It established their descent from earlier deities considered to remain powerful. [172] Athena's push for Telemachos's journey helps him grow into the man role, that his father once held. [109] 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. Among other attributes, it was assumed by . Athena was often depicted with an owl, which was considered a symbol of wisdom in both cultures. 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. 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 . [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. In Greek mythology, Athena was a maiden goddess and was often depicted as abstaining from romantic and sexual relationships. In a founding myth reported by Pseudo-Apollodorus,[113] Athena competed with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens. Full of contradictions, Athena was a female deity overseeing traditionally male domains. [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. [141] An almost exact story was said about another girl, Elaea, who transformed into an olive, Athena's sacred tree. The epithet Polias ( "of the city"), refers to Athena's role as protectress of the city. 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]. [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. 13), Zeus is said to have used the skin of a pet goat owned by his nurse Amalthea (aigis "goat-skin") which suckled him in Crete, as a shield when he went forth to do battle against the Titans.[6]. [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. She is most famous for being the patron god of the city of Athens. [156] She is presented as his "stern ally",[157] but also the "gentle acknowledger of his achievements. [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). [83] Kernyi 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. [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 (?) Identified in the Roman mythology as the goddess Minerva.She was always accompanied by her owl and the goddess of victory, Nike. An alternative story was that Zeus swallowed Metis, the goddess of counsel, while she was pregnant with Athena so that Athena finally emerged from Zeus. She is also associated with peace and handicrafts. [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. In Homers Iliad, Athena, as a war goddess, inspires and fights alongside the Greek heroes; her aid is synonymous with military prowess. Athena was the patron goddess of heroic endeavor; she was believed to have aided the heroes Perseus, Heracles, Bellerophon, and Jason. She is the daughter of Zeus and Metis, and is said to have been born fully grown and armored from the . Athena is customarily portrayed wearing an aegis, body armor, and a helmet and carrying a shield and a lance. [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. [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. [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?" [211] The Roman goddess Minerva adopted most of Athena's Greek iconographical associations,[213] but was also integrated into the Capitoline Triad. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. [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. [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 the founding myth of Athens, Athena bested Poseidon in a competition over patronage of the city by creating the first olive tree. Athena, like the other characters in Homer's epic, comes from a rich and vivid cultural tapestry of ancient Greek myth. [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. [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. 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 a war goddess Athena could not be dominated by other goddesses, such as Aphrodite, and as a palace goddess she could not be violated. The daughter of Zeus, the king of the gods, and the Titaness Metis. (, "This sanctuary had been respected from early days by all the. [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. [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. [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. [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. with 5 letters was last seen on the January 22, 2023. [101] Then Zeus experienced an enormous headache. To the Romans an owl feather placed near sleeping people would prompt them to speak in their sleep and reveal their secrets. "goatskin coat", from treating the word as meaning "something grammatically feminine pertaining to, This page was last edited on 12 February 2023, at 07:42. A virgin, she had no children of her own but occasionally befriended or adopted others. [230] Athena has occasionally appeared on modern coins, as she did on the ancient Athenian drachma. Athena in Greek Mythology. 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. As the goddess of both wisdom and war, Athena was one of the most important deities in ancient Greek mythology. She is also associated with craftsmanship and handiwork. The aegis (/ids/ EE-jis;[1] Ancient Greek: aigs), as stated in the Iliad, is a device carried by Athena and Zeus, variously interpreted as an animal skin or a shield and sometimes featuring the head of a Gorgon. [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. Perseus made his name by killing Medusa, a monster whose gaze turned . 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 (), whose significance remains unclear. 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. [12][39][40] In Athens, the Plynteria, or "Feast of the Bath", was observed every year at the end of the month of Thargelion. Since the Renaissance, Athena has become an international symbol of wisdom, the arts, and classical learning. [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. Also in the Iliad, Zeus, the chief god, specifically assigns the sphere of war to Ares, the god of war, and Athena. [193] Athena admitted that Arachne's work was flawless,[191][190][192] but was outraged at Arachne's offensive choice of subject, which displayed the failings and transgressions of the deities. [57], Athena was also credited with creating the pebble-based form of divination. The Douris cup shows that the aegis was represented exactly as the skin of the great serpent, with its scales clearly delineated. [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. 