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Occasionally, another god used ite.g., Apollo in the Iliad, where it provoked terror. Athena was often depicted with an owl, which was considered a symbol of wisdom in both cultures. [94][95][96] 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"). [54][55][45][53][56] Athena's most famous temple, the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis, takes its name from this title. [236], Athena is a natural patron of universities: At Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, a statue of Athena (a replica of the original bronze one in the arts and archaeology library) resides in the Great Hall. [211][7][209] Her shield bears at its centre the aegis with the head of the gorgon (gorgoneion) in the center and snakes around the edge. Medusa and Perseus In the principle myth, Medusa is killed by the Greek hero Perseus, the son of Danae and Zeus. [174] In a late myth invented to explain the origins of the Gorgon,[175] Medusa is described as having been a young priestess who served in the temple of Athena in Athens. In some versions of the mythology, the owl was said to illuminate Athena's "blind side," allowing her to see the entire truth. from the Gigantomachy Frieze on the Pergamon Altar (early second century BC), Classical mosaic from a villa at Tusculum, 3rd century AD, now at Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican, Athena portrait by Eukleidas on a tetradrachm from Syracuse, Sicily c. 400 BC, Mythological scene with Athena (left) and Herakles (right), on a stone palette of the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, India, Atena farnese, Roman copy of a Greek original from Phidias' circle, c. 430 AD, Museo Archeologico, Naples, Athena (2nd century BC) in the art of Gandhara, displayed at the Lahore Museum, Pakistan, Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria and Firmicus, denigrated Athena as representative of all the things that were detestable about paganism;[215] they condemned her as "immodest and immoral". 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." Among other attributes, it was assumed by . [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. 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. John Tzetzes says[10] that aegis was the skin of the monstrous giant Pallas whom Athena overcame and whose name she attached to her own. [200] Numerous passages in the Iliad also mention Athena having previously served as the patron of Diomedes's father Tydeus. As an important religious site, the temple's designers decorated the Parthenon with various scenes from Greek mythology. [196] She was annoyed at this, so she arrived with a golden apple inscribed with the word (kallisti, "for the fairest"), which she threw among the goddesses. [citation needed], The aegis of Athena is referred to in several places in the Iliad. In the founding myth of Athens, Athena bested Poseidon in a competition over patronage of the city by creating the first olive tree. 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. [136] 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,[137] but an Attic vase painting shows them being chased by the serpent off the edge of the cliff instead. A virgin, she had no children of her own but occasionally befriended or adopted others. "[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. [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. [120] In another version of the story, Pallas was a Giant;[106] Athena slew him during the Gigantomachy and flayed off his skin to make her cloak, which she wore as a victory trophy. [191][190][192] Finally, losing her temper, Athena destroyed Arachne's tapestry and loom, striking it with her shuttle. In some versions of the story, Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus' forehead by parthenogenesis. She inspired three of Phidiass sculptural masterpieces, including the massive chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue of Athena Parthenos once housed in the Parthenon; and in Aeschyluss dramatic tragedy Eumenides she founded the Areopagus (Athenss aristocratic council), and, by breaking a deadlock of the judges in favour of Orestes, the defendant, she set the precedent that a tied vote signified acquittal. Most of these in their explanations of the poet, assert that he meant by Athena "mind" [, nos] and "intelligence" [, dinoia], and the maker of names appears to have had a singular notion about her; and indeed calls her by a still higher title, "divine intelligence" [ , theo nsis], as though he would say: This is she who has the mind of God [ , a theona]. [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. [105][98][101] 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. The Romans identified her with Minerva. [9], Athena was originally the Aegean goddess of the palace, who presided over household crafts and protected the king. [125] The statue had special talisman-like properties[125] and it was thought that, as long as it was in the city, Troy could never fall. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. [20] However, the inscription quoted seems to be very similar to "a-ta-n-t wa-ya", quoted as SY Za 1 by Jan Best. 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. Athena, like the other characters in Homer's epic, comes from a rich and vivid cultural tapestry of ancient Greek myth. [112] The Etymologicum Magnum[113] instead deems Athena the daughter of the Daktyl Itonos. Athena's origin story in Greek mythology is one of particular interest. [219] 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. 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. Athena, the patron goddess of the city of Athens, is associated with over a dozen sacred symbols from which she derived her powers. [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. [134][179] He inadvertently saw Athena naked, so she struck him blind to ensure he would never again see what man was not intended to see. Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War . [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?" Updates? [99][100][98][101] 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. Virgil imagines the Cyclopes in Hephaestus' forge, who "busily burnished the aegis Athena wears in her angry moodsa fearsome thing with a surface of gold like scaly snake-skin, and the linked serpents and the Gorgon herself upon the goddess's breasta severed head rolling its eyes",[5] furnished with golden tassels and bearing the Gorgoneion (Medusa's head) in the central boss. In a founding myth reported by Pseudo-Apollodorus,[113] Athena competed with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens. [50], In her aspect as a warrior maiden, Athena was known as Parthenos ( "virgin"),[45][52][53] because, like her fellow goddesses Artemis and Hestia, she was believed to remain perpetually a virgin. [191][190][192] Arachne hanged herself in despair,[191][190][192] but Athena took pity on her and brought her back from the dead in the form of a spider. [46] The epithet Ergane ( "the Industrious") pointed her out as the patron of craftsmen and artisans. Athena. Athena is shown with her shield and helmet in a resting position as if guarding the Acropolis. [99][100][98][101] In order to prevent this, Zeus tricked Metis into letting him swallow her, but it was too late because Metis had already conceived. [213], During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Athena was used as a symbol for female rulers. This was supposedly the origin of calling Athena's sacred olive tree moria, for Halirrhotius's attempt at revenge proved fatal (moros in Greek). Danae is the object of desire of Polydectes, the king of the Cycladic island of Seriphos. The Twelve Olympians in Greek mythology are the most respected major deities of the Greek pantheon. [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. [199] Paris selected Aphrodite and awarded her the apple. [103][104] According to this version of the story, Metis transformed into many different shapes in effort to escape Zeus,[103][104] but Zeus successfully raped her and swallowed her. Athena is a goddess born directly from Zeus. [119], In one version of the myth, Pallas was the daughter of the sea-god Triton;[83] she and Athena were childhood friends, but Athena accidentally killed her during a friendly sparring match. [169][170][166] Athena also appears to Odysseus's son Telemachus. Her birth and her contest with Poseidon, the sea god, for the suzerainty of the city were depicted on the pediments of the Parthenon, and the great festival of the Panathenaea, in July, was a celebration of her birthday. 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 Greek mythology, Athena was a maiden goddess and was often depicted as abstaining from romantic and sexual relationships. [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. Identified in the Roman mythology as the goddess Minerva.She was always accompanied by her owl and the goddess of victory, Nike. [127] The olive tree brought wood, oil, and food,[128] and became a symbol of Athenian economic prosperity. Perseus, the mortal son of Zeus and the Argive princess Danae, was a Greek hero, king, and slayer of monsters. [59] In Arcadia, she was assimilated with the ancient goddess Alea and worshiped as Athena Alea. The best known image of Athena's owl, the Little Owl, is seen on ancient Athenian coins dating from the fifth century BCE. Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. [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. [91][92][93][h] The story of her birth comes in several versions. [148][149] 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. [97][98] She fastened the head of the gorgon Medusa to the shield to scare others in battle. In post-Mycenaean times the city, especially its citadel, replaced the palace as Athenas domain. 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. [191][190], Athena wove the scene of her victory over Poseidon in the contest for the patronage of Athens. [217] 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. [160][145] 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. Athena's name probably comes from the name of the city of Athens. Others highlight the city's connection to their patron goddess, Athena, who was a significant part of Ancient Greece's polytheistic theology. [211] The Roman goddess Minerva adopted most of Athena's Greek iconographical associations,[213] but was also integrated into the Capitoline Triad. While the specifics of. When Hermes arrives to seduce Herse, Aglaulus stands in his way instead of helping him as she had agreed. [230] Athena has occasionally appeared on modern coins, as she did on the ancient Athenian drachma. She is the daughter of Zeus and Metis, and is said to have been born fully grown and armored from the . 1332x850 Wallpaper bird, God, helmet, spear, shield, goddess, Athena, greek mythology images for desktop, section - download Download 1920x1200 Free Norse Wallpaper Downloads, [100+] Norse Wallpapers for FREE | Wallpapers.com [118] On this topic, Walter Burkert says "she is the Pallas of Athens, Pallas Athenaie, just as Hera of Argos is Here Argeie. [76] The word is a combination of glauks (, meaning "gleaming, silvery", and later, "bluish-green" or "gray")[77] and ps (, "eye, face"). [198] Since the Renaissance, however, Western paintings have typically portrayed all three goddesses as completely naked. [106][98][107][104] Athena leaped from Zeus's head, fully grown and armed. [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. [72][73], The Greek biographer Plutarch (AD 46120) refers to an instance during the construction of the Propylaia of her being called Athena Hygieia (, i.e. personified "Health") after inspiring a physician to a successful course of treatment. [99][102][98][101] A later account of the story from the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, written in the second century AD, makes Metis Zeus's unwilling sexual partner, rather than his wife. Triton's mother, Amphitrite). [56] This role is expressed in several stories about Athena. Two Athenians, the sculptor Phidias and the playwright Aeschylus, contributed significantly to the cultural dissemination of Athenas image. [191][190][192] Athena then struck Arachne across the face with her staff four times. [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. 