Athena
In ancient Greek religion, Athena (from Attic Greek Ἀθήνα, transl. Athēnē, or Ἀθηναίη, Athēnaiē), also known as Pallas Athena (Παλλὰς Aθήνα), is the goddess of war, civilization, wisdom, reason, intelligence, combat strategy, victory, science, crafts, industry, inventions, arts, trades, navigation, heroes, strength, courage, protection, city-state, education, justice, law and skill. He was one of the main divinities of the Greek pantheon and one of the twelve Olympian gods. Athena was worshiped throughout Ancient Greece and throughout its area of influence, from the Greek colonies of Asia Minor to those of the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa. Its presence is attested even in the vicinity of India. For this reason, her cult took many forms and even had a considerable extension to the point that her figure was syncretized with other divinities in the regions surrounding the Mediterranean. In Roman mythology she was worshiped under the name of Minerva .
The most traditional version of her myth depicts her as the parthenogenetic daughter of Zeus, born from his already fully armed forehead after he swallowed her mother. She never married or had lovers, and she maintained a perpetual virginity. She was unbeatable in war, not even Ares himself could defeat her. She was patroness of various cities but she became best known as the protector of Athens and the entire Attica region. She also protected many heroes and other mythological figures, and appears in a large number of mythology episodes.
He was one of the most represented deities in Greek art and his symbology exerted a profound influence on the thinking of that culture, especially in the concepts related to justice, wisdom and the social function of culture and the arts, whose reflections are perceptible to this day throughout the West.
Mythology
Birth and family
In the Olympian pantheon Athena appears as the favorite daughter of Zeus, born from his already fully armed forehead after he swallowed her mother, Metis. The story of her birth appears in several versions.
Homer calls Athena the daughter of Zeus, without any allusion to her parent or the way she came into existence, while most later traditions agree that she was born from the god's forehead. Already in Hesiod the mother of Athena is the oceanid Metis, the first wife of Zeus. After lying with her, Zeus immediately feared the consequences, since it had been prophesied that Metis would give birth to children more powerful than him. To prevent such serious consequences, he took the advice of Gaia and Urano and "shut her in her womb", but Metis had already conceived a daughter, Athena, who would sprout from her forehead.
Pindar adds that Hephaestus split the head of Zeus with his Minoan double-bladed axe, the labrys, and that Athena jumped out of the head fully grown and fully armed, a claim said to be that Stesichorus was the oldest authority; "and he called to the wide sky with his clear war cry. And Uranus trembled when he heard it, and Mother Gaia..." Others say that Prometheus, Hermes or Palemon helped Zeus in the birth of Athena and mention the Triton river as the place of the event.
Later classical myths noted that Hera was so upset that Zeus had a child, apparently by himself, that she did the same with Hephaestus. After the appearance of this version, it began to be affirmed that Metis had no more children and that Zeus endured as king of Olympus. Greek myths remained static at this point, not changing until the decline of ancient culture and the practice of their religion.
Other traditions
A second group of traditions considers Athena the daughter of Pallas or Pallas, the winged giant whom she would later kill for trying to violate her chastity, since then using her skin as a protective aegis and attaching her wings to her own feet. A third tradition takes its origin to Libya and considers Athena the daughter of Poseidon and the nymph Tritonis. Herodotus tells that on one occasion Athena got angry with her father and went off to Zeus, who made her his own daughter.This passage clearly shows the way in which genuine ancient Hellenic myths were transplanted to Libya, where later they were considered sources of the Hellenics. About this Libyan Athena it is also said that she was educated by the river-god Triton, together with her own daughter Pallas from her.
Athena's relationship with Triton and Tritonis later gave rise to the various traditions about her birthplace, so that wherever there was a river or spring with that name, as in Crete, Thessaly, Boeotia, Arcadia and Egypt, the inhabitants of such regions claimed that Athena had been born in them. From these birthplaces in a river called Triton it appears that she was called Tritonis or Tritogenia, though it should be noted that this epithet is explained in other ways as well.
Fragments attributed by Eusebius of Caesarea to the semi-legendary Phoenician historian Sanjuniaton, believed by Eusebius to have been written before the Trojan War, make Athena the daughter of Cronus, a king of Byblos who was said to have visited "the uninhabitable world » and bequeathed Attica to Athena. Sanjuniatón's account would make Athena, like Hera, the sister of Zeus instead of her daughter.
