Goddess of wisdom and war in ancient Greek religion and mythology, Several terms redirect here. [134][179] Chariclo's son Tiresias happened to be hunting on the same mountain and came to the spring searching for water. She was associated with birds, particularly the owl, which became famous as the citys own symbol, and with the snake. [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. [75], In Homer's epic works, Athena's most common epithet is Glaukopis (), which usually is translated as, "bright-eyed" or "with gleaming eyes". Athena is a goddess born directly from Zeus. Triton's mother, Amphitrite). [208][209] She is especially prominent in works produced in Athens. It bore the head of a Gorgon and made a terrible roaring sound during the battle. Western artists and allegorists have often used Athena as a symbol of freedom and democracy. [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. [158] When half the jury votes to acquit and the other half votes to convict, Athena casts the deciding vote to acquit Orestes[158] and declares that, from then on, whenever a jury is tied, the defendant shall always be acquitted.[159]. Essentially urban and civilized, Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess later taken over by the Greeks. from the Gigantomachy Frieze on the Pergamon Altar (early second century BC), Classical mosaic from a villa at Tusculum, 3rd century AD, now at Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican, Athena portrait by Eukleidas on a tetradrachm from Syracuse, Sicily c. 400 BC, Mythological scene with Athena (left) and Herakles (right), on a stone palette of the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, India, Atena farnese, Roman copy of a Greek original from Phidias' circle, c. 430 AD, Museo Archeologico, Naples, Athena (2nd century BC) in the art of Gandhara, displayed at the Lahore Museum, Pakistan, Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria and Firmicus, denigrated Athena as representative of all the things that were detestable about paganism;[215] they condemned her as "immodest and immoral". In a founding myth reported by Pseudo-Apollodorus,[113] Athena competed with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens. [74], At Athens there is the temple of Athena Phratria, as patron of a phratry, in the Ancient Agora of Athens. [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. [172] Athena's push for Telemachos's journey helps him grow into the man role, that his father once held. [g] The geographer Pausanias was informed that the temenos had been founded by Aleus. [46] Some have described Athena, along with the goddesses Hestia and Artemis as being asexual, this is mainly supported by the fact that in the Homeric Hymns, 5, To Aphrodite, where Aphrodite is described as having "no power" over the three goddesses. In Greek mythology, Athena was a maiden goddess and was often depicted as abstaining from romantic and sexual relationships. [119], In one version of the myth, Pallas was the daughter of the sea-god Triton;[83] she and Athena were childhood friends, but Athena accidentally killed her during a friendly sparring match. In ancient Greek mythology, the goddess Athena kept an owl on her shoulder that revealed truths to her and represented wisdom and knowledge. [161][146][162] It is not until he washes up on the shore of the island of the Phaeacians, where Nausicaa is washing her clothes that Athena arrives personally to provide more tangible assistance. [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. "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]. [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. [67] Other epithets include Ageleia, Itonia and Aethyia, under which she was worshiped in Megara. [78], The word glax (,[79] "little owl")[80] is from the same root, presumably according to some, because of the bird's own distinctive eyes. In this context, Graves identifies the aegis as clearly belonging first to Athena. [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. Athena was associated with the owl from very early on;[81] in archaic images, she is frequently depicted with an owl perched on her hand. [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. [90], She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, and emerged full-grown from his forehead. [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. 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. [24] Proponents of this view argue that she dropped her prophylactic owl mask before she lost her wings. [199][134] This woman was Helen, who was already married to King Menelaus of Sparta. [49] As the patroness of heroes and warriors, Athena was believed to favor those who used cunning and intelligence rather than brute strength. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. 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. [citation needed] Athena picked up a massive boulder and threw it at Ares, who immediately crumpled to the ground. "[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. [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. [9], Athena was originally the Aegean goddess of the palace, who presided over household crafts and protected the king. "[25], It is generally agreed that the cult of Athena preserves some aspects of the Proto-Indo-European transfunctional goddess. [192] It represented the unjust and discrediting behavior of the gods towards mortals. Athena is One of the Twelve Olympians. [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". [142], According to Pseudo-Apollodorus's Bibliotheca, Athena advised Argos, the builder of the Argo, the ship on which the hero Jason and his band of Argonauts sailed, and aided in the ship's construction. That she ultimately became allegorized to personify wisdom and righteousness was a natural development of her patronage of skill. She is also associated with the olive tree and owl because of her wisdom. [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. Athena in Greek Mythology. Hesiod told how Athena sprang in full armour from Zeus's forehead. [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. [178] According to Pindar, Athena gave the aulos to mortals as a gift. In the classical Olympian pantheon, Athena was regarded as the favorite child of Zeus, born fully armed from his forehead. [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. [citation needed] Athena deflects his blow with her aegis, a powerful shield that even Zeus's thunderbolt and lightning cannot blast through. 