[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). Triton's mother, Amphitrite). 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. Athena appears in Homers Odyssey as the tutelary deity of Odysseus, and myths from later sources portray her similarly as helper of Perseus and Heracles (Hercules). [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". [201][202] When the Trojan women go to the temple of Athena on the Acropolis to plead her for protection from Diomedes, Athena ignores them. [128] Athens at its height was a significant sea power, defeating the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis[128]but the water was salty and undrinkable. nephew., What was the war between the gods of Olympus and the titans called?, Who's Perseus' father? 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. [227], A statue of Athena stands directly in front of the Austrian Parliament Building in Vienna,[228] and depictions of Athena have influenced other symbols of Western freedom, including the Statue of Liberty and Britannia. 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. [209] As Athena Promachos, she is shown brandishing a spear. Athena, goddess of wisdom Though Hercules had an enemy, Hera, on Mount Olympus, he also had a friend. Hermes gives her the money the sisters have already offered to Athena. [133], The geographer Pausanias[113] records that Athena placed the infant Erichthonius into a small chest[135] (cista), which she entrusted to the care of the three daughters of Cecrops: Herse, Pandrosos, and Aglauros of Athens. [11][12], Nilsson and others have claimed that, in early times, Athena was either an owl herself or a bird goddess in general. Those pebbles were called thriai, which was also the collective name of a group of nymphs with prophetic powers. Athena's Introduction Athena is the Greek goddess of wisdom and war. [135] She warned the three sisters not to open the chest,[135] but did not explain to them why or what was in it. Athena the Goddess of Wisdom | Athena's Characteristics & Symbols in She may not have been described as a virgin originally, but virginity was attributed to her very early and was the basis for the interpretation of her epithets Pallas and Parthenos. [23] The early twentieth-century scholar Martin Persson Nilsson argued that the Minoan snake goddess figurines are early representations of Athena. Danae is the object of desire of Polydectes, the king of the Cycladic island of Seriphos. [46] Burkert notes that the Athenians sometimes simply called Athena "the Goddess", h thes ( ), certainly an ancient title. The aegis is a shield carried primarily by Zeus in Greek mythology, which he sometimes lent to Athena. Born from Zeus's head, she was his favorite daughter and possessed great wisdom, bravery, and resourcefulness. [citation needed] He curses her and strikes with all his strength. [75], In Homer's epic works, Athena's most common epithet is Glaukopis (), which usually is translated as, "bright-eyed" or "with gleaming eyes". As the guardian of the welfare of kings, Athena became the goddess of good counsel, prudent restraint and practical insight, and war. [185][190] Arachne scoffed and wished for a weaving contest, so she could prove her skill. [220][221] Andrea Mantegna's 1502 painting Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue uses Athena as the personification of Graeco-Roman learning chasing the vices of medievalism from the garden of modern scholarship. 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. As the guardian of the welfare of kings, Athena became the goddess of good counsel, of prudent restraint and practical insight, as well as of war. [g] The geographer Pausanias was informed that the temenos had been founded by Aleus. [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. Also in the Iliad, Zeus, the chief god, specifically assigns the sphere of war to Ares, the god of war, and Athena. [197][134], The goddesses chose to place the matter before Zeus, who, not wanting to favor one of the goddesses, put the choice into the hands of Paris, a Trojan prince. )", "The Theology of the Phnicians from Sanchoniatho", "The Iconography of Athena in Attic Vase-painting from 440370 BC", "Phi Delta Theta International - Symbols", Online version at the Perseus Digital Library, "Athena (also Athen and Athenaia) (Roman Minerva)", "The spinner and the poet: Arachne in Ovid's, "Word games: the Linguistic Evidence in Black Athena", "Ekphrasis and the Theme of Artistic Failure in Ovid's Metamorphoses", Classical mythology in western art and literature, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Athena&oldid=1142441306, Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text, Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages, Articles having different image on Wikidata and Wikipedia, Articles containing Mycenaean Greek-language text, Pages using sidebar with the child parameter, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 2 March 2023, at 11:27. [citation needed], The aegis of Athena is referred to in several places in the Iliad. [41] The festival lasted for five days. [178] The aulos was picked up by the satyr Marsyas, who was later killed by Apollo for his hubris. In Greek mythology, Athena was reported to have visited mythological sites in North Africa, including Libya's Triton River and the Phlegraean plain. [177], 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. Athena, also known as Pallas Athena or the Virgin Athena, is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, strategic warfare, mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill in ancient Greek mythology. [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. [130] On the eve of the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, the serpent did not eat the honey cake[130] and the Athenians interpreted it as a