[50], In her aspect as a warrior maiden, Athena was known as Parthenos ( "virgin"),[45][52][53] because, like her fellow goddesses Artemis and Hestia, she was believed to remain perpetually a virgin. She was also a warrior goddess, and was believed to lead soldiers into battle as Athena Promachos. Athena's name probably comes from the name of the city of Athens. [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. She is the daughter of Zeus and Metis, and is said to have been born fully grown and armored from the . 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. When the Olympian shakes the aegis, Mount Ida is wrapped in clouds, the thunder rolls and men are struck down with fear. Dewing 1595, silver Athenian tetradrachm (=4 drachmas), ca. [97][98] Athena, the daughter of Zeus, was produced without a mother and emerged full-grown from his forehead. [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. [231], Pallas and the Centaur (c. 1482) by Sandro Botticelli, Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue (1502) by Andrea Mantegna[222][221][223], Athena Scorning the Advances of Hephaestus (c. 15551560) by Paris Bordone, Minerva Victorious over Ignorance (c. 1591) by Bartholomeus Spranger, Maria de Medici (1622) by Peter Paul Rubens, showing her as the incarnation of Athena[226], Minerva Protecting Peace from Mars (1629) by Peter Paul Rubens, Minerva Revealing Ithaca to Ulysses (fifteenth century) by Giuseppe Bottani, Minerva and the Triumph of Jupiter (1706) by Ren-Antoine Houasse, The Combat of Mars and Minerva (1771) by Joseph-Benot Suve, Minerva Fighting Mars (1771) by Jacques-Louis David, Minerva of Peace mosaic in the Library of Congress, One of Sigmund Freud's most treasured possessions was a small, bronze sculpture of Athena, which sat on his desk. [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. "[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. [11][12], Nilsson and others have claimed that, in early times, Athena was either an owl herself or a bird goddess in general. [82] One myth relates the foster father relationship of this Triton towards the half-orphan Athena, whom he raised alongside his own daughter Pallas. Apollo's words became the basis of an ancient Greek idiom. [216] Some even viewed the Virgin Mary as a warrior maiden, much like Athena Parthenos;[216] one anecdote tells that the Virgin Mary once appeared upon the walls of Constantinople when it was under siege by the Avars, clutching a spear and urging the people to fight. [47][48] Athena was especially worshipped in this role during the festivals of the Panathenaea and Pamboeotia,[49] both of which prominently featured displays of athletic and military prowess. Athena is customarily portrayed wearing an aegis, body armor, and a helmet and carrying a shield and a lance. [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. 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. He turns her to stone. 27 (trans. [148][150] Hermes gave him an adamantine scythe to cut off Medusa's head. 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. In The Odyssey, Odysseus' cunning and shrewd nature quickly wins Athena's favour. I believe you, I hear you, and I care . One of Athena's epithets is related to the Greek glaux, "little owl," and the bird was prominently featured on Athenian coins. [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). [131][132], Pseudo-Apollodorus[113] records an archaic legend, which claims that Hephaestus once attempted to rape Athena, but she pushed him away, causing him to ejaculate on her thigh. Her superiority also derives in part from the vastly greater variety and importance of her functions and from the patriotism of Homers predecessors, Ares being of foreign origin. [236], Athena is a natural patron of universities: At Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, a statue of Athena (a replica of the original bronze one in the arts and archaeology library) resides in the Great Hall. [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". In the later writings of the Roman poet Ovid, Athena was said to have competed against the mortal Arachne in a weaving competition, afterward transforming Arachne into the first spider; Ovid also describes how she transformed Medusa into a Gorgon after witnessing her being raped by Poseidon in her temple. 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. [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. [125] The statue had special talisman-like properties[125] and it was thought that, as long as it was in the city, Troy could never fall. In ancient Greek mythology, the goddess Athena kept an owl on her shoulder that revealed truths to her and represented wisdom and knowledge. [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. Zeus, sympathizing with Apollo's grievances, discredited the pebble divination by rendering the pebbles useless. [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. Athena[b] or Athene,[c] often given the epithet Pallas,[d] is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft[1] who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. [101] Then Zeus experienced an enormous headache. [174] In a late myth invented to explain the origins of the Gorgon,[175] Medusa is described as having been a young priestess who served in the temple of Athena in Athens. [192] It represented the unjust and discrediting behavior of the gods towards mortals. She was known as Polias and Poliouchos (both derived from polis, meaning "city-state"), and her temples were usually located atop the fortified acropolis in the central part of the city. She is also associated with the olive tree and owl because of her wisdom. [47] The Greeks regarded Athena with much higher esteem than Ares. Athena in Greek Mythology. [207], Athena appears frequently in classical Greek art, including on coins and in paintings on ceramics. [199] Paris selected Aphrodite and awarded her the apple. [133][51][134] Athena adopted Erichthonius as her son and raised him. 