athena's shield in greek mythology

Medusa wherever you're right now. 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. Her half-brother Apollo however, angered and spiteful at the practitioners of an art rival to his own, complained to their father Zeus about it, with the pretext that many people took to casting pebbles, but few actually were true prophets. In this context, Graves identifies the aegis as clearly belonging first to Athena. [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. [191][190][192], In a rarer version, surviving in the scholia of an unnamed scholiast on Nicander, whose works heavily influenced Ovid, Arachne is placed in Attica instead and has a brother named Phalanx. Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. )", "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. Thus, Plato believed that Athena's name was derived from Greek , Atheonawhich the later Greeks rationalised as from the deity's (, thes) mind (, nos). [88][89] Janda further connects the myth of Athena being born of the head (i.e. the uppermost part) of Zeus, understanding Trito- (which perhaps originally meant "the third") as another word for "the sky". [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. [105][98][101] He was in such pain that he ordered someone (either Prometheus, Hephaestus, Hermes, Ares, or Palaemon, depending on the sources examined) to cleave his head open with the labrys, the double-headed Minoan axe. She was a child of Zeus and Metis (Titaness), Zeus' first wife. He turns her to stone. Classical Greece interpreted the Homeric aegis usually as a cover of some kind borne by Athena. In Greek mythology, Athena was believed to have been born from the forehead of her father Zeus. Full of contradictions, Athena was a female deity overseeing traditionally male domains. Many of these scenes are symbolic, representing Athenian triumph over Persia. 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. [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. "[25], It is generally agreed that the cult of Athena preserves some aspects of the Proto-Indo-European transfunctional goddess. She was widely worshipped, but in modern times she is associated primarily with Athens, to which she gave her name and protection. [185][190] Arachne scoffed and wished for a weaving contest, so she could prove her skill. [6] The name Athenai is likely of Pre-Greek origin because it contains the presumably Pre-Greek morpheme *-n-.[8]. In a founding myth reported by Pseudo-Apollodorus,[113] Athena competed with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens. In Greek mythology, Athena was the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, strategic warfare, mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill. [99][100][98][101] After learning that Metis was pregnant, however, he became afraid that the unborn offspring would try to overthrow him, because Gaia and Ouranos had prophesied that Metis would bear children wiser than their father. [230] Athena has occasionally appeared on modern coins, as she did on the ancient Athenian drachma. She is the daughter of Zeus and Metis, and is said to have been born fully grown and armored from the . [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 (). [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]. Symbology. As a war goddess Athena could not be dominated by other goddesses, such as Aphrodite, and as a palace goddess she could not be violated. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. [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. Herse, Aglaulus, and Pandrosus go to the temple to offer sacrifices to Athena. She was widely worshipped, but in modern times she is associated primarily with Athens, to which she gave her name. Athena. The Twelve Olympians in Greek mythology are the most respected major deities of the Greek pantheon. [62] An Ionic-style temple to Athena Polias was built at Priene in the fourth century BC. [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. [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. There was an alternative story that Zeus swallowed Metis, the goddess of counsel, while she was pregnant with Athena, so that Athena finally emerged from Zeus. Identified in the Roman mythology as the goddess Minerva.She was always accompanied by her owl and the goddess of victory, Nike. We found 20 possible solutions for this clue. Also in the Iliad, Zeus, the chief god, specifically assigns the sphere of war to Ares, the god of war, and Athena. Athena was the patron goddess of heroic endeavor; she was believed to have aided the heroes Perseus, Heracles, Bellerophon, and Jason. [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. [106][12][121][122] In an alternative variation of the same myth, Pallas was instead Athena's father,[106][12] who attempted to assault his own daughter,[123] causing Athena to kill him and take his skin as a trophy. Representing the intellectual and civilized side of war, she is the divine form of the heroic, martial ideal and personifies excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. 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 . The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is dedicated to her, along with numerous other temples and monuments. [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 crossword clue Protection, or Athena's shield. As the patron of craft and weaving, Athena was known as Ergane. [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. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. [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. Similarly, in the Greek mythology and epic tradition, Athena figures as a daughter of Zeus ( ; cfr. In the classical Olympian pantheon, Athena was regarded as the favorite child of Zeus, born fully armed from his forehead. [134][181][182] Athena replied that she could not restore Tiresias's eyesight,[134][181][182] so, instead, she gave him the ability to understand the language of the birds and thus foretell the future. [46] The epithet Ergane ( "the Industrious") pointed her out as the patron of craftsmen and artisans. [173] She also plays a role in ending the resultant feud against the suitors' relatives. [199] Paris selected Aphrodite and awarded her the apple. [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. It is sometimes represented on the statues of Roman emperors, heroes, and warriors, and on cameos and vases. [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. One current interpretation is that the Hittite sacral hieratic hunting bag (kursas), a rough and shaggy goatskin that has been firmly established in literary texts and iconography by H.G. Robert Graves in The Greek Myths (1955) asserts that the aegis in its Libyan sense had been a shamanic pouch containing various ritual objects, bearing the device of a monstrous serpent-haired visage with tusk-like teeth and a protruding tongue which was meant to frighten away the uninitiated. After he and his mother were exiled from their homeland, Perseus was raised on a remote island where he grew up protecting his mother from the cruel King Polydectes. Dyeus). [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. Athena, the daughter of Zeus, was produced without a mother and emerged full-grown from his forehead. [211] The Roman goddess Minerva adopted most of Athena's Greek iconographical associations,[213] but was also integrated into the Capitoline Triad. [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. Her birth and her contest with Poseidon, the sea god, for the suzerainty of the city were depicted on the pediments of the Parthenon, and the great festival of the Panathenaea, in July, was a celebration of her birthday. [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. "[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. Watch on. Athena's origin story in Greek mythology is one of particular interest. Medusa is a great representation of a tragic character and she's the most tragic Greek Mythology character of them all. Rank. Her emergence there as city goddess, Athena Polias (Athena, Guardian of the City), accompanied the ancient city-states transition from monarchy to democracy. Symbols associated with Athena are many, and among them are the owl, the Aegis (her shield), the spear, and snakes. [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. 