sign that Athena herself had abandoned them. [208] In classical depictions, Athena is usually portrayed standing upright, wearing a full-length chiton. [198] Since the Renaissance, however, Western paintings have typically portrayed all three goddesses as completely naked. Did Athena have a lover? - coalitionbrewing.com The best known image of Athena's owl, the Little Owl, is seen on ancient Athenian coins dating from the fifth century BCE. Medusa and Perseus In the principle myth, Medusa is killed by the Greek hero Perseus, the son of Danae and Zeus. [124], The palladium was a statue of Athena that was said to have stood in her temple on the Trojan Acropolis. [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. [229] The Great Seal of California bears the image of Athena kneeling next to a brown grizzly bear. Athena, also spelled Athene, in Greek religion, the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva. [103][104], After swallowing Metis, Zeus took six more wives in succession until he married his seventh and present wife, Hera. [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. One of Athena's epithets is related to the Greek glaux, "little owl," and the bird was prominently featured on Athenian coins. Robert Graves in The Greek Myths (1955) asserts that the aegis in its Libyan sense had been a shamanic pouch containing various ritual objects, bearing the device of a monstrous serpent-haired visage with tusk-like teeth and a protruding tongue which was meant to frighten away the uninitiated. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Her superiority also derives in part from the vastly greater variety and importance of her functions and from the patriotism of Homers 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. [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. The temple of Athena Alea in Tegea was an important religious center of ancient Greece. The qualities that lead to victory are found on the aegis, or breastplate, that Athena wears when she goes to war: fear, strife, defense, and assault. [191][190][192] Athena then struck Arachne across the face with her staff four times. [199] Paris selected Aphrodite and awarded her the apple. Perseus - Mythopedia In a late rendering by Gaius Julius Hyginus (Poetical Astronomy ii. Gterbock,[12] was a source of the aegis.[13]. [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. The Twelve Olympians in Greek mythology are the most respected major deities of the Greek pantheon. [117], Athena also gets into a duel with Ares, the god of the brutal wars, and her male counterpart [203] Ares blames her for encouraging Diomedes to tear his beautiful flesh. She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, so that she emerged full-grown from his forehead. Greek Mythology: Athena - Ducksters Athena placed on her aegis a symbolic representation of the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa. "[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. The Douris cup shows that the aegis was represented exactly as the skin of the great serpent, with its scales clearly delineated. [43][40] She was also the patron of metalworkers and was believed to aid in the forging of armor and weapons. [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. [237] Pallas Athena is the tutelary goddess of the international social fraternity Phi Delta Theta. 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 . [127] The olive tree brought wood, oil, and food,[128] and became a symbol of Athenian economic prosperity. Being the favourite child of Zeus, she had great power. Athena was often depicted with an owl, which was considered a symbol of wisdom in both cultures. [163] She appears in Nausicaa's dreams to ensure that the princess rescues Odysseus and plays a role in his eventual escort to Ithaca. [228] For over a century, a full-scale replica of the Parthenon has stood in Nashville, Tennessee. [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. [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. "[84][85] In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Athena is occasionally referred to as "Tritonia". [152][153], In ancient Greek art, Athena is frequently shown aiding the hero Heracles. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. [106][98][93][108] The "First Homeric Hymn to Athena" states in lines 916 that the gods were awestruck by Athena's appearance[109] and even Helios, the god of the sun, stopped his chariot in the sky. 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. 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. Since the Renaissance, Athena has become an international symbol of wisdom, the arts, and classical learning. [20] Best translates the initial a-ta-n-t, which is recurrent in line beginnings, as "I have given". In some versions of the mythology, the owl was said to illuminate Athena's "blind side," allowing her to see the entire truth. [199][134], In Books VVI of the Iliad, Athena aids the hero Diomedes, who, in the absence of Achilles, proves himself to be the most effective Greek warrior. Athena's Symbol: The Complete Guide (2022) - MythologySource [211] The Roman goddess Minerva adopted most of Athena's Greek iconographical associations,[213] but was also integrated into the Capitoline Triad. In a founding myth reported by Pseudo-Apollodorus,[113] Athena competed with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens. [222][221][223] Athena is also used as the personification of wisdom in Bartholomeus Spranger's 1591 painting The Triumph of Wisdom or Minerva Victorious over Ignorance. [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". In The Odyssey, Odysseus' cunning and shrewd nature quickly wins Athena's favour. Full of contradictions, Athena was a female deity overseeing traditionally male domains. Medusa: The Ancient Greek Myth of the Snake-Haired Gorgon - ThoughtCo Her Roman name is Minerva. [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. Zeus, sympathizing with Apollo's grievances, discredited the pebble divination by rendering the pebbles useless. [213] During the French Revolution, statues of pagan gods were torn down all throughout France, but statues of Athena were not. [207], Athena appears frequently in classical Greek art, including on coins and in paintings on ceramics. [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. 