of Phidias s Athena Parthenos built from concrete and fiberglass 228 The Great Seal of California bears the image of Athena kneeling next to a brown grizzly bear 229 Athena has occasionally appeared on modern coins as she did on the ancient Athenian drachma Her head appears on the 50 1915 S Panama Pacific commemorative coin 230 Pallas and the Centaur c 1482 by Sandro Botticelli Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue 1502 by Andrea Mantegna 221 220 222 Athena Scorning the Advances of Hephaestus c 1555 1560 by Paris Bordone Minerva Victorious over Ignorance c 1591 by Bartholomeus Spranger Maria de Medici 1622 by Peter Paul Rubens showing her as the incarnation of Athena 225 Minerva Protecting Peace from Mars 1629 by Peter Paul Rubens Pallas Athena c 1655 by Rembrandt Minerva Revealing Ithaca to Ulysses fifteenth century by Giuseppe Bottani Minerva and the Triumph of Jupiter 1706 by Rene Antoine Houasse The Combat of Mars and Minerva 1771 by Joseph Benoit Suvee Minerva Fighting Mars 1771 by Jacques Louis David Minerva of Peace mosaic in the Library of Congress Athena on the Great Seal of CaliforniaModern interpretations Modern Neopagan Hellenist altar dedicated to Athena and Apollo One of Sigmund Freud s most treasured possessions was a small bronze sculpture of Athena which sat on his desk 231 Freud once described Athena as a woman who is unapproachable and repels all sexual desires since she displays the terrifying genitals of the Mother 232 Feminist views on Athena are sharply divided 232 some feminists regard her as a symbol of female empowerment 232 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 232 In contemporary Wicca Athena is venerated as an aspect of the Goddess 233 and some Wiccans believe that she may bestow the Owl Gift the ability to write and communicate clearly upon her worshippers 233 Due to her status as one of the twelve Olympians Athena is a major deity in Hellenismos 234 a Neopagan religion which seeks to authentically revive and recreate the religion of ancient Greece in the modern world 235 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 236 It is traditional at exam time for students to leave offerings to the goddess with a note asking for good luck 236 or to repent for accidentally breaking any of the college s numerous other traditions 236 Pallas Athena is the tutelary goddess of the international social fraternity Phi Delta Theta 237 Her owl is also a symbol of the fraternity 237 GenealogyAthena s family treeUranusGaiaUranus genitalsOceanusTethysCronusRheaMetisZeusHeraPoseidonHadesDemeterHestiaATHENA a j b k AresHephaestusLetoApolloArtemisMaiaHermesSemeleDionysusDione a l b m AphroditeSee also Ancient Greece portal Myths portal Religion portalAthenaeum disambiguation Ambulia a Spartan epithet used for Athena Zeus and Castor and PolluxNotes In other traditions Athena s father is sometimes listed as Zeus by himself or Pallas Brontes or Itonos e ˈ 8 iː n e Attic Greek Ἀ8hnᾶ Athena or Ἀ8hnaia Athenaia Epic Ἀ8hnaih Athenaie Doric Ἀ8ana Atha na e ˈ 8 iː n iː Ionic Ἀ8hnh Athḗne ˈ p ae l e s Pallas Pallas 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 Timaeus 21e Aeschylus Eumenides v 292 f Cf the tradition that she was the daughter of Neilos see e g Clement of Alexandria Protr 2 28 2 Cicero De Natura Deorum 3 59 This sanctuary had been respected from early days by all the Peloponnesians and afforded peculiar safety to its suppliants Pausanias Description of Greece iii 5 6 Jane Ellen Harrison s famous characterization of this myth element as a desperate theological expedient to rid an earth born Kore of her matriarchal conditions Harrison 1922 302 has never been refuted nor confirmed The owl s role as a symbol of wisdom originates in this association with Athena According to Homer Iliad 1 570 579 14 