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. Hurt by the girl's betrayal, Athena transformed her into the small insect bearing her name, the ant. [137], Erichthonius was one of the most important founding heroes of Athens[51] and the legend of the daughters of Cecrops was a cult myth linked to the rituals of the Arrhephoria festival. [49] As the patroness of heroes and warriors, Athena was believed to favor those who used cunning and intelligence rather than brute strength. [44], As Athena Promachos, she was believed to lead soldiers into battle. [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". [207] Ajax later commits suicide as a result of his humiliation. [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. [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. [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. The shield of a deity as described above. In Rome she was called Minerva, and her popularity continued. . [135] She warned the three sisters not to open the chest,[135] but did not explain to them why or what was in it. She is also associated with peace and handicrafts. When Hermes arrives to seduce Herse, Aglaulus stands in his way instead of helping him as she had agreed. [126], In Homer's Iliad, Athena, as a war goddess, inspired and fought alongside the Greek heroes; her aid was synonymous with military prowess. She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, so that she emerged full-grown from his forehead. In a founding myth reported by Pseudo-Apollodorus,[113] Athena competed with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens. "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]. As the guardian of the welfare of kings, Athena became the goddess of good counsel, prudent restraint and practical insight, and war. [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. Her materialistic symbols include her spear, the distaff and a goatskin shield called the aegis. [125] Athena was said to have carved the statue herself in the likeness of her dead friend Pallas. [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 (). 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. Majestic and stern, Athena surpassed everybody in both of her main domains. The head itself had been a gift from the Gorgon's slayer, Perseus. The Romans identified her with Minerva. [141] An almost exact story was said about another girl, Elaea, who transformed into an olive, Athena's sacred tree. 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 . The transition to the meaning "shield" or "goatskin" may have come by folk etymology among a people familiar with draping an animal skin over the left arm as a shield. [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. [70] In a temple at Phrixa in Elis, reportedly built by Clymenus, she was known as Cydonia (). 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. Despite her immense power, she was depicted as highly competitive with both mortals and other gods. [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. 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. [citation needed] Athena picked up a massive boulder and threw it at Ares, who immediately crumpled to the ground. 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. In art, she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear. Athena was often depicted with an owl, which was considered a symbol of wisdom in both cultures. The answer could be as simple as a descriptive title, but Greek mythology offered other stories for how and why Athena changed her name. [171] Her actions lead him to travel around to Odysseus's comrades and ask about his father. [197] Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena all claimed to be the fairest, and thus the rightful owner of the apple. [237] Pallas Athena is the tutelary goddess of the international social fraternity Phi Delta Theta. [74], At Athens there is the temple of Athena Phratria, as patron of a phratry, in the Ancient Agora of Athens. Athena, goddess of wisdom Though Hercules had an enemy, Hera, on Mount Olympus, he also had a friend. Athena is associated with courage and braveness. In some versions of the story, Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus' forehead by parthenogenesis. She was widely worshipped, but in modern times she is associated primarily with Athens, to which she gave her name. Watch on. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. [167][166] Impressed by his resolve and shrewdness, she reveals herself and tells him what he needs to know to win back his kingdom. [183][182][134], Myrmex was a clever and chaste Attic girl who became quickly a favourite of Athena. [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. nephew., What was the war between the gods of Olympus and the titans called?, Who's Perseus' father? Medusa wherever you're right now. [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. In ancient Greek religion, Athena was a goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason. 