[11][12][13][14] A single Mycenaean Greek inscription .mw-parser-output .script-Cprt{font-size:1.25em;font-family:"Segoe UI Historic","Noto Sans Cypriot",Code2001}.mw-parser-output .script-Hano{font-size:125%;font-family:"Noto Sans Hanunoo",FreeSerif,Quivira}.mw-parser-output .script-Latf,.mw-parser-output .script-de-Latf{font-size:1.25em;font-family:"Breitkopf Fraktur",UnifrakturCook,UniFrakturMaguntia,MarsFraktur,"MarsFraktur OT",KochFraktur,"KochFraktur OT",OffenbacherSchwabOT,"LOB.AlteSchwabacher","LOV.AlteSchwabacher","LOB.AtlantisFraktur","LOV.AtlantisFraktur","LOB.BreitkopfFraktur","LOV.BreitkopfFraktur","LOB.FetteFraktur","LOV.FetteFraktur","LOB.Fraktur3","LOV.Fraktur3","LOB.RochFraktur","LOV.RochFraktur","LOB.PostFraktur","LOV.PostFraktur","LOB.RuelhscheFraktur","LOV.RuelhscheFraktur","LOB.RungholtFraktur","LOV.RungholtFraktur","LOB.TheuerbankFraktur","LOV.TheuerbankFraktur","LOB.VinetaFraktur","LOV.VinetaFraktur","LOB.WalbaumFraktur","LOV.WalbaumFraktur","LOB.WeberMainzerFraktur","LOV.WeberMainzerFraktur","LOB.WieynckFraktur","LOV.WieynckFraktur","LOB.ZentenarFraktur","LOV.ZentenarFraktur"}.mw-parser-output .script-en-Latf{font-size:1.25em;font-family:Cankama,"Old English Text MT","Textura Libera","Textura Libera Tenuis",London}.mw-parser-output .script-it-Latf{font-size:1.25em;font-family:"Rotunda Pommerania",Rotunda,"Typographer Rotunda"}.mw-parser-output .script-Lina{font-size:1.25em;font-family:"Noto Sans Linear A"}.mw-parser-output .script-Linb{font-size:1.25em;font-family:"Noto Sans Linear B"}.mw-parser-output .script-Ugar{font-size:1.25em;font-family:"Segoe UI Historic","Noto Sans Ugaritic",Aegean}.mw-parser-output .script-Xpeo{font-size:1.25em;font-family:"Segoe UI Historic","Noto Sans Old Persian",Artaxerxes,Xerxes,Aegean} a-ta-na po-ti-ni-ja appears at Knossos in the Linear B tablets from the Late Minoan II-era "Room of the Chariot Tablets";[15][16][10] these comprise the earliest Linear B archive anywhere. [134][179] Chariclo's son Tiresias happened to be hunting on the same mountain and came to the spring searching for water. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. Hesiod told how Athena sprang in full armour from Zeus's forehead. [20] Best translates the initial a-ta-n-t, which is recurrent in line beginnings, as "I have given". 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. [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. [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. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. 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, like the other characters in Homer's epic, comes from a rich and vivid cultural tapestry of ancient Greek myth. Athena was the goddess of battle strategy, and wisdom. [54][55][45][53][56] Athena's most famous temple, the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis, takes its name from this title. 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. [86] Several scholars have suggested a connection to the Rigvedic god Trita,[87] who was sometimes grouped in a body of three mythological poets. [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. Similarly, in the Greek mythology and epic tradition, Athena figures as a daughter of Zeus ( ; cfr. 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 . [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. But as he swung his axe, he missed his aim and it fell in himself, killing him. In this context, Graves identifies the aegis as clearly belonging first to Athena. Athena is a goddess born directly from Zeus. [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. [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. [citation needed] Athena picked up a massive boulder and threw it at Ares, who immediately crumpled to the ground. [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". In the Iliad, Athena was the divine form of the heroic, martial ideal: she personified excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. 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. [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. [127] The olive tree brought wood, oil, and food,[128] and became a symbol of Athenian economic prosperity. Athenas moral and military superiority to Ares derives in part from the fact that she represents the intellectual and civilized side of war and the virtues of justice and skill, whereas Ares represents mere blood lust. In the classical Olympian pantheon, Athena was regarded as the favorite child of Zeus, born fully armed from his forehead. "[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. [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. [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. Below are all possible answers to this clue ordered by its rank. The Romans identified her with Minerva. Two Athenians, the sculptor Phidias and the playwright Aeschylus, contributed significantly to the cultural dissemination of Athenas image. Athena, the patron goddess of the city of Athens, is associated with over a dozen sacred symbols from which she derived her powers. [62] An Ionic-style temple to Athena Polias was built at Priene in the fourth century BC. [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. Rank. [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". Athena's name probably comes from the name of the city of Athens. [46] The various cults of Athena were all branches of her panhellenic cult[46] and often proctored various initiation rites of Grecian youth, such as the passage into citizenship by young men or the passage of young women into marriage. In some pottery it appears as a tasselled cover over Athena's dress. [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). [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). [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. She also holds . [49] As the patroness of heroes and warriors, Athena was believed to favor those who used cunning and intelligence rather than brute strength. [237] Pallas Athena is the tutelary goddess of the international social fraternity Phi Delta Theta. [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. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. [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. [6][tone] "Aegis-bearing Zeus", as he is in the Iliad, sometimes lends the fearsome aegis to Athena. [163] She appears in Nausicaa's dreams to ensure that the princess rescues Odysseus and plays a role in his eventual escort to Ithaca. [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. [232] Freud once described Athena as "a woman who is unapproachable and repels all sexual desires - since she displays the terrifying genitals of the Mother. [216] Some even viewed the Virgin Mary as a warrior maiden, much like Athena Parthenos;[216] one anecdote tells that the Virgin Mary once appeared upon the walls of Constantinople when it was under siege by the Avars, clutching a spear and urging the people to fight. [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. [64] The temple was dedicated by Alexander the Great[65] and an inscription from the temple declaring his dedication is now held in the British Museum. [173] She also plays a role in ending the resultant feud against the suitors' relatives. Western artists and allegorists have often used Athena as a symbol of freedom and democracy. [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. The head itself had been a gift from the Gorgon's slayer, Perseus. 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. 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". [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. Athena (Ancient Greek: ) (sometimes she is called Pallas Athena) was the goddess of wisdom, mathematics, civilization, the arts, reason, skill, and war. 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). 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. "[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. Some of the Attic vase-painters retained an archaic tradition that the tassels had originally been serpents in their representations of the aegis. [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. [198], All three goddesses were ideally beautiful and Paris could not decide between them, so they resorted to bribes. In ancient Greek mythology, the goddess Athena kept an owl on her shoulder that revealed truths to her and represented wisdom and knowledge. "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]. In Greek mythology [ edit] Athena's aegis, with Gorgon, here resembles the skin of the serpent who guards the golden fleece (regurgitating Jason); cup by Douris, early fifth century BC ( Vatican Museums) The aegis of Athena is referred to in several places in the Iliad. Athena, or Athene, In ancient Greek religion, the goddess of war, handicraft, and wisdom and the patroness of Athens.Her Roman counterpart was Minerva. [199][134] The other two goddesses were enraged and, as a direct result, sided with the Greeks in the Trojan War. Also in the Iliad, Zeus, the chief god, specifically assigned the sphere of war to Ares, the god of war, and Athena. Among other attributes, it was assumed by . In some versions of the story, Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus' forehead by parthenogenesis. In this article, I will explain 9 symbols of Athena and their meanings. [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. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion. In a late rendering by Gaius Julius Hyginus (Poetical Astronomy ii. 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. 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. [23] The early twentieth-century scholar Martin Persson Nilsson argued that the Minoan snake goddess figurines are early representations of Athena. [148][150] Hermes gave him an adamantine scythe to cut off Medusa's head. Athena was customarily portrayed wearing body armour and a helmet and carrying a shield and a lance. [90], She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, and emerged full-grown from his forehead. She was the patron goddess of Athens, defended many beloved heroes, and even fought alongside the Greeks in the Trojan War. [71] Pausanias wrote that at Buporthmus there was a sanctuary of Athena Promachorma (), meaning protector of the anchorage. Watch on. [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. [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. [198] Since the Renaissance, however, Western paintings have typically portrayed all three goddesses as completely naked. [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. In the Iliad she fought alongside the Greek heroes, and she represented the virtues of justice and skill in warfare as opposed to the blood lust of Ares. [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. As the goddess of both wisdom and war, Athena was one of the most important deities in ancient Greek mythology. [9], Athena was originally the Aegean goddess of the palace, who presided over household crafts and protected the king. [5] The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. 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. However, Zeus is normally portrayed in classical sculpture holding a thunderbolt or lightning, bearing neither a shield nor a breastplate. [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. [139] The ritual was performed in the dead of night[139] and no one, not even the priestess, knew what the objects were. 13).[2]. The Douris cup shows that the aegis was represented exactly as the skin of the great serpent, with its scales clearly delineated. For other uses, see. [156] In Aeschylus's tragedy Orestes, Athena intervenes to save Orestes from the wrath of the Erinyes and presides over his trial for the murder of his mother Clytemnestra. [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. Athena, goddess of wisdom Though Hercules had an enemy, Hera, on Mount Olympus, he also had a friend. [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. 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. Perseus used this shield to see Medusa's reflection in order to fight her without looking at . Hermes demands help from Aglaulus to seduce Herse. The best known image of Athena's owl, the Little Owl, is seen on ancient Athenian coins dating from the fifth century BCE. [57], Athena was also credited with creating the pebble-based form of divination. 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. [76] The word is a combination of glauks (, meaning "gleaming, silvery", and later, "bluish-green" or "gray")[77] and ps (, "eye, face"). [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. [195] Only Eris, goddess of discord, was not invited. . [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. Athena is a goddess in Greek mythology and one of the Twelve Olympians. [208][7][209] Scenes in which Athena was represented include her birth from the head of Zeus, her battle with the Gigantes, the birth of Erichthonius, and the Judgement of Paris. [5] After serving as the judge at the trial of Orestes in which he was acquitted of having murdered his mother Clytemnestra, Athena won the epithet Areia (). [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. Corrections? It is sometimes represented on the statues of Roman emperors, heroes, and warriors, and on cameos and vases. [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"). [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 (?)