Finally, a tradition should be pointed out that made Athena the daughter of Itonius (in turn the son of Amphictyon) and sister of Iodama, whom he killed, and another according to which she was the daughter of Hephaestus.
Athena Share Us
The character of Athena occupied an intermediate place between masculine and feminine, for which reason in an Orphic hymn she is called ἄρσην καὶ ϑἣλυς, and therefore she is, like Artemis, a virgin divinity, whose heart is inaccessible to the passion of love and who rejects marriage. She never had a consort or lover, and she was known as Athena Partenos, 'Athena the Virgin', a title from which the name of her most famous temple comes: the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis. It was not a mere observation of her virginity, but an acknowledgment of her role as enforcer of the norms of sexual modesty and ritual mystery. This role is expressed in various stories about her. Marino recounts that when the Christians removed the statue of the goddess from the Parthenon, a beautiful woman appeared in a dream to Proclus, a devotee of Athena, and announced that the "Athenian Lady" wished to dwell with him.
In one version of the myth, Tiresias stumbled upon Athena while she was bathing, and was blinded by her nakedness. To make up for his loss, he purified her ears, enabling her to understand the language of birds., thereby achieving the gift of prophecy.
The oldest traditions always describe the goddess clothed, but Ovid depicts her nude before Paris. Her statue was also always clothed, and when carried at Attic festivals it was completely covered. But despite the general opinion about her virgin character, there is a tradition of late origin that considered Lycnus as the son of Hephaestus and Athena.
Erichtonius
Hephaestus tried to rape Athena but she prevented him. His semen fell to the ground, and Ericthonio was born from Earth, Gaia. Athena then raised the baby as her adoptive mother.
Athena put the infant Ericthonius in a small box (cist) which she entrusted to three sisters, Herse, Pándroso and Aglauros. The goddess did not tell them what the box contained, but she warned them not to open it until she returned. The box was opened by one of the sisters, or by two, and Ericthonio was found in the shape of a snake, or embracing one. The serpent, or the madness produced by it, caused Herse and Pándrosos to throw themselves from the Acropolis. Harrison believes that this is a simple cautionary tale directed at the young women who carried the cist in the Thesmophoria rituals to prevent the serpent from falling. They opened at the wrong time.
Another version of the myth of the Athenian maidens is narrated by Ovid in The Metamorphoses. In this later variant Hermes falls in love with Herse. The three maidens go to the temple to offer sacrifices to Athena. Hermes asks Aglauro for help to seduce Herse, and Herse asks him for money in exchange for her. Hermes gives the one that the sisters had already offered to Athena, who as punishment for Aglauro's greed asks the goddess Envy to make her jealous of Herse. When Hermes arrives to seduce this one of hers, Aglauro gets in her way instead of helping her as they had agreed, so the god turns her into stone.
With that mythical origin, Ericthonius became the founding king of Athens, where he was credited with many beneficial changes to Athenian culture. During that time, Athena frequently protected him.
Lady of Athens
Athena competed with Poseidon as the protector deity of Athens, which still had no name. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and caused a fountain of salt water to gush out. Instead, according to some late sources, it was a horse that brought out Poseidon with the trident. For her part, Athena planted an olive tree. Zeus, or the twelve Olympian gods, or one of the first kings of Attica (Cecrops, Erisicton or Cranaus) judged that the olive tree had been planted first and with it Athena got the patronage of Athens. Robert Graves was of the opinion that "Poseidon's attempts to take possession of certain cities are political myths" reflecting the conflict between matriarchal and patriarchal religions. Athena was also the patron goddess of other cities, notably Sparta.
A variant of this story is that the Athenians themselves voted for one of the two gods to name their city. All the women voted for Athena and all the men for Poseidon. Athena won by a single vote and Poseidon flooded the region. To appease Poseidon's wrath from then on, women no longer had the right to vote and children could not have names derived from the mother's name.
Counselor
Classical Greek myths tell of Athena leading Perseus on his quest to behead Medusa. She taught Heracles how to skin the Nemean lion by using the lion's own claws to cut through its thick pelt. She also helped him defeat the Stymphalian birds and navigate the underworld by capturing Cerberus. She was also the one who helped Heracles kill the Lernaean hydra.
