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Athena is the Olympian goddess of wisdom and war and the adored patroness of the city of Athens. 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 . [211] The Roman goddess Minerva adopted most of Athena's Greek iconographical associations,[213] but was also integrated into the Capitoline Triad. [60] Sanctuaries dedicated to Athena Alea were located in the Laconian towns of Mantineia and Tegea. [134][179] Chariclo's son Tiresias happened to be hunting on the same mountain and came to the spring searching for water. Athena's name probably comes from the name of the city of Athens. The owl's role as a symbol of wisdom originates in this association with Athena. [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. [44], As Athena Promachos, she was believed to lead soldiers into battle. [191][192][190] Athena's tapestry also depicted the 12 Olympian gods and defeat of mythological figures who challenged their authority. [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. When Hermes arrives to seduce Herse, Aglaulus stands in his way instead of helping him as she had agreed. [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". [208][209] She is especially prominent in works produced in Athens. Owls were widely associated with Athena's blessing, and Greek soldiers viewed the sight of owls before a battle as a symbol that . [200][145] Several artistic representations from the early sixth century BC may show Athena and Diomedes,[200] 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. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. [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. Thus, Plato believed that Athena's name was derived from Greek , Atheonawhich the later Greeks rationalised as from the deity's (, thes) mind (, nos). After Zeus swallowed his wife, who was heavily pregnant with Athena at the time, Athena was born by springing out of Zeus' head, fully grown . Crossword Clue. She is also associated with the olive tree and owl because of her wisdom. [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. In the Iliad when Zeus sends Apollo to revive the wounded Hector, Apollo, holding the aegis, charges the Achaeans, pushing them back to their ships drawn up on the shore. Hermes gives her the money the sisters have already offered to Athena. [117] 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. Athena is customarily portrayed wearing an aegis, body armor, and a helmet and carrying a shield and a lance. In some pottery it appears as a tasselled cover over Athena's dress. [63], Athena was known as Atrytone ( "the Unwearying"), Parthenos ( "Virgin"), and Promachos ( "she who fights in front"). [128] In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil's Georgics,[113] Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse. [5][7] The name of the city in ancient Greek is (Athnai), a plural toponym, designating the place whereaccording to mythshe presided over the Athenai, a sisterhood devoted to her worship. (, "This sanctuary had been respected from early days by all the. She is also associated with peace and handicrafts. 460-357 B.C. Born from Zeus's head, she was his favorite daughter and possessed great wisdom, bravery, and resourcefulness. [133][51][134] Athena wiped the semen off using a tuft of wool, which she tossed into the dust,[133][51][134] impregnating Gaia and causing her to give birth to Erichthonius. [178] The aulos was picked up by the satyr Marsyas, who was later killed by Apollo for his hubris. In post-Mycenaean times the city, especially its citadel, replaced the palace as Athenas domain. 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. [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. 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. [229] 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. [46] Burkert notes that the Athenians sometimes simply called Athena "the Goddess", h thes ( ), certainly an ancient title. [209] As Athena Promachos, she is shown brandishing a spear. [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. [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. [171] Her actions lead him to travel around to Odysseus's comrades and ask about his father. [213], Attic black-figure exaleiptron of the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus (c. 570560 BC) by the C Painter[208], 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 Gtter" by the Munich Glyptothek), The Mourning Athena relief (c. 470-460 BC)[211][208], Attic red-figure kylix showing Athena slaying the Giant Enceladus (c. 550500 BC), Relief of Athena and Nike slaying the Giant Alkyoneus (?) Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Hurt by the girl's betrayal, Athena transformed her into the small insect bearing her name, the ant. In Greek mythology, Athena was a maiden goddess and was often depicted as abstaining from romantic and sexual relationships. Perseus, the mortal son of Zeus and the Argive princess Danae, was a Greek hero, king, and slayer of monsters. She was widely worshipped, but in modern times she is associated primarily with Athens, to which she gave her name and protection. [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. [126], In Homer's Iliad, Athena, as a war goddess, inspired and fought alongside the Greek heroes; her aid was synonymous with military prowess. [200] Numerous passages in the Iliad also mention Athena having previously served as the patron of Diomedes's father Tydeus. [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. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. Athena was customarily portrayed wearing body armour and a helmet and carrying a shield and a lance. [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. Athena was the patron goddess of heroic endeavor; she was believed to have aided the heroes Perseus, Heracles, Bellerophon, and Jason. The Twelve Olympians in Greek mythology are the most respected major deities of the Greek pantheon. "[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. [236], Athena is a natural patron of universities: At Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, a statue of Athena (a replica of the original bronze one in the arts and archaeology library) resides in the Great Hall. The 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. 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). [198] Since the Renaissance, however, Western paintings have typically portrayed all three goddesses as completely naked. