She is the daughter of Zeus and Metis, and is said to have been born fully grown and armored from the . [206] Even after Odysseus himself expresses pity for Ajax,[207] Athena declares, "To laugh at your enemies - what sweeter laughter can there be than that?" Others highlight the city's connection to their patron goddess, Athena, who was a significant part of Ancient Greece's polytheistic theology. Western artists and allegorists have often used Athena as a symbol of freedom and democracy. [53][129] Robert Graves was of the opinion that "Poseidon's attempts to take possession of certain cities are political myths",[128] which reflect the conflict between matriarchal and patriarchal religions. [193] Arachne's tapestry featured twenty-one episodes of the deities' infidelity,[191][192][190] including Zeus being unfaithful with Leda, with Europa, and with Dana. Yet the Greek economy, unlike that of the Minoans, was largely military, so that Athena, while retaining her earlier domestic functions, became a goddess of war. [216] During the Middle Ages, however, many attributes of Athena were given to the Virgin Mary,[216] who, in fourth-century portrayals, was often depicted wearing the Gorgoneion. [127][53] Cecrops accepted this gift[127] and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens. Athena was customarily portrayed wearing body armour and a helmet and carrying a shield and a lance. Full of contradictions, Athena was a female deity overseeing traditionally male domains. Omissions? She is not considered a goddess or Olympian, but some variations on her legend say she consorted with one. Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and war, was known by a number of attributes and symbols. The Romans identified her with Minerva. [164] Athena appears to Odysseus upon his arrival, disguised as a herdsman;[165][166][160] she initially lies and tells him that Penelope, his wife, has remarried and that he is believed to be dead,[165] but Odysseus lies back to her, employing skillful prevarications to protect himself. 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. During this period, the priestesses of Athena, or plyntrdes, performed a cleansing ritual within the Erechtheion, a sanctuary devoted to Athena and Poseidon. Her half-brother Apollo however, angered and spiteful at the practitioners of an art rival to his own, complained to their father Zeus about it, with the pretext that many people took to casting pebbles, but few actually were true prophets. 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. Symbols associated with Athena are many, and among them are the owl, the Aegis (her shield), the spear, and snakes. She is most famous for being the patron god of the city of Athens. [133][51][134] Athena adopted Erichthonius as her son and raised him. [130], Herodotus records that a serpent lived in a crevice on the north side of the summit of the Athenian Acropolis[130] and that the Athenians left a honey cake for it each month as an offering. [183][182][134], Myrmex was a clever and chaste Attic girl who became quickly a favourite of Athena. As the patron of craft and weaving, Athena was known as Ergane. . [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. [207], Athena appears frequently in classical Greek art, including on coins and in paintings on ceramics. 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. [224] 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". [178] Later, the comic playwright Melanippides of Melos (c. 480-430 BC) embellished the story in his comedy Marsyas,[178] 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. [148][150] Hermes gave him an adamantine scythe to cut off Medusa's head. [140], 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. [g] The geographer Pausanias was informed that the temenos had been founded by Aleus. [137], 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. Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War. [237] It is traditional at exam time for students to leave offerings to the goddess with a note asking for good luck,[237] or to repent for accidentally breaking any of the college's numerous other traditions. [51][138] Pausanias records that, during the Arrhephoria, two young girls known as the Arrhephoroi, who lived near the temple of Athena Polias, would be given hidden objects by the priestess of Athena,[139] which they would carry on their heads down a natural underground passage. The transition to the meaning "shield" or "goatskin" may have come by folk etymology among a people familiar with draping an animal skin over the left arm as a shield. In some versions of the story, Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus' forehead by parthenogenesis. In Homers Iliad, Athena, as a war goddess, inspires and fights alongside the Greek heroes; her aid is synonymous with military prowess. The temple of Athena Alea in Tegea was an important religious center of ancient Greece. [208] Athena Polias is also represented in a Neo-Attic relief now held in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,[211] which depicts her holding an owl in her hand[i] and wearing her characteristic Corinthian helmet while resting her shield against a nearby herma. Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. In Homers Iliad, Athena, as a war goddess, inspires and fights alongside the Greek heroes; her aid is synonymous with military prowess. Her head appears on the $50 1915-S Panama-Pacific commemorative coin. Perhaps, however, the name Theonoe may mean "she who knows divine things" [ , ta theia noousa] better than others. In Rome she was called Minerva, and her popularity continued. Being the favorite child of Zeus, she had great power. [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. Athena, the daughter of Zeus, was produced without a mother and emerged full-grown from his forehead. In some pottery it appears as a tasselled cover over Athena's dress. . In Ancient Greece, the Gorgoneion (Greek: ) was a special apotropaic amulet showing the Gorgon head, used by the Olympian deities Athena and Zeus: both are said to have worn the gorgoneion as a protective pendant, and often are depicted wearing it. The owl's role as a symbol of wisdom originates in this association with Athena. [74], At Athens there is the temple of Athena Phratria, as patron of a phratry, in the Ancient Agora of Athens. [133][134] The Roman mythographer Hyginus[113] 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. 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. At the end of the day she was viewed as a monster and had her head decapitated by Perseus only to be used as an item on Athena's Aegis Shield. 