Since the Renaissance, Athena has become an international symbol of wisdom, the arts, and classical learning. 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." [46] The various cults of Athena were all branches of her panhellenic cult[46] and often proctored various initiation rites of Grecian youth, such as the passage into citizenship by young men or the passage of young women into marriage. Perseus, the mortal son of Zeus and the Argive princess Danae, was a Greek hero, king, and slayer of monsters. Classical Greece interpreted the Homeric aegis usually as a cover of some kind borne by Athena. [63] It was designed by Pytheos of Priene,[64] the same architect who designed the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. 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). [167][166] Impressed by his resolve and shrewdness, she reveals herself and tells him what he needs to know to win back his kingdom. [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. "Athena, by the time she appears in art," Jane Ellen Harrison remarks, "has completely shed her animal form, has reduced the shapes she once wore of snake and bird to attributes, but occasionally in black-figure vase-paintings she still appears with wings. She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, so that she emerged full-grown from his forehead. In the Iliad she fought alongside the Greek heroes, and she represented the virtues of justice and skill in warfare as opposed to the blood lust of Ares. [125] Athena was infuriated by this violation of her protection. [130], Herodotus records that a serpent lived in a crevice on the north side of the summit of the Athenian Acropolis[130] and that the Athenians left a honey cake for it each month as an offering. Rank. [citation needed] Aphrodite, who was a lover of Ares, came down from Olympus to carry Ares away but was struck by Athena's golden spear and fell. Athena's Introduction Athena is the Greek goddess of wisdom and war. [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. [10][17] However, any connection to the city of Athens in the Knossos inscription is uncertain. [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. Two Athenians, the sculptor Phidias and the playwright Aeschylus, contributed significantly to the cultural dissemination of Athenas image. [128] In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil's Georgics,[113] Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse. [47] The Greeks regarded Athena with much higher esteem than Ares. Athena, goddess of wisdom Though Hercules had an enemy, Hera, on Mount Olympus, he also had a friend. [6][tone] "Aegis-bearing Zeus", as he is in the Iliad, sometimes lends the fearsome aegis to Athena. [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. [29] Athena's birth from the head of Zeus may be derived from the earlier Sumerian myth of Inanna's descent into and return from the Underworld. Athena, also known as Pallas Athena or the Virgin Athena, is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, strategic warfare, mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill in ancient Greek mythology. [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, in Greek mythology, is widely known as the goddess of wisdom and warfare. Athena was the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom and good counsel, war, the defence of towns, heroic endeavour, weaving, pottery and various other crafts. 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. [238] Her owl is also a symbol of the fraternity.[238]. [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. "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]. [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. But how did Athena get the name Pallas? 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. [46] These cults were portals of a uniform socialization, even beyond mainland Greece. She instructs Laertes to throw his spear and to kill Eupeithes, the father of Antinous. [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". [103][104], After swallowing Metis, Zeus took six more wives in succession until he married his seventh and present wife, Hera. She is also associated with craftsmanship and handiwork. )", "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. [175] Sometimes she is shown wearing the aegis as a cloak. [199][134], In Books VVI of the Iliad, Athena aids the hero Diomedes, who, in the absence of Achilles, proves himself to be the most effective Greek warrior. with 5 letters was last seen on the January 22, 2023. [133][134] The Roman mythographer Hyginus[113] records a similar story in which Hephaestus demanded Zeus to let him marry Athena since he was the one who had smashed open Zeus's skull, allowing Athena to be born. [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. [15] Although Athana potnia is often translated as "Mistress Athena", it could also mean "the Potnia of Athana", or the Lady of Athens. [199][134] The other two goddesses were enraged and, as a direct result, sided with the Greeks in the Trojan War. [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. . [209] As Athena Promachos, she is shown brandishing a spear. Majestic and stern, Athena surpassed everybody in both of her main domains. The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is dedicated to her, along with numerous other temples and monuments. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Athena in Greek Mythology. She is the daughter of Zeus and Metis, and is said to have been born fully grown and armored from the . [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. Athena, enraged at the desecration of her temple, turned her into a mortal Gorgon. [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. Athena was the patron goddess of heroic endeavor; she was believed to have aided the heroes Perseus, Heracles, Bellerophon, and Jason. [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 was thought to have had neither consort nor offspring. [195] Only Eris, goddess of discord, was not invited. [56] According to Karl Kernyi, a scholar of Greek mythology, the name Parthenos is not merely an observation of Athena's virginity, but also a recognition of her role as enforcer of rules of sexual modesty and ritual mystery. [76] The word is a combination of glauks (, meaning "gleaming, silvery", and later, "bluish-green" or "gray")[77] and ps (, "eye, face"). In Greek mythology, Athena was believed to have been born from the forehead of her father Zeus. The aegis (/ids/ EE-jis;[1] Ancient Greek: aigs), as stated in the Iliad, is a device carried by Athena and Zeus, variously interpreted as an animal skin or a shield and sometimes featuring the head of a Gorgon. [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. 