athena's shield in greek mythology

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. 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. [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. [115][116], Athena's epithet Pallas is derived either from , meaning "to brandish [as a weapon]", or, more likely, from and related words, meaning "youth, young woman". 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. [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. He turns her to stone. [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. [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. READ NEXT: [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. [198], All three goddesses were ideally beautiful and Paris could not decide between them, so they resorted to bribes. [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. [82] One myth relates the foster father relationship of this Triton towards the half-orphan Athena, whom he raised alongside his own daughter Pallas. The Romans identified her with Minerva. [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. Medusa wherever you're right now. [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. [178] The aulos was picked up by the satyr Marsyas, who was later killed by Apollo for his hubris. "[84][85] In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Athena is occasionally referred to as "Tritonia". [167][166] Impressed by his resolve and shrewdness, she reveals herself and tells him what he needs to know to win back his kingdom. The Twelve Olympians in Greek mythology are the most respected major deities of the Greek pantheon. Also known as Pallas Athena, she wore a breastplate made out of goatskin called the Aegis, which was given to her by her father, Zeus. [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. [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. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. Others highlight the city's connection to their patron goddess, Athena, who was a significant part of Ancient Greece's polytheistic theology. Being the favourite child of Zeus, she had great power. She was depicted as a stately woman armed with a shield and spear, and wearing a long robe, crested helm, and the famed aegis - a snake-trimmed cape adorned with the monstrous visage of the Gorgon Medusa. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. [172] He hears stories about some of Odysseus's journey. In art, she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear. [citation needed] Athena deflects his blow with her aegis, a powerful shield that even Zeus's thunderbolt and lightning cannot blast through. Occasionally, another god used ite.g., Apollo in the Iliad, where it provoked terror. )", "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. [228] For over a century, a full-scale replica of the Parthenon has stood in Nashville, Tennessee. [156] She is presented as his "stern ally",[157] but also the "gentle acknowledger of his achievements. In Greek mythology, Athena was a maiden goddess and was often depicted as abstaining from romantic and sexual relationships. [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?" [60] Sanctuaries dedicated to Athena Alea were located in the Laconian towns of Mantineia and Tegea. She is also associated with the olive tree and owl because of her wisdom. [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. She instructs Laertes to throw his spear and to kill Eupeithes, the father of Antinous. [30][31], Plato notes that the citizens of Sais in Egypt worshipped a goddess known as Neith,[e] whom he identifies with Athena. Dyeus). [213] During the French Revolution, statues of pagan gods were torn down all throughout France, but statues of Athena were not. Pallas Athena was the virgin goddess of war, wisdom, crafts, and the patron deity of the great city of Athens. 460-357 B.C. 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. The head itself had been a gift from the Gorgon's slayer, Perseus. There was an alternate story that Zeus swallowed Metis, the goddess of counsel, while she was pregnant with Athena and when she was fully grown she emerged from Zeus' forehead. [citation needed] He curses her and strikes with all his strength. John Tzetzes says[10] that aegis was the skin of the monstrous giant Pallas whom Athena overcame and whose name she attached to her own. [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. [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. [51][138] Pausanias records that, during the Arrhephoria, two young girls known as the Arrhephoroi, who lived near the temple of Athena Polias, would be given hidden objects by the priestess of Athena,[139] which they would carry on their heads down a natural underground passage. 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 . [23] The early twentieth-century scholar Martin Persson Nilsson argued that the Minoan snake goddess figurines are early representations of Athena. According to other sources, it was not a shield but rather an animal skin worn over the garments of the gods as extra protection. [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. DEMOCRITUS(? [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. [141] An almost exact story was said about another girl, Elaea, who transformed into an olive, Athena's sacred tree. 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. [199] Paris selected Aphrodite and awarded her the apple. She was thought to have had neither consort nor offspring. 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. [134][180][181] Chariclo intervened on her son's behalf and begged Athena to have mercy. Her guiding actions reinforce her role as the "protectress of heroes," or, as mythologian Walter Friedrich Otto dubbed her, the "goddess of nearness," due to her mentoring and motherly probing. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Athena was the patron goddess of heroic endeavor; she was believed to have aided the heroes Perseus, Heracles, Bellerophon, and Jason. The daughter of Zeus, the king of the gods, and the Titaness Metis. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. . [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. Athena is customarily portrayed wearing an aegis, body armor, and a helmet and carrying a shield and a lance. [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. [199][134] The other two goddesses were enraged and, as a direct result, sided with the Greeks in the Trojan War. Those pebbles were called thriai, which was also the collective name of a group of nymphs with prophetic powers. [117], Athena also gets into a duel with Ares, the god of the brutal wars, and her male counterpart [203] Ares blames her for encouraging Diomedes to tear his beautiful flesh. [197][134] After bathing in the spring of Mount Ida where Troy was situated, the goddesses appeared before Paris for his decision. Symbology. Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and war, was known by a number of attributes and symbols. 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. [127] Athena offered the first domesticated olive tree. [20] However, the inscription quoted seems to be very similar to "a-ta-n-t wa-ya", quoted as SY Za 1 by Jan Best. Athena's Introduction Athena is the Greek goddess of wisdom and war. [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. Triton's mother, Amphitrite). [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". [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. [127] The olive tree brought wood, oil, and food,[128] and became a symbol of Athenian economic prosperity. Identified in the Roman mythology as the goddess Minerva.She was always accompanied by her owl and the goddess of victory, Nike. 449 - 420 B.C. The Goddess Athena represents wisdom, justice, and war. [citation needed] Athena picked up a massive boulder and threw it at Ares, who immediately crumpled to the ground. 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. [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. We found 20 possible solutions for this clue. As the patron of craft and weaving, Athena was known as Ergane. Athena's origin story in Greek mythology is one of particular interest. [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". Medusa is a great representation of a tragic character and she's the most tragic Greek Mythology character of them all. Perseus made his name by killing Medusa, a monster whose gaze turned . 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. [76] The word is a combination of glauks (, meaning "gleaming, silvery", and later, "bluish-green" or "gray")[77] and ps (, "eye, face"). Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). The goddess Athena, wearing a helmet. [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. Majestic and stern, Athena surpassed everybody in both of her main domains. [5] The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. [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. [133], The geographer Pausanias[113] records that Athena placed the infant Erichthonius into a small chest[135] (cista), which she entrusted to the care of the three daughters of Cecrops: Herse, Pandrosos, and Aglauros of Athens. 27 (trans. [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. [230] Athena has occasionally appeared on modern coins, as she did on the ancient Athenian drachma. [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. She was particularly known as the patroness of spinning and weaving. Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War. [citation needed], The aegis of Athena is referred to in several places in the Iliad. [184], The fable of Arachne appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses (8 AD) (vi.554 and 129145),[185][186][187] which is nearly the only extant source for the legend. Athena was often depicted with an owl, which was considered a symbol of wisdom in both cultures. [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. This was supposedly the origin of calling Athena's sacred olive tree moria, for Halirrhotius's attempt at revenge proved fatal (moros in Greek). [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). [56] Kernyi's study and theory of Athena explains her virginal epithet as a result of her relationship to her father Zeus and a vital, cohesive piece of her character throughout the ages. 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).

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