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. [87] Michael Janda has connected the myth of Trita to the scene in the Iliad in which the "three brothers" Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades divide the world between them, receiving the "broad sky", the sea, and the underworld respectively. Legend states that Medusa was once a beautiful, avowed priestess of Athena who was cursed for breaking her vow of celibacy. [24] Proponents of this view argue that she dropped her prophylactic owl mask before she lost her wings. [33][34] The "Black Athena" hypothesis stirred up widespread controversy near the end of the twentieth century,[35][36] but it has now been widely rejected by modern scholars. [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. [208][209] She is especially prominent in works produced in Athens. [205] In Sophocles's tragedy Ajax, she punishes Odysseus's rival Ajax the Great, driving him insane and causing him to massacre the Achaeans' cattle, thinking that he is slaughtering the Achaeans themselves. [118] On this topic, Walter Burkert says "she is the Pallas of Athens, Pallas Athenaie, just as Hera of Argos is Here Argeie. [10][17] However, any connection to the city of Athens in the Knossos inscription is uncertain. [148][150] Hermes gave him an adamantine scythe to cut off Medusa's head. "[111] According to a version of the story in a scholium on the Iliad (found nowhere else), when Zeus swallowed Metis, she was pregnant with Athena by the Cyclops Brontes. [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). [99][102][98][101] A later account of the story from the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, written in the second century AD, makes Metis Zeus's unwilling sexual partner, rather than his wife. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Athena, in Greek mythology, is widely known as the goddess of wisdom and warfare. Athena placed on her aegis a symbolic representation of the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa. No, Athena did not have any known romantic partners or consorts. "[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. Athena in Greek Mythology. 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. Despite her immense power, she was depicted as highly competitive with both mortals and other gods. [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. [42] Here Athena's statue was undressed, her clothes washed, and body purified. She was thought to have had neither consort nor offspring. 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. [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. [217] During the Middle Ages, Athena became widely used as a Christian symbol and allegory, and she appeared on the family crests of certain noble houses. Someone requested that I make an article on this goddess so I hope you like it! [75], In Homer's epic works, Athena's most common epithet is Glaukopis (), which usually is translated as, "bright-eyed" or "with gleaming eyes". [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. She plays an active role in the Iliad, in which she assists the Achaeans and, in the Odyssey, she is the divine counselor to Odysseus. Athenas association with the acropolises of various Greek cities probably stemmed from the location of the kings palaces there. It established their descent from earlier deities considered to remain powerful. [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. The answer could be as simple as a descriptive title, but Greek mythology offered other stories for how and why Athena changed her name. She is not considered a goddess or Olympian, but some variations on her legend say she consorted with one. [210] She is most often represented dressed in armor like a male soldier[209][210][7] and wearing a Corinthian helmet raised high atop her forehead. 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. Athena is a goddess born directly from Zeus. [44], As Athena Promachos, she was believed to lead soldiers into battle. That she ultimately became allegorized to personify wisdom and righteousness was a natural development of her patronage of skill. [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. Her head appears on the $50 1915-S Panama-Pacific commemorative coin. She was also a warrior goddess, and was believed to lead soldiers into battle as Athena Promachos. Perseus, the mortal son of Zeus and the Argive princess Danae, was a Greek hero, king, and slayer of monsters. Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War . [53][129] Robert Graves was of the opinion that "Poseidon's attempts to take possession of certain cities are political myths",[128] which reflect the conflict between matriarchal and patriarchal religions. Western artists and allegorists have often used Athena as a symbol of freedom and democracy. 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. [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. Triton's mother, Amphitrite). "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]. 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". Some of the Attic vase-painters retained an archaic tradition that the tassels had originally been serpents in their representations of the aegis. [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. While the specifics of. [135] She warned the three sisters not to open the chest,[135] but did not explain to them why or what was in it. [11][12], Nilsson and others have claimed that, in early times, Athena was either an owl herself or a bird goddess in general. 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. [43] During the late fifth century BC, the role of goddess of philosophy became a major aspect of Athena's cult. Athena (Ancient Greek: ) (sometimes she is called Pallas Athena) was the goddess of wisdom, mathematics, civilization, the arts, reason, skill, and war. Pallas Athena was the virgin goddess of war, wisdom, crafts, and the patron deity of the great city of Athens. [178] Later, this version of the story became accepted as canonical[178] and the Athenian sculptor Myron created a group of bronze sculptures based on it, which was installed before the western front of the Parthenon in around 440 BC. She is also associated with craftsmanship and handiwork. [128], Afterwards, Poseidon was so angry over his defeat that he sent one of his sons, Halirrhothius, to cut down the tree.

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