1332x850 Wallpaper bird, God, helmet, spear, shield, goddess, Athena, greek mythology images for desktop, section - download Download 1920x1200 Free Norse Wallpaper Downloads, [100+] Norse Wallpapers for FREE | Wallpapers.com Athena, the patron goddess of the city of Athens, is associated with over a dozen sacred symbols from which she derived her powers. In the version recounted by Hesiod in his Theogony, Zeus married the goddess Metis, who is described as the "wisest among gods and mortal men", and engaged in sexual intercourse with her. The Goddess Athena represents wisdom, justice, and war. [46] The epithet Ergane ( "the Industrious") pointed her out as the patron of craftsmen and artisans. [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 (). She was widely worshipped, but in modern times she is associated primarily with Athens, to which she gave her name. In a founding myth reported by Pseudo-Apollodorus,[113] Athena competed with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens. The Romans identified her with Minerva. Aglaulus demands money in exchange. [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. [91][92][93][h] The story of her birth comes in several versions. [86] Several scholars have suggested a connection to the Rigvedic god Trita,[87] who was sometimes grouped in a body of three mythological poets. Athena also helped many of the Greek heroes such as Hercules and Odysseus on their adventures. [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. [24] Proponents of this view argue that she dropped her prophylactic owl mask before she lost her wings. The owl is one of the most recognizable of these, and is still associated with wisdom and education today. [152][153], In ancient Greek art, Athena is frequently shown aiding the hero Heracles. [127][53] Cecrops accepted this gift[127] and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens. [213], During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Athena was used as a symbol for female rulers. [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". Danae is the object of desire of Polydectes, the king of the Cycladic island of Seriphos. Dewing 1595, silver Athenian tetradrachm (=4 drachmas), ca. 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. Dyeus). [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. [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. "[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. "[5] In later times, after the original meaning of the name had been forgotten, the Greeks invented myths to explain its origins, such as those reported by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus and the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, which claim that Pallas was originally a separate entity, whom Athena had slain in combat. She is also associated with the olive tree and owl because of her wisdom. [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. [230] Athena has occasionally appeared on modern coins, as she did on the ancient Athenian drachma. Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War. [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. She was known as Athena Parthenos "Athena the Virgin," but in one archaic Attic myth, the god Hephaestus tried and failed to rape her, resulting in Gaia giving birth to Erichthonius, an important Athenian founding hero. [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]. Born from Zeus's head, she was his favorite daughter and possessed great wisdom, bravery, and resourcefulness. [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. [82] One myth relates the foster father relationship of this Triton towards the half-orphan Athena, whom he raised alongside his own daughter Pallas. In Rome she was called Minerva, and her popularity continued. [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. [197] Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena all claimed to be the fairest, and thus the rightful owner of the apple. [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. [57], Athena was also credited with creating the pebble-based form of divination. Athena. Athena became the goddess of crafts and skilled peacetime pursuits in general. [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. [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. [106][98][107][104] Athena leaped from Zeus's head, fully grown and armed. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. [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. [169][170][166] Athena also appears to Odysseus's son Telemachus. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. [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. [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. [178] Later, the comic playwright Melanippides of Melos (c. 480-430 BC) embellished the story in his comedy Marsyas,[178] claiming that Athena looked in the mirror while she was playing the aulos and saw how blowing into it puffed up her cheeks and made her look silly, so she threw the aulos away and cursed it so that whoever picked it up would meet an awful death. The head itself had been a gift from the Gorgon's slayer, Perseus. 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. 27 (trans. (, "This sanctuary had been respected from early days by all the. [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. [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. The temple of Athena Alea in Tegea was an important religious center of ancient Greece. 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. [198] Since the Renaissance, however, Western paintings have typically portrayed all three goddesses as completely naked. [208] In classical depictions, Athena is usually portrayed standing upright, wearing a full-length chiton. The handicrafts she is most known. [58], Athena was not only the patron goddess of Athens, but also other cities, including Argos, Sparta, Gortyn, Lindos, and Larisa. In Greek mythology, Athena was reported to have visited mythological sites in North Africa, including Libya's Triton River and the Phlegraean plain. 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. [173] She also plays a role in ending the resultant feud against the suitors' relatives. [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. [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. [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. While the specifics of. Pallas Athena was the virgin goddess of war, wisdom, crafts, and the patron deity of the great city of Athens. In art, she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear. [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". 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. (lines 789). In Greek mythology, Athena was a maiden goddess and was often depicted as abstaining from romantic and sexual relationships. [139] The ritual was performed in the dead of night[139] and no one, not even the priestess, knew what the objects were. Among other attributes, it was assumed by . [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. [171] Her actions lead him to travel around to Odysseus's comrades and ask about his father. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 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. Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. 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. [183][182][134], Myrmex was a clever and chaste Attic girl who became quickly a favourite of Athena. Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and war, was known by a number of attributes and symbols. Athena, also spelled Athene, in Greek religion, the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva. It was supposed by Euripides (Ion, 995) that the aegis borne by Athena was the skin of the slain Gorgon,[8] yet the usual understanding[9] is that the Gorgoneion was added to the aegis, a votive offering from a grateful Perseus. . [12] Classical scholar Charles Penglase notes that Athena resembles Inanna in her role as a "terrifying warrior goddess"[29] and that both goddesses were closely linked with creation.