338 Odyssey 8 312 Hephaestus was apparently the son of Hera and Zeus see Gantz p 74 According to Hesiod Theogony 927 929 Hephaestus was produced by Hera alone with no father see Gantz p 74 According to Hesiod Theogony 183 200 Aphrodite was born from Uranus severed genitals see Gantz pp 99 100 According to Homer Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus Iliad 3 374 20 105 Odyssey 8 308 320 and Dione Iliad 5 370 71 see Gantz pp 99 100 References a b Inc Merriam Webster 1995 Merriam Webster s Encyclopedia of Literature Merriam Webster p 81 ISBN 9780877790426 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a last1 has generic name help Kerenyi 1951 pp 121 122 L Day 1999 p 39 a b Deacy amp Villing 2001 a b c d e f g h Burkert 1985 p 139 a b c d e f Ruck amp Staples 1994 p 24 a b c d e Powell 2012 p 230 Beekes 2009 p 29 Johrens 1981 pp 438 452 a b c d Hurwit 1999 p 14 a b Nilsson 1967 pp 347 433 a b c d e f Burkert 1985 p 140 Puhvel 1987 p 133 Kinsley 1989 pp 141 142 a b c Ventris amp Chadwick 1973 p 126 Chadwick 1976 pp 88 89 Palaima 2004 p 444 Burkert 1985 p 44 KO Za 1 inscription line 1 a b c Best 1989 p 30 Mylonas 1966 p 159 Hurwit 1999 pp 13 14 Fururmark 1978 p 672 a b Nilsson 1950 p 496 Harrison 1922 306 Cfr ibid p 307 fig 84 Detail of a cup in the Faina collection Archived from the original on 5 November 2004 Retrieved 6 May 2007 Wolkstein amp Kramer 1983 pp 92 193 Puhvel 1987 pp 133 134 Mallory amp Adams 2006 p 433 a b Penglase 1994 p 235 Deacy 2008 pp 20 21 41 Penglase 1994 pp 233 325 Cf also Herodotus Histories 2 170 175 Bernal 1987 pp 21 51 ff Fritze 2009 pp 221 229 Berlinerblau 1999 p 93ff Fritze 2009 pp 221 255 Jasanoff amp Nussbaum 1996 p 194 Fritze 2009 pp 250 255 Herrington 1955 pp 11 15 a b c d e f g Hurwit 1999 p 15 Simon 1983 p 46 a b Simon 1983 pp 46 49 a b c Herrington 1955 pp 1 11 Burkert 1985 pp 305 337 a b c Herrington 1955 pp 11 14 a b c d e f g h Schmitt 2000 pp 1059 1073 a b c d Darmon 1992 pp 114 115 a b Hansen 2004 pp 123 124 a b Robertson 1992 pp 90 109 Hurwit 1999 p 18 a b c d e f Burkert 1985 p 143 Goldhill 1986 p 121 a b c d Garland 2008 p 217 Hansen 2004 p 123 Goldhill 1986 p 31 a b c d e Kerenyi 1952 Marinus of Samaria The Life of Proclus or Concerning Happiness tertullian org 1925 pp 15 55 Translated by Kenneth S Guthrie Para 30 Pilafidis Williams 1998 Jost 1996 pp 134 135 Pausanias Description of Greece viii 4 8 a b c d e f Deacy 2008 p 127 a b Burn 2004 p 10 a b Burn 2004 p 11 Burn 2004 pp 10 11 The Homeric hymns Jules Cashford London Penguin Books 2003 ISBN 0 14 043782 7 OCLC 59339816 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint others link a b c Hubbard 1986 p 28 Bell 1993 p 13 Pausanias i 5 3 41 6 John Tzetzes ad Lycophr l c Schaus amp Wenn 2007 p 30 Pausanias Description of Greece 2 34 8 Archived from the original on 29 June 2021 Retrieved 20 February 2021 Pausanias Description of Greece 2 34 9 Archived from the original on 24 June 2021 Retrieved 20 February 2021 Life of Pericles 13 8 Plutarch Parallel Lives uchicago edu 1916 The Parallel Lives by Plutarch published in Vol III of the Loeb Classical Library edition 1916 Lesley A Beaumont 2013 Childhood in Ancient Athens Iconography and Social History Routledge p 69 ISBN 978 0415248747 glaykῶpis in Liddell and Scott glaykos in Liddell and Scott ὤps in Liddell and Scott Thompson D Arcy Wentworth 1895 A glossary of Greek birds Oxford Clarendon Press p 45 glay3 in Liddell and Scott a b Nilsson 1950 pp 491 496 a b Graves 1960 p 55 a b Graves 1960 pp 50 55 Kerenyi 1951 p 128 Tritogeneia in Liddell and Scott Hesiod Theogony II 886 900 a b Janda 2005 p 289 298 a b c Janda 2005 p 293 Homer Iliad XV 187 195 Diogenes Laertius Lives of Eminent Philosophers BOOK IX Chapter 7 DEMOCRITUS 460 357 B C Kerenyi 1951 pp 118 120 Deacy 2008 pp 17 32 a b Penglase 