449 - 420 B.C. Athena placed on her aegis a symbolic representation of the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa. [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. A virgin deity, she was also - somewhat paradoxically - associated with peace and handicrafts, especially spinning and weaving. The Douris cup shows that the aegis was represented exactly as the skin of the great serpent, with its scales clearly delineated. How was Athena usually pictured? [56] According to Karl Kernyi, 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. [175] Sometimes she is shown wearing the aegis as a cloak. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. [210][208] Copies reveal that this statue depicted Athena holding her shield in her left hand with Nike, the winged goddess of victory, standing in her right. [78], The word glax (,[79] "little owl")[80] is from the same root, presumably according to some, because of the bird's own distinctive eyes. The Greek aigis, has many meanings including:[3], The original meaning may have been the first, and Zeus Aigiokhos = "Zeus who holds the aegis" may have originally meant "Sky/Heaven, who holds the thunderstorm". [191][190][192], In a rarer version, surviving in the scholia of an unnamed scholiast on Nicander, whose works heavily influenced Ovid, Arachne is placed in Attica instead and has a brother named Phalanx. Nor shall we be far wrong in supposing that the author of it wished to identify this Goddess with moral intelligence [ , en thei nesin], and therefore gave her the name Etheonoe; which, however, either he or his successors have altered into what they thought a nicer form, and called her Athena. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. [115][116], Athena's epithet Pallas is derived either from , meaning "to brandish [as a weapon]", or, more likely, from and related words, meaning "youth, young woman". [226] 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. Hesiod told how Athena sprang in full armour from Zeus's forehead. Athena became the goddess of crafts and skilled peacetime pursuits in general. [169][170][166] Athena also appears to Odysseus's son Telemachus. [68][69] The word athyia () signifies a "diver", also some diving bird species (possibly the shearwater) and figuratively, a "ship", so the name must reference Athena teaching the art of shipbuilding or navigation. The head itself had been a gift from the Gorgon's slayer, Perseus. [46] Burkert notes that the Athenians sometimes simply called Athena "the Goddess", h thes ( ), certainly an ancient title. [195] Only Eris, goddess of discord, was not invited. [86] Several scholars have suggested a connection to the Rigvedic god Trita,[87] who was sometimes grouped in a body of three mythological poets. Herodotus thought he had identified the source of the aegis in ancient Libya, which was always a distant territory of ancient magic for the Greeks. [134][179] Chariclo's son Tiresias happened to be hunting on the same mountain and came to the spring searching for water. As the goddess of both wisdom and war, Athena was one of the most important deities in ancient Greek mythology. [112] The Etymologicum Magnum[113] instead deems Athena the daughter of the Daktyl Itonos. Her Roman name is Minerva. [66], Athena was sometimes given the epithet Hippia ( "of the horses", "equestrian"),[40][67] referring to her invention of the bit, bridle, chariot, and wagon. According to Edith Hamilton's Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes,[7] the Aegis is the breastplate of Zeus, and was "awful to behold". Athena, or Athene, In ancient Greek religion, the goddess of war, handicraft, and wisdom and the patroness of Athens.Her Roman counterpart was Minerva. [178] The aulos was picked up by the satyr Marsyas, who was later killed by Apollo for his hubris. Shield, buckler, or breastplate of Athena and Zeus bearing the head of Medusa, This article is about the shield used by Zeus in Greek mythology. [161][146][162] It is not until he washes up on the shore of the island of the Phaeacians, where Nausicaa is washing her clothes that Athena arrives personally to provide more tangible assistance. Watch on. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. [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. "[110][109], Hesiod states that Hera was so annoyed at Zeus for having given birth to a child on his own that she conceived and bore Hephaestus by herself,[101] but in Imagines 2. She instructs Laertes to throw his spear and to kill Eupeithes, the father of Antinous. [71] Pausanias wrote that at Buporthmus there was a sanctuary of Athena Promachorma (), meaning protector of the anchorage. [133] Zeus agreed to this and Hephaestus and Athena were married,[133] 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. Athena gave him a gleaming shield of bronze; his father Zeus gave him a sword; Hades provided a helmet of invisibility; and Hermes granted him winged sandals . The most renowned sculpture of Athena, the gold and ivory Athena Parthenos that once stood in the Parthenon, included two gorgoneia: one on her aegis and one on her shield. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Someone requested that I make an article on this goddess so I hope you like it! [211] The Roman goddess Minerva adopted most of Athena's Greek iconographical associations,[213] but was also integrated into the Capitoline Triad. She is also associated with peace and handicrafts. [40] The Greek geographer Pausanias mentions in his Guide to Greece that the temple of Athena Chalinitis ("the bridler")[67] in Corinth was located near the tomb of Medea's children. [125] When the Greeks captured Troy, Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, clung to the palladium for protection,[125] but Ajax the Lesser violently tore her away from it and dragged her over to the other captives. [134][181][182] Athena replied that she could not restore Tiresias's eyesight,[134][181][182] so, instead, she gave him the ability to understand the language of the birds and thus foretell the future. 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. [237] Pallas Athena is the tutelary goddess of the international social fraternity Phi Delta Theta. [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. For other uses, see. [186][187] The story does not appear to have been well known prior to Ovid's rendition of it[186] 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. [158] When half the jury votes to acquit and the other half votes to convict, Athena casts the deciding vote to acquit Orestes[158] and declares that, from then on, whenever a jury is tied, the defendant shall always be acquitted.[159].

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