13).[2]. 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. [229] The Great Seal of California bears the image of Athena kneeling next to a brown grizzly bear. In Greek mythology, Athena was believed to have been born from the forehead of her father Zeus. [88], 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. [195] Only Eris, goddess of discord, was not invited. [citation needed] Athena deflects his blow with her aegis, a powerful shield that even Zeus's thunderbolt and lightning cannot blast through. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. [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. [125] Athena was said to have carved the statue herself in the likeness of her dead friend Pallas. 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". Athena also helped many of the Greek heroes such as Hercules and Odysseus on their adventures. [139] The ritual was performed in the dead of night[139] and no one, not even the priestess, knew what the objects were. Athena was the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and good counsel, war, the defence of towns, heroic endeavour, weaving, pottery and various other crafts. "[233] Feminist views on Athena are sharply divided;[233] some feminists regard her as a symbol of female empowerment,[233] while others regard her as "the ultimate patriarchal sell out who uses her powers to promote and advance men rather than others of her sex. Corrections? Representing the intellectual and civilized side of war, she is the divine form of the heroic, martial ideal and personifies excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. The handicrafts she is most known. However, Athena did have a relationship with the hero and hunter, Hercules, which resulted in the birth of their son, named Perses. The aegis appears in works of art sometimes as an animal's skin thrown over Athena's shoulders and arms, occasionally with a border of snakes, usually also bearing the Gorgon head, the gorgoneion. [62] Bells made of terracotta and bronze were used in Sparta as part of Athena's cult. "[111] 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. [234] Due to her status as one of the twelve Olympians, Athena is a major deity in Hellenismos,[235] a Neopagan religion which seeks to authentically revive and recreate the religion of ancient Greece in the modern world. [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. The owl is one of the most recognizable of these, and is still associated with wisdom and education today. She is most famous for being the patron god of the city of Athens. Essentially urban and civilized, Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess later taken over by the Greeks. "[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. "It produced a sound as from myriad roaring dragons (Iliad, 4.17) and was borne by Athena in battle and among them went bright-eyed Athene, holding the precious aegis which is ageless and immortal: a hundred tassels of pure gold hang fluttering from it, tight-woven each of them, and each the worth of a hundred oxen."[2]. [citation needed] Athena picked up a massive boulder and threw it at Ares, who immediately crumpled to the ground. She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, so that she emerged full-grown from his forehead. [189] She became so conceited of her skill as a weaver that she began claiming that her skill was greater than that of Athena herself. Hermes gives her the money the sisters have already offered to Athena. [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. [62][40] This epithet may refer to the fact that cult statue held there may have been made of bronze,[62] that the walls of the temple itself may have been made of bronze,[62] or that Athena was the patron of metal-workers. As punishment for Aglaulus's greed, Athena asks the goddess Envy to make Aglaulus jealous of Herse. [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. Thus, Plato believed that Athena's name was derived from Greek , Atheonawhich the later Greeks rationalised as from the deity's (, thes) mind (, nos). [211] The most famous classical depiction of Athena was the Athena Parthenos, a now-lost 11.5m (38ft)[212] gold and ivory statue of her in the Parthenon created by the Athenian sculptor Phidias. [183][182][134], Myrmex was a clever and chaste Attic girl who became quickly a favourite of Athena. [154] She appears in four of the twelve metopes on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia depicting Heracles's Twelve Labors,[155][154] including the first, in which she passively watches him slay the Nemean lion,[154] and the tenth, in which she is shown actively helping him hold up the sky. During this period, the priestesses of Athena, or plyntrdes, performed a cleansing ritual within the Erechtheion, a sanctuary devoted to Athena and Poseidon. 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. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. [44], As Athena Promachos, she was believed to lead soldiers into battle. [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). Her Roman name was Minerva. In a similar interpretation, Aex, a daughter of Helios, represented as a great fire-breathing chthonic serpent similar to the Chimera, was slain and flayed by Athena, who afterwards wore its skin, the aegis, as a cuirass (Diodorus Siculus iii.