1994 pp 230 231 Kerenyi 1951 pp 118 122 Deacy 2008 pp 17 19 Hansen 2004 pp 121 123 Iliad Book V line 880 a b c d e f g Deacy 2008 p 18 a b c Hesiod Theogony 885 900 Archived 24 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine 929e 929t Archived 28 October 2021 at the Wayback Machine a b Kerenyi 1951 pp 118 119 a b c d e f Hansen 2004 pp 121 122 Kerenyi 1951 p 119 a b c Pseudo Apollodorus Bibliotheca 1 3 6 Archived 24 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine a b c d Hansen 2004 pp 122 123 Kerenyi 1951 pp 119 120 a b c d e Kerenyi 1951 p 120 Penglase 1994 p 231 Hansen 2004 pp 122 124 a b c Penglase 1994 p 233 Pindar Seventh Olympian Ode Archived 25 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine lines 37 38 Justin Apology 64 5 quoted in Robert McQueen Grant Gods and the One God vol 1 155 who observes that it is Porphyry who similarly identifies Athena with forethought Gantz p 51 Yasumura p 89 Archived 27 December 2022 at the Wayback Machine scholia bT to Iliad 8 39 a b c d e f Kerenyi 1951 p 281 Kerenyi 1951 p 122 Oldenburg 1969 p 86 I P Cory ed 1832 The Theology of the Phœnicians from Sanchoniatho Ancient Fragments Translated by Cory Archived from the original on 5 September 2010 Retrieved 25 August 2010 via Sacred texts com a b c Deacy 2008 pp 68 69 Chantraine s v the New Pauly says the etymology is simply unknown New Pauly s v Pallas a b Graves 1960 p 50 Deacy 2008 p 51 Powell 2012 p 231 Kerenyi 1951 p 120 121 Kerenyi 1951 p 121 a b c d e f Deacy 2008 p 68 Deacy 2008 p 71 a b c d e f g h Kerenyi 1951 p 124 a b c d e f Graves 1960 p 62 Kinsley 1989 p 143 a b c d e f g Deacy 2008 p 88 Servius On Virgil s Georgics 1 18 scholia on Aristophanes s Clouds 1005 Wunder 1855 p note on verse 703 a b c d e f g Kerenyi 1951 p 123 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Hansen 2004 p 125 a b c d e f Kerenyi 1951 p 125 Kerenyi 1951 pp 125 126 a b Kerenyi 1951 p 126 Deacy 2008 pp 88 89 a b c d e f Deacy 2008 p 89 Ovid Metamorphoses X Aglaura Book II 708 751 XI The Envy Book II 752 832 Cancik Hubert Schneider Helmuth Salazar Christine F Orton David E 2002 Brill s New Pauly Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World Vol IX Brill Publications p 423 ISBN 978 90 04 12272 7 Forbes Irving Paul M C 1990 Metamorphosis in Greek Myths Clarendon Press p 278 ISBN 0 19 814730 9 Deacy 2008 p 62 Pseudo Apollodorus Bibliotheca 1 9 16 Archived 25 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine a b c Hansen 2004 p 124 a b Burkert 1985 p 141 Kinsley 1989 p 151 a b c d e Deacy 2008 p 61 Pseudo Apollodorus Bibliotheca 2 37 38 39 a b Pseudo Apollodorus Bibliotheca 2 41 Pseudo Apollodorus Bibliotheca 2 39 Deacy 2008 p 48 Pindar Olympian Ode 13 75 78 Archived 6 January 2021 at the Wayback Machine a b c Deacy 2008 pp 64 65 Pollitt 1999 pp 48 50 a b Deacy 2008 p 65 a b Pollitt 1999 p 50 a b Roman amp Roman 2010 p 161 Roman amp Roman 2010 pp 161 162 a b c Jenkyns 2016 p 19 W F Otto Die Gotter Griechenlands 55 77 Bonn F Cohen 1929 Deacy 2008 p 59 de Jong 2001 p 152 de Jong 2001 pp 152 153 a b Trahman 1952 pp 31 35 a b c d e Burkert 1985 p 142 Trahman 1952 p 35 Trahman 1952 pp 35 43 a b Trahman 1952 pp 35 42 Jenkyns 2016 pp 19 20 Murrin 2007 p 499 a b Murrin 2007 pp 499 500 Murrin 2007 pp 499 514 Phinney 1971 pp 445 447 a b Phinney 1971 pp 445 463 a b c Seelig 2002 p 895 Seelig 2002 p 895 911 a b c d e f g Poehlmann 2017 p 330 a b Morford amp Lenardon 1999 p 315 Morford amp Lenardon 1999 pp 315 316 a b c Kugelmann 1983 p 73 a b c Morford amp Lenardon 1999 p 316 Edmunds 1990 p 373 Servius Commentary on Virgil s Aeneid 4 402 Archived 1 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine Smith 1873 s v Myrmex Archived 25 December 2022 at the Wayback Machine a b Powell 2012 pp 233 234 a b c Roman amp Roman 2010 p 78 a b c Norton 