[47][48] Athena was believed to only support those fighting for a just cause[47] and was thought to view war primarily as a means to resolve conflict. [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. [41] The festival lasted for five days. [5] Now scholars generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city;[5][7] the ending -ene is common in names of locations, but rare for personal names. Aside from Athena, the Twelve Olympians include Greek gods and goddesses Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes, and Hestia. [61], Athena had a major temple on the Spartan Acropolis,[62][40] where she was venerated as Poliouchos and Khalkoikos ("of the Brazen House", often latinized as Chalcioecus). 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 . She is also associated with the olive tree and owl because of her wisdom. [23] The early twentieth-century scholar Martin Persson Nilsson argued that the Minoan snake goddess figurines are early representations of Athena. Athena's Symbol: The Complete Guide (2022) - MythologySource Athena | Greek Mythology Wiki | Fandom [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. [5] Testimonies from different cities in ancient Greece attest that similar city goddesses were worshipped in other cities[6] and, like Athena, took their names from the cities where they were worshipped. 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. Athena's name probably comes from the name of the city of Athens. When the Olympian shakes the aegis, Mount Ida is wrapped in clouds, the thunder rolls and men are struck down with fear. It is sometimes represented on the statues of Roman emperors, heroes, and warriors, and on cameos and vases. As punishment for Aglaulus's greed, Athena asks the goddess Envy to make Aglaulus jealous of Herse. 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]. Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War. [175] Sometimes she is shown wearing the aegis as a cloak. The aegis is a shield carried primarily by Zeus in Greek mythology, which he sometimes lent to Athena. Dewing 1595, silver Athenian tetradrachm (=4 drachmas), ca. In the Iliad, Athena is the divine form of the heroic, martial ideal: she personifies excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. 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. Athena is the Olympian goddess of wisdom and war and the adored patroness of the city of Athens. [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. 70),[6] or as a chlamys. [228] For over a century, a full-scale replica of the Parthenon has stood in Nashville, Tennessee. [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. She also holds . She was widely worshipped, but in modern times she is associated primarily with Athens, to which she gave her name. Aegis - Greek Mythology (lines 789). Updates? In Greek mythology, Athena was reported to have visited mythological sites in North Africa, including Libya's Triton River and the Phlegraean plain. [225] A series of paintings by Peter Paul Rubens depict Athena as Marie de' Medici's patron and mentor;[226] the final painting in the series goes even further and shows Marie de' Medici with Athena's iconography, as the mortal incarnation of the goddess herself. [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. [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. [192] It represented the unjust and discrediting behavior of the gods towards mortals. [10][17] However, any connection to the city of Athens in the Knossos inscription is uncertain. Goddess of wisdom and war in ancient Greek religion and mythology, Several terms redirect here. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. [197] Hera tried to bribe Paris with power over all Asia and Europe,[197][134] and Athena offered fame and glory in battle,[197][134] but Aphrodite promised Paris that, if he were to choose her as the fairest, she would let him marry the most beautiful woman on earth. 460-357 B.C. [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. [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. [167][166] Impressed by his resolve and shrewdness, she reveals herself and tells him what he needs to know to win back his kingdom. Athena is One of the Twelve Olympians. Aegis | ancient Greek dress | Britannica Since the Renaissance, Athena has become an international symbol of wisdom, the arts, and classical learning. [226] In the years following the Revolution, artistic representations of Athena proliferated. [191][190], Athena wove the scene of her victory over Poseidon in the contest for the patronage of Athens. 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. [148][151] When Perseus swung his blade to behead Medusa, Athena guided it, allowing his scythe to cut it clean off. [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. [134][179] Chariclo's son Tiresias happened to be hunting on the same mountain and came to the spring searching for water. 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. Athena, goddess of wisdom - Perseus Project [230] Athena has occasionally appeared on modern coins, as she did on the ancient Athenian drachma. [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. "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. Herse, Aglaulus, and Pandrosus go to the temple to offer sacrifices to Athena. She was particularly known as the patroness of spinning and weaving. The Romans identified her with Minerva. Her Roman name was Minerva. [213] During the French Revolution, statues of pagan gods were torn down all throughout France, but statues of Athena were not. 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). 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. Being the favorite child of Zeus, she had great power. [g] The geographer Pausanias was informed that the temenos had been founded by Aleus. [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. [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. [86] Several scholars have suggested a connection to the Rigvedic god Trita,[87] who was sometimes grouped in a body of three mythological poets. [171] Her actions lead him to travel around to Odysseus's comrades and ask about his father. [237] Pallas Athena is the tutelary goddess of the international social fraternity Phi Delta Theta. Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and war, was known by a number of attributes and symbols. Athena placed on her aegis a symbolic representation of the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa. In Greek mythology, Athena was believed to have been born from the forehead of her father Zeus. 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. [82] One myth relates the foster father relationship of this Triton towards the half-orphan Athena, whom he raised alongside his own daughter Pallas. Athena, also spelled Athene, in Greek religion, the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva. [152][153], In ancient Greek art, Athena is frequently shown aiding the hero Heracles. Others highlight the city's connection to their patron goddess, Athena, who was a significant part of Ancient Greece's polytheistic theology. [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. Athena is associated with the city of Athens. [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. [citation needed], The aegis of Athena is referred to in several places in the Iliad. 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. [231], Pallas and the Centaur (c. 1482) by Sandro Botticelli, Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue (1502) by Andrea Mantegna[222][221][223], Athena Scorning the Advances of Hephaestus (c. 15551560) by Paris Bordone, Minerva Victorious over Ignorance (c. 1591) by Bartholomeus Spranger, Maria de Medici (1622) by Peter Paul Rubens, showing her as the incarnation of Athena[226], Minerva Protecting Peace from Mars (1629) by Peter Paul Rubens, Minerva Revealing Ithaca to Ulysses (fifteenth century) by Giuseppe Bottani, Minerva and the Triumph of Jupiter (1706) by Ren-Antoine Houasse, The Combat of Mars and Minerva (1771) by Joseph-Benot Suve, Minerva Fighting Mars (1771) by Jacques-Louis David, Minerva of Peace mosaic in the Library of Congress, One of Sigmund Freud's most treasured possessions was a small, bronze sculpture of Athena, which sat on his desk. Perhaps, however, the name Theonoe may mean "she who knows divine things" [ , ta theia noousa] better than others. 