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion. [97][98] Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War. [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. As a war goddess Athena could not be dominated by other goddesses, such as Aphrodite, and as a palace goddess she could not be violated. [59] In Arcadia, she was assimilated with the ancient goddess Alea and worshiped as Athena Alea. 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. [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. She also holds . [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 was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. [199][134] The other two goddesses were enraged and, as a direct result, sided with the Greeks in the Trojan War. "[157] Artistic depictions of Heracles's apotheosis show Athena driving him to Mount Olympus in her chariot and presenting him to Zeus for his deification. "to quickly move, to shoot, dart, to put in motion": Part I, section I (Warner Books' United States Paperback Edition), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aegis&oldid=1138900742, Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopdia Britannica, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2016, Wikipedia articles with style issues from January 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. 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. [208] In classical depictions, Athena is usually portrayed standing upright, wearing a full-length chiton. In Greek mythology, Athena was reported to have visited mythological sites in North Africa, including Libya's Triton River and the Phlegraean plain. [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[204] and persuades him to hold his ground so that they can fight Achilles together. [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"). She was also worshipped in many other cities, notably in Sparta. [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?" . During this period, the priestesses of Athena, or plyntrdes, performed a cleansing ritual within the Erechtheion, a sanctuary devoted to Athena and Poseidon. When the Olympian deities overtook the older deities of Greece and she was born of Metis (inside Zeus who had swallowed the goddess) and "re-born" through the head of Zeus fully clothed, Athena already wore her typical garments. [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. [12][39][40] In Athens, the Plynteria, or "Feast of the Bath", was observed every year at the end of the month of Thargelion. [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. Dyeus). [176] 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. [169][170][166] Athena also appears to Odysseus's son Telemachus. [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. Danae is the object of desire of Polydectes, the king of the Cycladic island of Seriphos. [178] Later, this version of the story became accepted as canonical[178] 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. [191][190][192] Athena then struck Arachne across the face with her staff four times. Goddess of wisdom and war in ancient Greek religion and mythology, Several terms redirect here. When Medusa had an affair with the sea god Poseidon, Athena punished her. In every city and village in ancient Greece Athena, the goddess of war and wisdom, was one of the most venerated beings in the entire pantheon. [81] Through its association with Athena, the owl evolved into the national mascot of the Athenians and eventually became a symbol of wisdom.[4]. [139] They would leave the objects they had been given at the bottom of the passage and take another set of hidden objects,[139] which they would carry on their heads back up to the temple. Proto-Indo-European transfunctional goddess, Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue, "Detail of a cup in the Faina collection", "Marinus of Samaria, The Life of Proclus or Concerning Happiness", "Pausanias, Description of Greece, 2.34.8", "Pausanias, Description of Greece, 2.34.9", "Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, BOOK IX, Chapter 7. Gterbock,[12] was a source of the aegis.[13]. [127] They agreed that each would give the Athenians one gift[127] and that Cecrops, the king of Athens, would determine which gift was better. . The Gorgon's face is not limited to divine armor, however, but also decorated the martial accoutrements of Greek soldiers, such as helmets, shields, and greaves (41.162.74 . [54][55][45][53][56] Athena's most famous temple, the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis, takes its name from this title. [172] Athena's push for Telemachos's journey helps him grow into the man role, that his father once held. Athena, also spelled Athene, in Greek religion, the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva. Hesiod told how Athena sprang in full armour from Zeus's forehead. )", "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. Athena's Introduction Athena is the Greek goddess of wisdom and war. She was a child of Zeus and Metis (Titaness), Zeus' first wife. 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." [67] Other epithets include Ageleia, Itonia and Aethyia, under which she was worshiped in Megara. The aegis is a shield carried primarily by Zeus in Greek mythology, which he sometimes lent to Athena. Athena was the goddess of battle strategy, and wisdom. [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. It was supposed by Euripides (Ion, 995) that the aegis borne by Athena was the skin of the slain Gorgon,[8] yet the usual understanding[9] is that the Gorgoneion was added to the aegis, a votive offering from a grateful Perseus. In some versions of the story, Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus' forehead by parthenogenesis. [63] It was designed by Pytheos of Priene,[64] the same architect who designed the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. . Corrections? [131][132], Pseudo-Apollodorus[113] records an archaic legend, which claims that Hephaestus once attempted to rape Athena, but she pushed him away, causing him to ejaculate on her thigh. [114] Fragments attributed by the Christian Eusebius of Caesarea to the semi-legendary Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon, which Eusebius thought had been written before the Trojan war, make Athena instead the daughter of Cronus, a king of Byblos who visited "the inhabitable world" and bequeathed Attica to Athena. This was supposedly the origin of calling Athena's sacred olive tree moria, for Halirrhotius's attempt at revenge proved fatal (moros in Greek). Athena, or Athene, In ancient Greek religion, the goddess of war, handicraft, and wisdom and the patroness of Athens.Her Roman counterpart was Minerva. Athena is associated with the city of Athens. [103][104], After swallowing Metis, Zeus took six more wives in succession until he married his seventh and present wife, Hera.