2013 p 166 ἀraxnh ἀraxnhs Liddell Henry George Scott Robert A Greek English Lexicon at the Perseus Project a b Powell 2012 p 233 a b c d e f g h i j k Harries 1990 pp 64 82 a b c d e f g h i Powell 2012 p 234 a b c d e f g h i Leach 1974 pp 102 142 a b Roman amp Roman 2010 p 92 Salzman Mitchell Patricia B 2005 A Web of Fantasies Gaze Image and Gender in Ovid s Metamorphoses Ohio State University Press p 228 ISBN 0 8142 0999 8 a b Walcot 1977 p 31 a b Walcot 1977 pp 31 32 a b c d e f g Walcot 1977 p 32 a b Bull 2005 pp 346 347 a b c d Walcot 1977 pp 32 33 a b c Burgess 2001 p 84 Iliad 4 390 Archived 30 November 2021 at the Wayback Machine 5 115 120 Archived 30 November 2021 at the Wayback Machine 10 284 94 Archived 30 November 2021 at the Wayback Machine Burgess 2001 pp 84 85 Villing Alexandra Claudia The Iconography of Athena in Attic Vase painting from 440 370 BC PDF heiDOK Heidelberg University Archived PDF from the original on 9 October 2022 Retrieved 4 July 2022 a b Deacy 2008 p 69 a b Deacy 2008 pp 69 70 Deacy 2008 pp 59 60 a b c Deacy 2008 p 60 a b c d e f g h i Aghion Barbillon amp Lissarrague 1996 p 193 a b c d e Hansen 2004 p 126 a b c Palagia amp Pollitt 1996 p 28 32 a b c d e f Palagia amp Pollitt 1996 p 32 Athena Parthenos by Phidias World History Encyclopedia Retrieved 26 June 2019 a b c d Aghion Barbillon amp Lissarrague 1996 p 194 Deacy 2008 pp 145 149 Deacy 2008 pp 141 144 a b c d Deacy 2008 p 144 Deacy 2008 pp 144 145 Deacy 2008 pp 146 148 a b Deacy 2008 pp 145 146 Randolph 2002 p 221 a b c Deacy 2008 p 145 a b Brown 2007 p 1 a b Aghion Barbillon amp Lissarrague 1996 pp 193 194 Deacy 2008 p 147 148 Deacy 2008 p 147 a b c d e f Deacy 2008 p 148 Deacy 2008 pp 148 149 a b Deacy 2008 p 149 a b Garland 2008 p 330 Symbols of the Seal of California LearnCalifornia org Archived from the original on 24 November 2010 Retrieved 25 August 2010 Swiatek amp Breen 1981 pp 201 202 Deacy 2008 p 153 a b c d Deacy 2008 p 154 a b Gallagher 2005 p 109 Alexander 2007 pp 31 32 Alexander 2007 pp 11 20 a b c Friedman 2005 p 121 a b Phi Delta Theta International Symbols phideltatheta org Archived from the original on 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Consequences for the European Civilization Thera and the Aegean World I London England Cambridge University Press Gantz Timothy Early Greek Myth A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources Johns Hopkins University Press 1996 Two volumes ISBN 978 0 8018 5360 9 Vol 1 ISBN 978 0 8018 5362 3 Vol 2 Gallagher Ann Marie 2005 The Wicca Bible The Definitive Guide to Magic and the Craft New York City New York Sterling Publishing Co Inc ISBN 978 1 4027 3008 5 Garland Robert 2008 Ancient Greece Everyday Life in the Birthplace of Western Civilization New York City New York Sterling ISBN 978 1 4549 0908 8 Goldhill S 1986 Reading Greek Tragedy Aesch Eum 737 Cambridge England Cambridge University Press Graves Robert 1960 1955 The Greek Myths London England Penguin ISBN 978 0241952740 Hansen William F 2004 Athena also Athene and Athenaia Roman Minerva Classical Mythology A Guide to the Mythical World of the Greeks and Romans Oxford England Oxford University Press pp 121 126 ISBN 978 0 19 530035 2 Harries Byron 1990 The spinner and the poet Arachne in Ovid s Metamorphoses The Cambridge Classical Journal Cambridge England Cambridge University Press 36 64 82 doi 10 1017 S006867350000523X Harrison Jane Ellen 1903 Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion Herrington C J 1955 Athena Parthenos and Athena Polias Manchester England Manchester University Press Hubbard Thomas K 1986 Pegasus Bridle and the Poetics of Pindar s Thirteenth Olympian in Tarrant R J ed Harvard Studies in Classical Philology vol 90 Cambridge Massachusetts Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 37937 4 