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 . Medusa and Perseus In the principle myth, Medusa is killed by the Greek hero Perseus, the son of Danae and Zeus. Aegis - Wikipedia She instructs Laertes to throw his spear and to kill Eupeithes, the father of Antinous. [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. [125] Athena was said to have carved the statue herself in the likeness of her dead friend Pallas. Medusa wherever you're right now. 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. 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. When Medusa had an affair with the sea god Poseidon, Athena punished her. [6] The name Athenai is likely of Pre-Greek origin because it contains the presumably Pre-Greek morpheme *-n-.[8]. [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". [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. [208][209] She is especially prominent in works produced in Athens. Athena was the patron goddess of heroic endeavor; she was believed to have aided the heroes Perseus, Heracles, Bellerophon, and Jason. [176] Poseidon lusted after Medusa, and raped her in the temple of Athena,[176] refusing to allow her vow of chastity to stand in his way. [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. Among other attributes, it was assumed by . Athena :: Greek Goddess of Wisdom and War - Greek Mythology For other uses, see. 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. [20] Best translates the initial a-ta-n-t, which is recurrent in line beginnings, as "I have given". Triton's mother, Amphitrite). [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. [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. [198] Since the Renaissance, however, Western paintings have typically portrayed all three goddesses as completely naked. [139] The ritual was performed in the dead of night[139] and no one, not even the priestess, knew what the objects were. The temple of Athena Alea in Tegea was an important religious center of ancient Greece. She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, so that she emerged full-grown from his forehead. Athena also helped many of the Greek heroes such as Hercules and Odysseus on their adventures. Perseus made his name by killing Medusa, a monster whose gaze turned . "[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. Zeus, sympathizing with Apollo's grievances, discredited the pebble divination by rendering the pebbles useless. Rank. [130] Another version of the myth of the Athenian maidens is told in Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC17 AD); in this late variant Hermes falls in love with Herse. [56] This role is expressed in several stories about Athena. In Greek mythology, Athena was a maiden goddess and was often depicted as abstaining from romantic and sexual relationships. "Athena, by the time she appears in art," Jane Ellen Harrison remarks, "has completely shed her animal form, has reduced the shapes she once wore of snake and bird to attributes, but occasionally in black-figure vase-paintings she still appears with wings. [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. [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. Some of the Attic vase-painters retained an archaic tradition that the tassels had originally been serpents in their representations of the aegis. [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 was known as Athena Parthenos "Athena the Virgin," but in one archaic Attic myth, the god Hephaestus tried and failed to rape her, resulting in Gaia giving birth to Erichthonius, an important Athenian founding hero. Athena's Introduction Athena is the Greek goddess of wisdom and war. [101] Then Zeus experienced an enormous headache. [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. [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. Perseus - Mythopedia In Homers Iliad, Athena, as a war goddess, inspires and fights alongside the Greek heroes; her aid is synonymous with military prowess. Athena became the goddess of crafts and skilled peacetime pursuits in general. The handicrafts she is most known. [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. [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. [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. [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. [168][166][160] She disguises him as an elderly beggar so that he will not be recognized by the suitors or Penelope,[169][166] and helps him to defeat the suitors. In ancient Greek mythology, the goddess Athena kept an owl on her shoulder that revealed truths to her and represented wisdom and knowledge. [156] She is presented as his "stern ally",[157] but also the "gentle acknowledger of his achievements. [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"). [125] Athena was infuriated by this violation of her protection. [191][190][192] Athena then struck Arachne across the face with her staff four times. Athena, like the other characters in Homer's epic, comes from a rich and vivid cultural tapestry of ancient Greek myth. [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. "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. [75], In Homer's epic works, Athena's most common epithet is Glaukopis (), which usually is translated as, "bright-eyed" or "with gleaming eyes". The best known image of Athena's owl, the Little Owl, is seen on ancient Athenian coins dating from the fifth century BCE. [194], The myth of the Judgement of Paris is mentioned briefly in the Iliad,[195] but is described in depth in an epitome of the Cypria, a lost poem of the Epic Cycle,[196] which records that all the gods and goddesses as well as various mortals were invited to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (the eventual parents of Achilles). The owl is one of the most recognizable of these, and is still associated with wisdom and education today. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. [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. Perseus used this shield to see Medusa's reflection in order to fight her without looking at . "Athene's garments and aegis were borrowed by the Greeks from the Libyan women, who are dressed in exactly the same way, except that their leather garments are fringed with thongs, not serpents."[11]. Athena, the patron goddess of the city of Athens, is associated with over a dozen sacred symbols from which she derived her powers. Essentially urban and civilized, Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess later taken over by the Greeks. [189][190] Athena gave Arachne a chance to redeem herself by assuming the form of an old woman and warning Arachne not to offend the deities. [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. [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. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. Athena was the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and good counsel, war, the defence of towns, heroic endeavour, weaving, pottery and various other crafts. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. 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." [191][192][190] Athena's tapestry also depicted the 12 Olympian gods and defeat of mythological figures who challenged their authority. [163] She appears in Nausicaa's dreams to ensure that the princess rescues Odysseus and plays a role in his eventual escort to Ithaca. [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.