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. 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. Athena was the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and good counsel, war, the defence of towns, heroic endeavour, weaving, pottery and various other crafts. [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. [6] A vestige of that appears in a portrait of Alexander the Great in a fresco from Pompeii dated to the first century BC, which shows the image of the head of a woman on his armor that resembles the Gorgon. [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. 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. Aegis - Wikipedia [213], During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Athena was used as a symbol for female rulers. [135] 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. [126], In Homer's Iliad, Athena, as a war goddess, inspired and fought alongside the Greek heroes; her aid was synonymous with military prowess. [208], The Mourning Athena or Athena Meditating is a famous relief sculpture dating to around 470-460 BC[211][208] that has been interpreted to represent Athena Polias. with 5 letters was last seen on the January 22, 2023. [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. Similarly, in the Greek mythology and epic tradition, Athena figures as a daughter of Zeus ( ; cfr. Medusa in Ancient Greek Art | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of Art In some versions of the story, Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus' forehead by parthenogenesis. She was associated with birds, particularly the owl, which became famous as the citys own symbol, and with the snake. [134][180][181] Chariclo intervened on her son's behalf and begged Athena to have mercy. [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. Athena's name probably comes from the name of the city of Athens. [197][134] After bathing in the spring of Mount Ida where Troy was situated, the goddesses appeared before Paris for his decision. Dyeus). In the founding myth of Athens, Athena bested Poseidon in a competition over patronage of the city by creating the first olive tree. [139] The serpent in the story may be the same one depicted coiled at Athena's feet in Pheidias's famous statue of the Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon. Athena, the patron goddess of the city of Athens, is associated with over a dozen sacred symbols from which she derived her powers. It is sometimes represented on the statues of Roman emperors, heroes, and warriors, and on cameos and vases. [210] She is most often represented dressed in armor like a male soldier[209][210][7] and wearing a Corinthian helmet raised high atop her forehead. Athena in the Odyssey by Homer | Character Analysis & Role - Video Hermes demands help from Aglaulus to seduce Herse. Athena | Goddess, Myths, Symbols, Facts, & Roman Name | Britannica [76] The word is a combination of glauks (, meaning "gleaming, silvery", and later, "bluish-green" or "gray")[77] and ps (, "eye, face"). Athena was the patron goddess of heroic endeavor; she was believed to have aided the heroes Perseus, Heracles, Bellerophon, and Jason. Athena, the daughter of Zeus, was produced without a mother and emerged full-grown from his forehead. 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. She instructs Laertes to throw his spear and to kill Eupeithes, the father of Antinous. Athena was customarily portrayed wearing body armour and a helmet and carrying a shield and a lance. During this period, the priestesses of Athena, or plyntrdes, performed a cleansing ritual within the Erechtheion, a sanctuary devoted to Athena and Poseidon. But how did Athena get the name Pallas? [70] In a temple at Phrixa in Elis, reportedly built by Clymenus, she was known as Cydonia (). [226] Instead, Athena was transformed into the personification of freedom and the republic[226] and a statue of the goddess stood in the center of the Place de la Revolution in Paris. [127][53] Cecrops accepted this gift[127] and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens. How was Athena usually pictured? She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. [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. What Does the Owl of Athena Represent? - Reference.com Greek Mythology/Gods/Athena - Wikibooks, open books for an open world [46] The epithet Ergane ( "the Industrious") pointed her out as the patron of craftsmen and artisans. [187] According to Ovid, Arachne (whose name means spider in ancient Greek[188]) was the daughter of a famous dyer in Tyrian purple in Hypaipa of Lydia, and a weaving student of Athena. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion. [208][209] She is especially prominent in works produced in Athens. In some pottery it appears as a tasselled cover over Athena's dress. Gorgoneion - Wikipedia Corrections? [88] 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. 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. [197] In the extant ancient depictions of the Judgement of Paris, Aphrodite is only occasionally represented nude, and Athena and Hera are always fully clothed. [125] Athena was said to have carved the statue herself in the likeness of her dead friend Pallas. As punishment for Aglaulus's greed, Athena asks the goddess Envy to make Aglaulus jealous of Herse.