Hurwit Jeffrey M 1999 The Athenian Acropolis History Mythology and Archaeology from the Neolithic Era to the Present Cambridge England Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 41786 0 Janda Michael 2005 Elysion Entstehung und Entwicklung der griechischen Religion Innsbruck Institut fur Sprachen und Literaturen ISBN 9783851247022 Jasanoff Jay H Nussbaum Alan 1996 Word games the Linguistic Evidence in Black Athena PDF in Mary R Lefkowitz Guy MacLean Rogers eds Black Athena Revisited The University of North Carolina Press p 194 ISBN 9780807845554 archived PDF from the original on 9 October 2022 Jenkyns Richard 2016 Classical Literature An Epic Journey from Homer to Virgil and Beyond New York City New York Basic Books A Member of the Perseus Books Group ISBN 978 0 465 09797 5 Johrens Gerhard 1981 Der Athenahymnus des Ailios Aristeides Bonn Germany Habelt pp 438 452 ISBN 9783774918504 Jost Madeleine 1996 Arcadian cults and myths in Hornblower Simon ed Oxford Classical Dictionary Oxford England Oxford University Press Kerenyi Karl 1951 The Gods of the Greeks London England Thames and Hudson ISBN 978 0 500 27048 6 Kerenyi Karl 1952 Die Jungfrau und Mutter der griechischen Religion Eine Studie uber Pallas Athene Zurich Rhein Verlag Kinsley David 1989 The Goddesses Mirror Visions of the Divine from East and West Albany New York New York State University Press ISBN 978 0 88706 836 2 Kugelmann Robert 1983 The Windows of Soul Psychological Physiology of the Human Eye and Primary Glaucoma Plainsboro New Jersey Associated University Presses ISBN 978 0 8387 5035 3 L Day Peggy 1999 Anat in Toorn Karel van der Becking Bob Horst Pieter Willem van der eds Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible 2nd ed Grand Rapids Wm B Eerdmans Publishing pp 36 39 Leach Eleanor Winsor January 1974 Ekphrasis and the Theme of Artistic Failure in Ovid s Metamorphoses Ramus Cambridge England Cambridge University Press 3 2 102 142 doi 10 1017 S0048671X00004549 S2CID 29668658 Mallory James P Adams Douglas Q 2006 Oxford Introduction to Proto Indo European and the Proto Indo European World London Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 929668 2 Morford Mark P O Lenardon Robert J 1999 Classical Mythology sixth ed Oxford England Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 514338 6 Murrin Michael Spring 2007 Athena and Telemachus International Journal of the Classical Tradition Berlin Germany Springer 13 4 499 514 doi 10 1007 BF02923022 JSTOR 30222174 S2CID 170103084 Mylonas G 1966 Mycenae and the Mycenaean Age Princeton New Jersey Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0691035239 Nilsson Martin Persson 1950 The Minoan Mycenaean Religion and Its Survival in Greek Religion second ed New York Biblo amp Tannen ISBN 978 0 8196 0273 2 Nilsson Martin Persson 1967 Die Geschichte der griechischen Religion Munchen Germany C F Beck Norton Elizabeth 2013 Aspects of Ecphrastic Technique in Ovid s Metamorphoses Newcastle upon Tyne England Cambridge Scholars Publishing ISBN 978 1 4438 4271 6 Oldenburg Ulf 1969 The Conflict Between El and Ba al in Canaanite Religion Leiden The Netherlands E J Brill Palagia Olga Pollitt J J 1996 Personal Styles in Greek Sculpture Cambridge England Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 65738 9 Palaima Thomas 2004 Appendix One Linear B Sources in Trzaskoma Stephen ed Anthology of Classical Myth Primary Sources in Translation Hackett Penglase Charles 1994 Greek Myths and Mesopotamia Parallels and Influence in the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod New York City New York Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 15706 3 Phinney Edward Jr 1971 Perseus Battle with the Gorgons Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association Baltimore Maryland The Johns Hopkins