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. [47] The Greeks regarded Athena with much higher esteem than Ares. . [197] Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena all claimed to be the fairest, and thus the rightful owner of the apple. The word aegis is identified with protection by a strong force with its roots in Greek mythology and adopted by the Romans; there are parallels in Norse mythology and in Egyptian mythology as well,[citation needed] where the Greek word aegis is applied by extension. [46] Burkert notes that the Athenians sometimes simply called Athena "the Goddess", h thes ( ), certainly an ancient 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. [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. 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. [148][151] When Perseus swung his blade to behead Medusa, Athena guided it, allowing his scythe to cut it clean off. [67] Other epithets include Ageleia, Itonia and Aethyia, under which she was worshiped in Megara. [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". In this context, Graves identifies the aegis as clearly belonging first to Athena. "[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. [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. [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. "[84][85] In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Athena is occasionally referred to as "Tritonia". [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. "[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. "[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. [74], At Athens there is the temple of Athena Phratria, as patron of a phratry, in the Ancient Agora of Athens. [24] Proponents of this view argue that she dropped her prophylactic owl mask before she lost her wings. [191][190], Athena wove the scene of her victory over Poseidon in the contest for the patronage of Athens. Her materialistic symbols include her spear, the distaff and a goatskin shield called the aegis. Athena (Ancient Greek: ) (sometimes she is called Pallas Athena) was the goddess of wisdom, mathematics, civilization, the arts, reason, skill, and war. Zeus Hesiod told how Athena sprang in full armour from Zeus's forehead. [citation needed], The aegis of Athena is referred to in several places in the Iliad. Athena is the Olympian goddess of wisdom and war and the adored patroness of the city of Athens. [71] Pausanias wrote that at Buporthmus there was a sanctuary of Athena Promachorma (), meaning protector of the anchorage. [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. Apollo's words became the basis of an ancient Greek idiom. 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. [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. Athena is associated with birds, particularly the owl, which became famous as the symbol 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. [218], During the Renaissance, Athena donned the mantle of patron of the arts and human endeavor;[219] allegorical paintings involving Athena were a favorite of the Italian Renaissance painters. [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. [82] One myth relates the foster father relationship of this Triton towards the half-orphan Athena, whom he raised alongside his own daughter Pallas. 13).[2]. 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. In Greek mythology, Athena was reported to have visited mythological sites in North Africa, including Libya's Triton River and the Phlegraean plain. He turns her to stone. Athena's Introduction Athena is the Greek goddess of wisdom and war. The shield of a deity as described above. This article was most recently revised and updated by, From Athena to Zeus: Basics of Greek Mythology, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Athena-Greek-mythology, Roman and Greek Gods - Facts about Athena, Ancient Origins - Athena: Fiercely Feminine Goddess of War and Wisdom, Athena - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Athena - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). [10][17] However, any connection to the city of Athens in the Knossos inscription is uncertain. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. [106][12][121][122] In an alternative variation of the same myth, Pallas was instead Athena's father,[106][12] who attempted to assault his own daughter,[123] causing Athena to kill him and take his skin as a trophy. As the guardian of the welfare of kings, Athena became the goddess of good counsel, prudent restraint and practical insight, and war. Classical Greece interpreted the Homeric aegis usually as a cover of some kind borne by Athena. She is also associated with the olive tree and owl because of her wisdom. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. [169][170][166] Athena also appears to Odysseus's son Telemachus. [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. According to other sources, it was not a shield but rather an animal skin worn over the garments of the gods as extra protection. [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. 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. [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. She was also worshipped in many other cities, notably in Sparta. Athena and Heracles on an Attic red-figure kylix, 480470 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 tripod, The Gorgoneion appears to have originated as an apotropaic symbol intended to ward off evil.