In another late story, Odysseus' cunning and shrewd nature was said to quickly win him favor with Athena, though in realistic-type epics the goddess is confined to helping him only at a distance, as if by implanting thoughts in his head, during his journey home from Troy. It is not until she arrives on the beach of an island where Nausícaa is washing her clothes that Athena is able to give more tangible help. She appears in Nausícaa's dreams to ensure that the princess rescues Odysseus and ultimately sends him to Ithaca. The goddess herself appears in disguise to Odysseus after his arrival. She initially lies to him that her wife Penelope has married and he is presumed dead, however Odysseus lies back, seeing through her disguise. Pleased by her determination and sagacity, Athena reveals herself to him and tells him everything she needs to know to win back her kingdom. She disguises him as an old man so he won't be discovered by the suitors or Penelope and helps him defeat them and end the ensuing feud between her relatives.
Other myths
In the Gigantomachy he helped his father and Heracles with his advice, and also took an active part in it, since he buried Enceladus under the island of Sicily and killed Pallas. In the Trojan War he was on the side of the most civilized Greeks, though on his return home he sent them storms, for the manner in which Ajax Locrius had treated Cassandra in her temple.
In the fable of the Argonauts, she is the one who instructs the builders of the first ship, the Argo.
Jellyfish
In a later myth, Medusa, who unlike her two gorgon sisters was imagined by the classical Greeks of the V century deadly and extremely beautiful, she was raped by Poseidon in a temple of Athena. After discovering her desecration in her temple, the goddess transformed Medusa to resemble her sister as punishment. Her hair turned into snakes and she had the power to petrify with her gaze.
When Perseus decapitated Medusa, his sisters Stheno and Euryale mourned her death with mournful sounds emitted from the mouths of the snakes that populated their heads, and it is said that Athena imitated such sounds with a reed, thus inventing the flute. And on her shield she uses the head of Medusa for her protection.
Roman fable of Arachne
The fable of Arachne is a later Roman addition to classical Greek myth, which of course does not appear in the mythical repertoire of Attic vase painters. Arachne's name (αράχνη) simply means 'spider'. She was the daughter of a famous purple dyer from Tire of Hipaipa (Lydia). Arachne became so conceited of her skills as her weaver that she began to brag about being better than Athena herself.
Athena gave her a chance to redeem herself by assuming the form of an old woman and warning Arachne not to offend the gods. She was mocked and wished for a weaving contest, so she could demonstrate her skill. Athena wove the scene of her victory over Poseidon that had inspired her patronage of Athens. According to the Latin story, Arachne's tapestry showed twenty-one episodes of infidelity of the gods: Zeus with Leda, with Europa, with Danae, and so on.
Even Athena admitted that Arachne's handiwork was perfect, but was enraged by the disrespectful choice, which showed the errors and transgressions of the gods. In anger, she destroyed Arachne's tapestry and loom by striking them with her spear. When Arachne noticed the nonsense, she hanged herself. In Ovid's account, Athena took pity on her and turned her into a spider.
This fable suggests that the art of weaving originated in the imitation of spiders and was thought to have been first perfected in Asia Minor.
Name, etymology and origin
Athena had a special relationship with "Athens", as evidenced by the etymological connection of the names of the goddess and the city, a plural name because it alluded to the place where she presided over her brotherhood, the Athenai, in earlier times: «Mycenae was the city where the goddess was called Mycenae (Mykene), and Mycenae is the plural name for the female brotherhood that attended her there. In Thebes she was called Theba, and the name of that city is also in the plural. Similarly, in Athens she was called Aten(e)a." Whether or not her name appears in Minoan is a question that will have to wait for Linear A to be deciphered.
Günther Neumann has suggested that the name "Athena" is possibly Lydian in origin: it may be a compound word derived in part from the Tyrsenic ati, 'mother', and from the name of the mother goddess Hurrian Ḫannaḫanna,
abbreviated in various places to Ana. In Mycenaean Greece, the theonym A-ta-na-po-ti-ni-ja appears only once inscribed on tablets V 52 in Linear B from Knossos in the "Room of the Tablets of the Chariot" from the Second Late Minoan Era (according to the chronology established by Arthur Evans). Although Athana potniya is often translated as 'Lady Athena', it literally means 'the potnia from At(h)ana', perhaps meaning 'the Lady of Athens'. Any relationship to the city of Athens in the Knossos inscription is uncertain.
