athena's shield in greek mythology

Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. I believe you, I hear you, and I care . [229] The Great Seal of California bears the image of Athena kneeling next to a brown grizzly bear. [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. Danae is the object of desire of Polydectes, the king of the Cycladic island of Seriphos. [47] The Greeks regarded Athena with much higher esteem than Ares. [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. The Goddess Athena represents wisdom, justice, and war. [135] Differing reports say that they either found that the child itself was a serpent, that it was guarded by a serpent, that it was guarded by two serpents, or that it had the legs of a serpent. [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. Dewing 1595, silver Athenian tetradrachm (=4 drachmas), ca. [82] One myth relates the foster father relationship of this Triton towards the half-orphan Athena, whom he raised alongside his own daughter Pallas. [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. Full of contradictions, Athena was a female deity overseeing traditionally male domains. [63] It was designed by Pytheos of Priene,[64] the same architect who designed the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Perseus made his name by killing Medusa, a monster whose gaze turned . [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. That she ultimately became allegorized to personify wisdom and righteousness was a natural development of her patronage of skill. [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. She is the daughter of Zeus and Metis, and is said to have been born fully grown and armored from the . However, Athena did have a relationship with the hero and hunter, Hercules, which resulted in the birth of their son, named Perses. In some versions of the story, Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus' forehead by parthenogenesis. [229] In 1990, the curators added a gilded forty-two-foot (12.5 m) tall replica of Phidias's Athena Parthenos, built from concrete and fiberglass. As the goddess of both wisdom and war, Athena was one of the most important deities in ancient Greek mythology. [141] An almost exact story was said about another girl, Elaea, who transformed into an olive, Athena's sacred tree. "[233] In contemporary Wicca, Athena is venerated as an aspect of the Goddess[234] and some Wiccans believe that she may bestow the "Owl Gift" ("the ability to write and communicate clearly") upon her worshippers. The aegis appears in works of art sometimes as an animal's skin thrown over Athena's shoulders and arms, occasionally with a border of snakes, usually also bearing the Gorgon head, the gorgoneion. [198], All three goddesses were ideally beautiful and Paris could not decide between them, so they resorted to bribes. Perseus, the mortal son of Zeus and the Argive princess Danae, was a Greek hero, king, and slayer of monsters. [148][150] Hermes gave him an adamantine scythe to cut off Medusa's head. Athena, or Athene, In ancient Greek religion, the goddess of war, handicraft, and wisdom and the patroness of Athens.Her Roman counterpart was Minerva. [237] Pallas Athena is the tutelary goddess of the international social fraternity Phi Delta Theta. As an important religious site, the temple's designers decorated the Parthenon with various scenes from Greek mythology. 449 - 420 B.C. [56] This role is expressed in several stories about Athena. Identified in the Roman mythology as the goddess Minerva.She was always accompanied by her owl and the goddess of victory, Nike. Athenas association with the acropolises of various Greek cities probably stemmed from the location of the kings palaces there. [46] Burkert notes that the Athenians sometimes simply called Athena "the Goddess", h thes ( ), certainly an ancient title. What Does the Owl of Athena Represent? - Reference.com "[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. "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. [209] As Athena Promachos, she is shown brandishing a spear. The Twelve Olympians in Greek mythology are the most respected major deities of the Greek pantheon. 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. [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 a founding myth reported by Pseudo-Apollodorus,[113] Athena competed with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens. Athena the Goddess of Wisdom | Athena's Characteristics & Symbols in [191][190], Athena wove the scene of her victory over Poseidon in the contest for the patronage of Athens. [6] The name Athenai is likely of Pre-Greek origin because it contains the presumably Pre-Greek morpheme *-n-.[8]. [71] Pausanias wrote that at Buporthmus there was a sanctuary of Athena Promachorma (), meaning protector of the anchorage. Athena, also spelled Athene, in Greek religion, the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva. [139] They would leave the objects they had been given at the bottom of the passage and take another set of hidden objects,[139] which they would carry on their heads back up to the temple. Her Roman name was Minerva. [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. In this context, Graves identifies the aegis as clearly belonging first to Athena. [103][104], After swallowing Metis, Zeus took six more wives in succession until he married his seventh and present wife, Hera. [63], Athena was known as Atrytone ( "the Unwearying"), Parthenos ( "Virgin"), and Promachos ( "she who fights in front"). [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. [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". [213] During the French Revolution, statues of pagan gods were torn down all throughout France, but statues of Athena were not. [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. [118] On this topic, Walter Burkert says "she is the Pallas of Athens, Pallas Athenaie, just as Hera of Argos is Here Argeie. She was also a warrior goddess, and was believed to lead soldiers into battle as Athena Promachos. [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. She instructs Laertes to throw his spear and to kill Eupeithes, the father of Antinous. [156] She is presented as his "stern ally",[157] but also the "gentle acknowledger of his achievements. [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. [127] Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring sprang up;[127] this gave the Athenians access to trade and water. [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. Athena was customarily portrayed wearing body armour and a helmet and carrying a shield and a lance. 