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. [208][209] She is especially prominent in works produced in Athens. [46] Burkert notes that the Athenians sometimes simply called Athena "the Goddess", h thes ( ), certainly an ancient title. The Twelve Olympians in Greek mythology are the most respected major deities of the Greek pantheon. As the patron of craft and weaving, Athena was known as Ergane. [189] She became so conceited of her skill as a weaver that she began claiming that her skill was greater than that of Athena herself. [15] Although Athana potnia is often translated as "Mistress Athena", it could also mean "the Potnia of Athana", or the Lady of Athens. [citation needed] Athena deflects his blow with her aegis, a powerful shield that even Zeus's thunderbolt and lightning cannot blast through. [46] Athena was frequently equated with Aphaea, a local goddess of the island of Aegina, originally from Crete and also associated with Artemis and the nymph Britomartis. Athena placed on her aegis a symbolic representation of the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa. Athena, the patron goddess of the city of Athens, is associated with over a dozen sacred symbols from which she derived her powers. . 449 - 420 B.C. [103][104], After swallowing Metis, Zeus took six more wives in succession until he married his seventh and present wife, Hera. [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. Athena appears in Homer's Odyssey as the tutelary deity of Odysseus, and myths from later sources portray her similarly as the helper of Perseus and Heracles (Hercules). Symbols associated with Athena are many, and among them are the owl, the Aegis (her shield), the spear, and snakes. [218], During the Renaissance, Athena donned the mantle of patron of the arts and human endeavor;[219] allegorical paintings involving Athena were a favorite of the Italian Renaissance painters. "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. [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. Athena, in Greek mythology, is widely known as the goddess of wisdom and warfare. The second-century AD orator Aelius Aristides attempted to derive natural symbols from the etymological roots of Athena's names to be aether, air, earth, and moon. [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. [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. Hermes demands help from Aglaulus to seduce Herse. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Athenas moral and military superiority to Ares derives in part from the fact that she represents the intellectual and civilized side of war and the virtues of justice and skill, whereas Ares represents mere blood lust. 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. It bore the head of a Gorgon and made a terrible roaring sound during the battle. 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. Aglaulus demands money in exchange. [46] These cults were portals of a uniform socialization, even beyond mainland Greece. [191][192][190] Athena's tapestry also depicted the 12 Olympian gods and defeat of mythological figures who challenged their authority. [128] In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil's Georgics,[113] Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse. 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. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. Pallas Athena was the virgin goddess of war, wisdom, crafts, and the patron deity of the great city of Athens. [82] It could mean various things, including "Triton-born", perhaps indicating that the homonymous sea-deity was her parent according to some early myths. Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War. [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. [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. [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. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. [178] According to Pindar, Athena gave the aulos to mortals as a gift. (lines 789). 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. Occasionally, another god used ite.g., Apollo in the Iliad, where it provoked terror. [6] A vestige of that appears in a portrait of Alexander the Great in a fresco from Pompeii dated to the first century BC, which shows the image of the head of a woman on his armor that resembles the Gorgon. [10][17] However, any connection to the city of Athens in the Knossos inscription is uncertain. She is most famous for being the patron god of the city of Athens. 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. The handicrafts she is most known. [76] The word is a combination of glauks (, meaning "gleaming, silvery", and later, "bluish-green" or "gray")[77] and ps (, "eye, face"). [117] Although Agamemnon attempted to placate her anger with sacrifices, Athena sent a storm at Cape Kaphereos to destroy almost the entire Greek fleet and scatter all of the surviving ships across the Aegean. The best known image of Athena's owl, the Little Owl, is seen on ancient Athenian coins dating from the fifth century BCE. That she ultimately became allegorized to personify wisdom and righteousness was a natural development of her patronage of skill. Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. 460-357 B.C. Those pebbles were called thriai, which was also the collective name of a group of nymphs with prophetic powers. The daughter of Zeus, the king of the gods, and the Titaness Metis. [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. She is also associated with craftsmanship and handiwork. [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. 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. [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. Similarly, in the Greek mythology and epic tradition, Athena figures as a daughter of Zeus ( ; cfr. [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. Athenas association with the acropolises of various Greek cities probably stemmed from the location of the kings palaces there. Perseus, the mortal son of Zeus and the Argive princess Danae, was a Greek hero, king, and slayer of monsters. "[84][85] In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Athena is occasionally referred to as "Tritonia". [71] Pausanias wrote that at Buporthmus there was a sanctuary of Athena Promachorma (), meaning protector of the anchorage.