In his dialogue Cratylus, the Greek philosopher Plato gives the etymology of the name Athena, from the point of view of the ancient Athenians:
This, my friend, has more weight. Now it seems that the ancients had on Athena the same idea as the current ones understood in Homer. And it is that most of these, when they comment on the poet, say that Athena is responsible for intelligence (nous...self and thought (dianoia). He who put the names thought, as it seems, something similar about it; and, more importantly, wanting to designate the "intelligence of God" (intelligence of God).theoû nóēsis), says – more or less – that she is the “divine intelligence” (Theonóa), using the ‘a’ of other dialects, instead of ‘e’, and eliminating both ‘i’ and ‘s’. And even maybe not even for this reason, but he called her. Theonóē in the idea that she, above others, "knows" (Noousēs) the “divine things” (tà theîa). Of course it's not triggered that I would also like to designate Ethonóē to “ethical intelligence”tōi éthei nóēsis) in the idea that the goddess is this. And, either he or someone else, they called her later. Athēnáa transforming it into a more beautiful name, as they believed.
Thus, for Plato his name came from the Greek Ἀθεονόα Atheonóa, which the Greeks rationalized as the mind (nous) of the deity (theos).
The Greek historian Herodotus noted that the Egyptian citizens of Sais worshiped a goddess whose Egyptian name was Neit, and identified her with Athena.
Some authors believe that Athena descended from a primitive bird goddess. In book III of the Odyssey, Athena takes the form of an eagle or sea eagle. These authors argue that she abandoned her bird mask before she lost her wings. "Athena, by the time she appears in art," noted Harrison, "had shed her animal form entirely, reducing the serpentine and bird forms she once held to attributes, but she still occasionally appears winged on painted vases." of black figures."
Roles and functions
A whole series of fables and usages, belonging especially to Athenian religion, represent Athena as the helper and protector of agriculture, role under which the goddess is represented as the inventor of the plow and the rake. He created the olive tree, taught people to harness oxen for plowing, tended to the breeding of horses, and instructed men in taming them with bridles, another invention of his. The two deities Erechtheus and Ericthonius, honored in Attica as powers of the fertile soil, are his foster children. The names of her first priestesses, the daughters of Cecrops, Aglauros, Pándroso and Herse, mean 'bright air', 'dew' and 'rain', and are mere personifications of their qualities, of great value to the Athenian territory.
In addition to inventions relating to agriculture, others related to various types of science, industry and art were also attributed to him, and all his inventions are not of the kind that men would make by chance or accident, but require thought and thought. meditation. The invention of numbers, the car and navigation can be pointed out. In the Athenian story he teaches Ericthonius to tie his horses to the chariot, and in the Corinthian he teaches Bellerophon to master Pegasus. Regarding all types of useful arts, it was believed that he had familiarized men with the means and instruments that were necessary to practice them, as with the art of producing fire. It was also believed that she had invented almost all types of work in which women were employed, such as spinning and weaving, and was skilled at them herself. Even in Homer all the products of female art are described as "works of Athena." Many palladiums (statues of Pallas) carried a spindle and distaff in their left hand. Her genius covers the field of music and dance: she was the inventor of the flute and trumpet, as well as the Pyrrhic war dance, of which it was said that she was its oldest performer, in the celebration of victory of the gods over the Giants. In short, Athena and Hephaestus were the great patrons of both useful and elegant arts. For this reason she was called Ergane, and later authors made her goddess of all wisdom, knowledge and art, and represented her sitting at the right hand of her father Zeus and supporting him with her advice.
Like all other deities who were supposed to dispense the blessings of nature, she is the protector of the growth of children, and as the goddess of clear skies and pure air, she bestows health and wards off disease. Furthermore, in Athens she was a patron deity of the state and the protector (with Zeus) of the phratries and houses that formed the foundation of the state. In Athens and Sparta she protected the popular and deliberative assemblies. Elsewhere she presided over the largest unions of people. She also maintained the authority of law, justice, and order, in the courts and the town assembly. This notion was as old as the Homeric poems, in which Athena is described as aiding Odysseus against the lawless conduct of suitors. She was believed to have instituted the ancient court of the Areopagus, and in cases where the vows of the judges were tied, gave the decider in favor of the defendant.