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. [56] This role is expressed in several stories about Athena. For other uses, see. [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. [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. From her origin as an Aegean palace goddess, Athena was closely associated with the city. Athena's moral and military superiority to Ares derived in part from the fact that she represented the intellectual and civilized side of war and the virtues of justice and skill, whereas Ares represented mere blood lust. [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. Majestic and stern, Athena surpassed everybody in both of her main domains. [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] Since the Renaissance, however, Western paintings have typically portrayed all three goddesses as completely naked. 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. [46] These cults were portals of a uniform socialization, even beyond mainland Greece. 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. Apollo's words became the basis of an ancient Greek idiom. 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]. Aside from Athena, the Twelve Olympians include Greek gods and goddesses Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes, and Hestia. The aegis is a shield carried primarily by Zeus in Greek mythology, which he sometimes lent to Athena. [46] The epithet Ergane ( "the Industrious") pointed her out as the patron of craftsmen and artisans. 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. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. [204] Then, Hector throws his spear at Achilles and misses, expecting Deiphobus to hand him another,[205] but Athena disappears instead, leaving Hector to face Achilles alone without his spear. Occasionally, another god used ite.g., Apollo in the Iliad, where it provoked terror. [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. In some versions of the story, Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus' forehead by parthenogenesis. Athena, the daughter of Zeus, was produced without a mother and emerged full-grown from his forehead. READ NEXT: 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. [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"). Dyeus). Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Since the Renaissance, Athena has become an international symbol of wisdom, the arts, and classical learning. [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. Hurt by the girl's betrayal, Athena transformed her into the small insect bearing her name, the ant. [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. She fastened the head of the gorgon Medusa to the shield to scare others in battle. 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 . [127] Athena offered the first domesticated olive tree. [24] In the third book of the Odyssey, she takes the form of a sea-eagle. She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, so that she emerged full-grown from his forehead. Athena was the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and good counsel, war, the defence of towns, heroic endeavour, weaving, pottery and various other crafts. 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. 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." [144][145] Pseudo-Apollodorus also records that Athena guided the hero Perseus in his quest to behead Medusa. She was widely worshipped, but in modern times she is associated primarily with Athens, to which she gave her name and protection. [148][150] According to Pindar's Thirteenth Olympian Ode, Athena helped the hero Bellerophon tame the winged horse Pegasus by giving him a bit. Athena is associated with courage and braveness. [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. Her superiority also derived in part from the vastly greater variety and importance of her functions and the patriotism of Homer's predecessors, Ares being of foreign origin. But how did Athena get the name Pallas? During this period, the priestesses of Athena, or plyntrdes, performed a cleansing ritual within the Erechtheion, a sanctuary devoted to Athena and Poseidon. 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. [127][53] Cecrops accepted this gift[127] and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens. In Rome she was called Minerva, and her popularity continued. [185][190] Arachne scoffed and wished for a weaving contest, so she could prove her skill. 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. Crossword Clue. Born from Zeus's head, she was his favorite daughter and possessed great wisdom, bravery, and resourcefulness. [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. [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. 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. [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. [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. Two Athenians, the sculptor Phidias and the playwright Aeschylus, contributed significantly to the cultural dissemination of Athenas image.