University Press 102 445 463 doi 10 2307 2935950 JSTOR 2935950 Pilafidis Williams K 1998 The Sanctuary of Aphaia on Aigina in the Bronze Age Munich Germany Hirmer ISBN 978 3 7774 8010 7 Poehlmann Egert 2017 Aristotle on Music and Theatre Politics VIII 6 1340 b 20 1342 b 34 Poetics in Fountoulakis Andreas Markantonatos Andreas Vasilaros Georgios eds Theatre World Critical Perspectives on Greek Tragedy and Comedy Studies in Honour of Georgia Xanthakis Karamenos Berlin Germany Walter de Gruyter ISBN 978 3 11 051896 2 Pollitt J J 1999 1972 Art and Experience in Classical Greece revised ed Cambridge England Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 09662 1 Powell Barry B 2012 2004 Myths of Aphrodite Artemis Athena Classical Myth Seventh ed London England Pearson pp 211 235 ISBN 978 0 205 17607 6 Puhvel Jaan 1987 Comparative Mythology Baltimore Maryland Johns Hopkins University Press ISBN 978 0 8018 3938 2 Randolph Adrian W B 2002 Engaging Symbols Gender Politics and Public Art in Fifteenth century Florence New Haven Connecticut Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 09212 7 Robertson Noel 1992 Festivals and Legends The Formation of Greek Cities in the Light of Public Ritual Toronto University of Toronto Press Roman Luke Roman Monica 2010 Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology New York City New York Infobase Publishing ISBN 978 0 8160 7242 2 Ruck Carl A P Staples Danny 1994 The World of Classical Myth Gods and Goddesses Heroines and Heroes Durham North Carolina Carolina Academic Press ISBN 978 0890895757 Schaus Gerald P Wenn Stephen R 2007 Onward to the Olympics Historical Perspectives on the Olympic Games Publications of the Canadian Institute in Greece vol 5 Ontario Canada Wilfrid Laurier University Press ISBN 978 0 88920 505 5 Schmitt P 2000 Athena Apatouria et la ceinture Les aspects feminins des apatouries a Athenes Annales Economies Societies Civilisations London England Thames and Hudson pp 1059 1073 Seelig Beth J August 2002 The Rape of Medusa in the Temple of Athena Aspects of Triangulation in the Girl The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 83 4 895 911 doi 10 1516 3NLL UG13 TP2J 927M PMID 12204171 S2CID 28961886 Simon Erika 1983 Festivals of Attica An Archaeological Commentary Madison Wisconsin The University of Wisconsin Press ISBN 978 0 299 09184 2 Swiatek Anthony Breen Walter 1981 The Encyclopedia of United States Silver amp Gold Commemorative Coins 1892 to 1954 New York City New York Arco Publishing ISBN 978 0 668 04765 4 Telenius Seppo Sakari 2005 2006 Athena Artemis Helsinki Kirja kerrallaan Trahman C R 1952 Odysseus Lies Odyssey Books 13 19 Phoenix Classical Association of Canada 6 2 31 43 doi 10 2307 1086270 JSTOR 1086270 Ventris Michael Chadwick John 1973 1953 Documents in Mycenaean Greek Cambridge England Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1107503410 Walcot P April 1977 The Judgement of Paris Greece amp Rome Cambridge England Cambridge University Press 24 1 31 39 doi 10 1017 S0017383500019616 JSTOR 642687 S2CID 162573370 Wolkstein Diane Kramer Samuel Noah 1983 Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer New York City New York Harper amp Row Publishers ISBN 978 0 06 090854 6 Wunder Eduard 1855 Sophocles Oedipus rex Oedipus Colonaeus Electra Antigone Vol I London Williams and Norgate Yasumura Noriko 2013 Challenges to the Power of Zeus in Early Greek Poetry A amp C Black ISBN 9781472519672External links Wikiquote has quotations related to Athena Wikimedia Commons has media related to Athena ATHENA on the Perseus Project ATHENA from The Theoi Project ATHENA from Mythopedia Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Athena amp oldid 1135599602, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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