Athena promoted the internal prosperity of the state, by encouraging agriculture and industry and by maintaining law and order in all public transactions, and in the same way also protected it from foreign enemies, and thus assumed the character of a deity of war, although in a very different sense from Ares, Eris or Enio. According to Homer he did not even carry weapons, instead borrowing them from Zeus, guarding men from slaughter when prudence required it, and repelling Ares' savage love of war by conquering it. Athena does not love war for its own sake. itself, but only because of the advantages that the state gained by undertaking it, and therefore only supports those warlike enterprises that were prudently started and likely to yield favorable results. In times of war, cities, fortresses, and ports come under their control. special protection.
As a prudent goddess of war, she was also the protector of all the heroes who distinguished themselves for their prudence and good advice, as well as for their strength and courage, such as Heracles, Perseus, Bellerophon, Achilles, Jason, Diomedes and Odysseus. As the goddess of war and protector of heroes, Athena usually appears in armor, with the aegis and a golden rod, with which she grants her favorite youth and majesty.
Worship
Athena was worshiped in all parts of Greece, her relationship with Triton suggesting that her earliest places of worship in Greece are located on the banks of this Boeotian river, which emptied into Lake Copais, and where there were two ancient cities Pelasgas, Athens and Eleusis, which were, according to tradition, swallowed by the lake. From there her cult was carried in a very ancient period by the Minias to Attica, Libya and other countries. In Athens she became the great national divinity of the city and the country, and was later considered by the Athenians the ϑεὰ σώτειρα, ὑγίεια, παιωνία (“goddess of salvation, health and preservation”), being consecrated to her the serpent, the symbol of perpetual renewal. In Lindos (Rhodes) her cult was equally very ancient, being worshiped as the goddess who helped Danio to build the first fifty-oared boat. Among the things that were consecrated to him can also be mentioned the little owl (many times translated with the generic name of 'owl'), the rooster and the olive tree, which it was said that he had created in his contest with Poseidon for the possession of Attica.. In Corone (Messenia), his statue carried a crow in his hand.
Sacrifices offered to Athena consisted of bulls, from which she probably got the epithet Taurobolus (ταυροϐόλος), lambs, and cows. Eustatius notes that only females were sacrificed to her, with the exception of lambs. At Ilium it was said that Locrian maidens or children were sacrificed to him every year as atonement for the crime committed by Ajas Locrius with Cassandra, and the Suda, a Byzantine text from the X, states that these sacrifices continued to be offered to him until 346 BC. C.
Several festivals were celebrated in Attica referring to Athena's role as protector of agriculture: the Calinterias and Plinterias, the Scirophorias, the Arrephorias or Hersephorias, and the Oscophorias, which were common to Athena and Dionysus. Even the main festival, the Panatheneas, was originally a harvest festival. The sowing was opened in with three sacred services of the plow. Of these, two were in honor of Athena as the inventor of the plow, while the third was held in honor of Demeter. At the beginning of spring, she was given thanks in advance (προχαριστήρια) for the protection she would provide to the fields. It is significant that the presentation of the peplos or cloak, the main offering of the celebration, took place in the planting season.
She was adored in the Calceas (or festival of blacksmiths) as a lady and protector of arts and crafts. The Apaturia festival made a direct reference to the character of the goddess as protector of the state. The festival of Athena Itonia in Coronea was a confederate festival of all Boeotia. She was worshiped with Erechtheus in the temple named after her (the Erechtheum), the oldest sanctuary on the Acropolis of Athens.
Epithets
The most common Homeric epithet for Athena, glaucopis ("γλαυκῶπις"), is usually translated as 'bright-eyed' and is a combination of γλαύκος glaukos ('bright', 'silver', and later 'heron' or 'grey') and ὤψ ôps ('eye', or sometimes 'face'). It is interesting to note that γλαῦξ glaux, 'little owl', has the same root, presumably because of its characteristic eyes.
In the Iliad, in the Homeric hymns and in Hesiod's Theogony, Athena is given the curious epithet Tritogenia, whose meaning exact is not clear. It seems to mean "born of Triton", perhaps indicating that this sea god was her father according to some ancient myths, or less likely that she was born near Lake Triton in Africa. Others derive this epithet from an ancient Cretan, Aeolian or Boeotian word, τριτώ, which means 'head', so the epithet would be 'born from the head', and others believe that it was intended to commemorate the circumstance of being born in the third day of the month ('third born').
