[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. [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. [88], Yet another possible meaning is mentioned in Diogenes Laertius' biography of Democritus, that Athena was called "Tritogeneia" because three things, on which all mortal life depends, come from her. She is also associated with peace and handicrafts. 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. 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. [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. Shield, buckler, or breastplate of Athena and Zeus bearing the head of Medusa, This article is about the shield used by Zeus in Greek mythology. Athena was the patron goddess of heroic endeavor; she was believed to have aided the heroes Perseus, Heracles, Bellerophon, and Jason. However, Athena did have a relationship with the hero and hunter, Hercules, which resulted in the birth of their son, named Perses. [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. [citation needed] Athena taunted the gods who supported Troy, saying that they will too eventually end up like Ares and Aphrodite, which scared them, therefore proving her power and reputation among the other gods. In The Odyssey, Odysseus' cunning and shrewd nature quickly wins Athena's favour. The goddess Athena, wearing a helmet. 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. She fastened the head of the gorgon Medusa to the shield to scare others in battle. [191][190][192] Athena then struck Arachne across the face with her staff four times. [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. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. [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. Athena became the goddess of crafts and skilled peacetime pursuits in general. [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. Hermes gives her the money the sisters have already offered to Athena. Perseus, the mortal son of Zeus and the Argive princess Danae, was a Greek hero, king, and slayer of monsters. Someone requested that I make an article on this goddess so I hope you like it! Her materialistic symbols include her spear, the distaff and a goatskin shield called the aegis. Western artists and allegorists have often used Athena as a symbol of freedom and democracy. Identified in the Roman mythology as the goddess Minerva.She was always accompanied by her owl and the goddess of victory, Nike. Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and war, was known by a number of attributes and symbols. That she ultimately became allegorized to personify wisdom and righteousness was a natural development of her patronage of skill. [125] Athena was infuriated by this violation of her protection. Athenas association with the acropolises of various Greek cities probably stemmed from the location of the kings palaces there. 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. [128], Afterwards, Poseidon was so angry over his defeat that he sent one of his sons, Halirrhothius, to cut down the tree. [114] Fragments attributed by the Christian Eusebius of Caesarea to the semi-legendary Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon, which Eusebius thought had been written before the Trojan war, make Athena instead the daughter of Cronus, a king of Byblos who visited "the inhabitable world" and bequeathed Attica to Athena. "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. The qualities that lead to victory are found on the aegis, or breastplate, that Athena wears when she goes to war: fear, strife, defense, and assault. Some of the Attic vase-painters retained an archaic tradition that the tassels had originally been serpents in their representations of the aegis. In ancient Greek mythology, the goddess Athena kept an owl on her shoulder that revealed truths to her and represented wisdom and knowledge. [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. [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. [24] In the third book of the Odyssey, she takes the form of a sea-eagle. The daughter of Zeus, the king of the gods, and the Titaness Metis. [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. Athena is a goddess born directly from Zeus. There may be a connection with a deity named Aex or Aix, a daughter of Helios and a nurse of Zeus or alternatively a mistress of Zeus (Hyginus, Astronomica 2. [47] The Greeks regarded Athena with much higher esteem than Ares. She was particularly known as the patroness of spinning and weaving. [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. Also in the Iliad, Zeus, the chief god, specifically assigns the sphere of war to Ares, the god of war, and Athena. However when Athena invented the plough, Myrmex went to the Atticans and told them that it was in fact her own invention. It's been a long time since I wrote a Greek mythology article. Danae is the object of desire of Polydectes, the king of the Cycladic island of Seriphos. Her head appears on the $50 1915-S Panama-Pacific commemorative coin. [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. [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. [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. Athena is associated with courage and braveness. [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). [130] On the eve of the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, the serpent did not eat the honey cake[130] and the Athenians interpreted it as a sign that Athena herself had abandoned them. [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. [5] The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. [42] Here Athena's statue was undressed, her clothes washed, and body purified. [citation needed] He curses her and strikes with all his strength. [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. [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. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Athena (Ancient Greek: ) (sometimes she is called Pallas Athena) was the goddess of wisdom, mathematics, civilization, the arts, reason, skill, and war. [178] According to Pindar, Athena gave the aulos to mortals as a gift. [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. Legend states that Medusa was once a beautiful, avowed priestess of Athena who was cursed for breaking her vow of celibacy. [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. Athena, or Athene, In ancient Greek religion, the goddess of war, handicraft, and wisdom and the patroness of Athens.Her Roman counterpart was Minerva. [70] In a temple at Phrixa in Elis, reportedly built by Clymenus, she was known as Cydonia ().