9 Symbols of Athena: Explaining the Goddess of Wisdom & War Goddess of wisdom and war in ancient Greek religion and mythology, Several terms redirect here. [178] According to Pindar, Athena gave the aulos to mortals as a gift. [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. She inspired three of Phidiass sculptural masterpieces, including the massive chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue of Athena Parthenos once housed in the Parthenon; and in Aeschyluss dramatic tragedy Eumenides she founded the Areopagus (Athenss aristocratic council), and, by breaking a deadlock of the judges in favour of Orestes, the defendant, she set the precedent that a tied vote signified acquittal. Perseus used this shield to see Medusa's reflection in order to fight her without looking at . The temple of Athena Alea in Tegea was an important religious center of ancient Greece. [200] Numerous passages in the Iliad also mention Athena having previously served as the patron of Diomedes's father Tydeus. [220][221] Andrea Mantegna's 1502 painting Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue uses Athena as the personification of Graeco-Roman learning chasing the vices of medievalism from the garden of modern scholarship. Greek Mythology Jeopardy Template [128], Afterwards, Poseidon was so angry over his defeat that he sent one of his sons, Halirrhothius, to cut down the tree. [191][190][192] Finally, losing her temper, Athena destroyed Arachne's tapestry and loom, striking it with her shuttle. [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. Two Athenians, the sculptor Phidias and the playwright Aeschylus, contributed significantly to the cultural dissemination of Athenas image. [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. [163] She appears in Nausicaa's dreams to ensure that the princess rescues Odysseus and plays a role in his eventual escort to Ithaca. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. 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. It bore the head of a Gorgon and made a terrible roaring sound during the battle. [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. [41] The festival lasted for five days. In the classical Olympian pantheon, Athena was regarded as the favorite child of Zeus, born fully armed from his forehead. In The Odyssey, Odysseus' cunning and shrewd nature quickly wins Athena's favour. [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 (?) Athena is associated with the city of Athens. Athena is the Olympian goddess of wisdom and war and the adored patroness of the city of Athens. When the Olympian deities overtook the older deities of Greece and she was born of Metis (inside Zeus who had swallowed the goddess) and "re-born" through the head of Zeus fully clothed, Athena already wore her typical garments. [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. [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. [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. Being the favorite child of Zeus, she had great power. [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. [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. Someone requested that I make an article on this goddess so I hope you like it! [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. [208][209] She is especially prominent in works produced in Athens. 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. [125] Athena was said to have carved the statue herself in the likeness of her dead friend Pallas. When Medusa had an affair with the sea god Poseidon, Athena punished her. 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. 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. [146][147][148] She and Hermes, the god of travelers, appeared to Perseus after he set off on his quest and gifted him with tools he would need to kill the Gorgon. [127] Athena offered the first domesticated olive tree. But as he swung his axe, he missed his aim and it fell in himself, killing him. [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. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). [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". Herse, Aglaulus, and Pandrosus go to the temple to offer sacrifices to Athena. [189][190] Athena gave Arachne a chance to redeem herself by assuming the form of an old woman and warning Arachne not to offend the deities. . [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. Medusa is one of the most tragic figures in Greek Mythology Zeus [228] For over a century, a full-scale replica of the Parthenon has stood in Nashville, Tennessee. 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. Athena is customarily portrayed wearing an aegis, body armor, and a helmet and carrying a shield and a lance. Occasionally, another god used ite.g., Apollo in the Iliad, where it provoked terror. Being the favourite child of Zeus, she had great power. Virgil imagines the Cyclopes in Hephaestus' forge, who "busily burnished the aegis Athena wears in her angry moodsa fearsome thing with a surface of gold like scaly snake-skin, and the linked serpents and the Gorgon herself upon the goddess's breasta severed head rolling its eyes",[5] furnished with golden tassels and bearing the Gorgoneion (Medusa's head) in the central boss. [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. [4] Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece, particularly the city of Athens, from which she most likely received her name. She was widely worshipped, but in modern times she is associated primarily with Athens, to which she gave her name and protection. [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. Athena placed on her aegis a symbolic representation of the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa. [citation needed] Athena deflects his blow with her aegis, a powerful shield that even Zeus's thunderbolt and lightning cannot blast through. While the specifics of. In Homers Iliad, Athena, as a war goddess, inspires and fights alongside the Greek heroes; her aid is synonymous with military prowess. Athena was the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and good counsel, war, the defence of towns, heroic endeavour, weaving, pottery and various other crafts. [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. Rank. She is also associated with peace and handicrafts. [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".

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