Athena was often equated with Afea (Αφαία), a local goddess from the island of Aegina, located near Athens, after it came under its control. The Greek historian Plutarch also alludes to an example during the construction of Parthenon in which she was called Hygieia (Ὑγεία Hygeía , 'healthy'):
A wonderful case that occurred while being built showed that the goddess, far from repulsing the work, took part in it and came to its perfection. The most laborious and active of the artists stumbled and fell from the top, being so mistreated that the doctors evicted him. Pericles, and the Goddess, appearing among dreams, told him a medicine with which he quickly and easily made good. For this event he placed in the citadel the bronze statue of Athena Higía next to the ara, which is said to be there before. Fidias also made the golden statue of the goddess, and at the base is read the inscription that appoints him the author of it.
Other epithets are:
- Acrea (φκρα).α).
- Acria (φκρα), with which he was worshipped in Argos.
- AethytaHe was worshipped in Megara. The word αίθυια (aithyia) means ‘gooder’ and figuratively ‘bark’, so the title should allude Atenea as a teacher of the art of shipbuilding and navigation.
- Ageleia (φγελεία, ‘which prevails in battles’)
- Agiopoinos (φιόποινος, ‘vener’).
- Agiraia (φγυρα).α).
- Alalcomeneis (φλαλκομενη).ς, ‘defensive power’, or Alalcomeneo).
- Alcidemo (φλκδημος, ‘defensor of the people’).
- Alcimaca (φλκιμάχη).
- Areia, for his role in the trial conducted at Areopagus to Orestes for the death of his mother, Clitemnestra.
- Atritona ((τρυτρυτον τον τον Çον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ον ο Atrytone“Incansable”).
- Boarmia (βοαρμία, ‘protector of oxen’).
- Boudeia (βοσδεια, ‘god of oxen’).
- Boulaia (βουλα).α, ‘consejera’).
- Calinitis (χαλιν).τις, ‘de la brida’).
- Cidonia (Κυδονα), in a temple of Frixa (Elide), which was built by Clímeno de Cidonia.
- Cledoucos (κληδο).χος).
- Ergane (/25070/ργνη) as a protector of the artisans. Under this name it is mentioned in several inscriptions found in the Acropolis.
- Erisiptolis (/25070/ρυσεολις, ‘protector of the city’).
- Lafria (λαφρία).
- Hipia (.πία, ‘ecuestre’) as the inventor of the car, title under which it was worshiped in Athens, Tegea and Olympia. With this name he received a different kinship: daughter of Poseidon and Polife, and sister of Ocean.
- Laoos (λαόσος, ‘beneficial’).
- Meganitis (μχηαν).τις, ‘de gran recurso’).
- Oftalmutis (γφθαλμ).τις).
- Oguderces (vaginal.......)
- Optiletis (γπτιλέτις, ‘de vista acute’).
- Palas (PMαλάς) Pallás), of controversial meaning, that could be ‘doncella’ or ‘the one that softens the shield’. The epithet is the name of the giant who according to some traditions was his father and the one who killed when he tried to rape her, or of a sister, sister of milk, companion or opponent in the battle he accidentally killed, making the palate and putting his name on his own as homage. On this matter, Burkert says that “is the Palau de Athens, Pallas AthenaieLike the Hera of Argos is Here Argeie».
- Panaqueaunder whom she was worshipped as a goddess of the aquea league.
- Stop us. (PMαρθ) Parthénos, ‘virgen’), as was worshipped in the Parthenon, especially during the Panthena. (See above.)
- Pilaitis (πυλα).τις).
- Polyester (πολιάς, ‘of the city’), as protector of Athens and the Acropolis, but also of other cities, such as Argos, Sparta, Gortina, Lindos and Larisa.
- Polioucos (πολιο,χος, ‘who protects the city’)
- Poluboulos (πολŭβουλος, 'of good counsel').
- Polumetis (πολς γτις, ‘of many inventions’).
- Promacorma (προμαχόρμα, ‘bay defensor’).
- Plants (GENERAL) Plants“What fights ahead”) when he led the battle.
- Trionia
Classical representations and attributes
Athena was frequently depicted in works of art, but it was Phidias who established her ideal type in three statues, most famously erected on the Acropolis of Athens:
- The colossal chryselephantine statue (launched in ivory and gold) of Atenea Pártenos, 12 m high approximately (comprisoned the 1,50 m pedestal) located in the Partenón. The goddess was represented wearing a long robe that fell to his feet, and on his chest he had the aegis with the head of the Gorgona. He had a helmet on his head and had a six-foot-high Niké on one hand, and on the other one spear, with which he supported against a shield adorned with scenes from the battles of the Amazons with the Giants. At his feet he had a snake.
- The bronze statue of Athena Promacos, founded by the Athenians in the battle of Marathon, located between the Propiles and the Erecteion. The proportions of this statue were so huge that the brilliant tip of the spear and the hull prick were visible to the sailors who approached the Pireus from Sunion.
- The Lemnia Palas, so called because it had been dedicated by the Athenian clerks of Lemnos. The appeal of this statue earned him the nickname of “the beautiful one”. Like the former, she was bronze, and by representing Athena as a goddess of peace, she had no helmet.
A large number of representations of Athena are preserved in statues, colossal busts, reliefs, coins, and painted vessels. Among the attributes that characterize the goddess in these works of art are:
- The helmet of corinthian typology, which usually carries on the head, well raised on the forehead to reveal his face with a gesture of peaceful greeting, but which in a few cases bears in hand. It is often adorned in the most beautiful way with taps, lamb heads, horses and sfinges.
- The aegis, a goat-skin corsat that was said in later myths was given to him by his father, Zeus, although he was related to him long before in other cultural contexts.
- The archaic round shield in which the center appears gorgoneion, the head of the gorgona Medusa, the hallmark of the worship of the primitive goddess in Greece that received the highest position in the vertex of the Parthenon's frontispt (then it was said that his shield was a votive gift of Perseus).
- Objects to her consecrated, such as the olive branch, the serpent, the young man, the rooster and the spear.
Her attire is usually the sleeveless Spartan tunic, over which she wears a tunic, the peplos, or, though rarely, the chlamys. The general expression of her figure is thoughtful and serious, her face is more oval than round, her hair is rich and generally combed back over the temples, flowing freely behind. The complete figure is stately, and stronger than slender: the hips are small and the shoulders are broad, so that overall it is somewhat reminiscent of a male figure.
In earlier archaic portraits of Athena on painted vases, the goddess retains some of her Minoan-Mycenaean character, such as the large bird wings, but this is not true of archaic sculptures such as those of Athena Aphea, where she subsumed a goddess earlier invisibly numinous, Afea, with Cretan connections in her myths.
The Pensive Athena is a relief dated around 460 B.C. C. that represents a tired Athena resting on a rod.
Athena today
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The figure of Athena appears in most government buildings and parliaments in America and Europe, as well as on many shields and coins, representing protection, generally represented with her spear, shield, and a Phrygian beret.
It is the subject of the 1915-S Panama-Pacific $50 commemorative coin. At 2.5 troy ounces (78 g) of gold, it is the largest coin (by weight) ever minted by the United States. It was the first $50 coin minted and no larger ones were produced until the platinum $100 coins of 1997. Of course, in adjusted face value terms, the 1915 is the largest denomination ever issued by the United States.
A bust of the goddess, depicted in profile, is the central element of the current version of the shield of Athens. This emblem has the characteristic design of a seal.
For nearly a century, a life-size replica of the Parthenon has been erected in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, a city known as the Athens of the South. In 1990, a large replica of the Phidias goddess statue, about 12.5m high and gilded, was added. The California stamp includes an image of Athena sitting next to a grizzly bear.
A statue of the skeptical thinker Ernest Renan caused a great deal of controversy when it was installed in Tréguier (Brittany). The biography of Jesus written by Renan in 1862 had denied his divinity, and he had written the Prayer on the Acropolis addressed to the goddess Athena. The statue was placed next to the cathedral, with Renan's head facing away while Athena, next to her, raises her arm as if challenging the building. The installation was accompanied by a massive protest by local Catholics and a religious service against the growth of skepticism and secularism.
In the Japanese manga of Saint Seiya (1985), the goddess revolves around the incarnations that develop in her narrative and by which she is defended by her warriors, being Saori Kido her current depositary.
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