Athena: The Greek Pantheon of Gods: A Mythological Encyclopedia. Who is the goddess Athena in ancient Greek mythology, what is she known for
Athena was the Greek goddess of wisdom, military strategy and crafts. She was a majestic warrior and the only Olympian goddess to wear armor. The visor of her helmet was thrown back so that her beauty would not be hidden from prying eyes. She often led battles in military conflicts and dealt with everyday issues during periods of peace. She was depicted with a spear in one hand and a bowl (or spindle) in the other.
The goddess adhered to chastity and remained celibate, and devoted her existence to the protection of selected Athenian heroes, her city of the same name. The Greeks doubly revered her for the fact that:
- she gave them a bridle so they could tame horses;
- inspired shipbuilders in their craft;
- taught plowmen to cultivate the land, use rakes, and harness an ox to a yoke;
- taught the Athenians to drive a chariot.
A special gift to Athens from a warlike woman was an olive tree. She was known for her excellent planning and strategic thinking abilities. Practicality has become distinctive feature wise woman. She had a very strong will, and her intellect prevailed over her emotional manifestations. Townspeople often met the goddess on the streets of the city.
Versions of origin
According to the Homeric hymn, she came to the Greek mainland, leaving her father's home in Crete. She then began to rule Athens, the main city ancient world, while maintaining the symbolism of its ancient personality. Greek myth tells of a contest between Athena and Poseidon, god of the sea. Both wanted to rule the city of Athens, and neither would give in to the other. But a vote was arranged and citizens gathered to cast their votes.
However, the men did not want to stick to this vote count. They passed three new laws:
- prohibiting women from voting;
- deprives women of citizenship;
- forcing fathers to name their children.
The story of her birth was also changed to an unknown story about a girl born from the head of the main Olympian god Zeus. That's why the girl's genesis looks so masculine. Thanks to her noble origins, she found a place on.
There is another story that shows this beauty in a different light. It says that our heroine was the daughter of Pallas, a winged giant who tried to rape her - his virgin daughter. She became enraged and killed him, then skinned him to make a shield and cut off his wings.
Therefore, she never communicated with men, remaining a virgin forever. Oddly enough, she had one son. once tried to take possession of a warrior, impressing her with his artistic abilities. Although she escaped from her pursuer, some of his seed fell on her thigh. This led to the birth of Erichthonius, who remained forever outside the sight of the goddess. IN Greek mythology The story of Hephaestus differs slightly from the above and says that the warrior goddess raised this son.
Deity symbols
The goddess, because of her wisdom, is often symbolized by the owl and snake, which are located in the famous Parthenon temple, built especially for Athena.
- A charming owl appears on early Athenian coins as an alternative image to the goddess herself. In some images she sits on the shoulder of the goddess or flies above her. The owl suggests that her strength is so great that the enemy needs to keep this in mind and keep the situation under control, fearing the owner of such warlike potential.
- The snake is a symbol of protection for grain stored for the winter, otherwise it would feed mice. The snake’s ability to shed its skin and renew it is known: this implies a connection with rebirth. The statue of the beauty with the image of a snake conveyed a powerful message of protective power and justification of the hopes of those who entered the temple in her name.
- Armor and weapons are also symbols of beauty. Very often she appeared wearing a helmet, while carrying a shield and a spear. Researchers have noted that with the growth of private property, previously peace-loving goddesses began to appear as goddesses of war. As land began to go to wealthier citizens, mostly men, the goddess took over new role intercessor of the city and guardian of wealth.
She is also represented as the patroness of weaving. Once she took and turned the skilled weaver Arachne into a spider because of her malice and disregard for divine origin Athena and claims to greater talent than the goddess herself. In those days, textile production was an important part of the economy of each home, as well as the population as a whole. Without such wealth there would be no need for protection.
Is Athena the child of Zeus?
The most common myth is that the wise warrior Athena was born as an adult, jumping out of the head of the Thunderer. “gave birth” to her after a severe migraine, from which his head split in two! Her mother was the goddess of reason Metis, but Athena never acknowledged this fact.
Who did the goddess of military strategy help?
She was a protector, advisor, patron and ally of heroic people:
- she helped Perseus with advice and objects to kill Medusa the Gorgon, a monster who had snakes instead of hair;
- helped Jason and the Argonauts build a ship before they set off for the Golden Fleece;
- watched Achilles during the Trojan Battle;
- achieved victory over her brother;
- helped
If we start with Athena’s “official duties,” the list is truly amazing. She patronizes not only wisdom and war. Athena was considered the goddess of a large list of crafts: shipbuilding, weaving, spinning, making horse harness and metal products, pottery and plowing. She patronized the medicinal art and taught it to the god of medicine, Asclepius. She invented statehood and laws, taught people to cook on the hearth.
In fact, the description of what Athena gave to people and what she patronized is very similar to the gifts and areas of influence of the supreme deities or demigods - the founders of civilization among many other peoples. Why then is Zeus considered the supreme god?
Birth of Athena. Drawing on a vaseIt must be said that in the Greek lands a large number of large and small deities were revered, and for a very long time not one of them was considered the main one over all the other gods. A coherent system, in which each god has his own place in the huge Olympic family, was the result of the priests and thinkers bringing all local beliefs to a certain general appearance. This happened already at the time of the formation of a clear power hierarchy of society, the strengthening of statehood, and new system The hierarchy of the gods corresponded to new ideas about how any community in the world should be structured.
So the gods got their own king. He became the god of thunder, lightning and, possibly, fair vengeance - Zeus. Together with new role he probably acquired new functions - exactly those that the divine reflection of the earthly king and patriarch of the family should have had.
Zeus is considered the father of Athena. According to one version of events, he swallowed the goddess of thought Metis, after which Zeus had a terrible headache. Hephaestus, the blacksmith god, split his head, and Athena and the goddess of victory Nike flew out. In another version, Metis is also absent, and Athena turns out to be the embodied thought of Zeus. Some researchers believe that such a terrifying method of birth speaks of the antiquity of the myth; others consider the version with Metis and the head of Zeus to be an attempt to reconcile and connect the lines of the official supreme god and the much more popular and significant goddess for the common people.
Painting by René-Antoine Ouasse The plot with the giant Pallas can probably be considered closer to the original birth story. At least the story of the goddess killing her father - a cruel old god trying to rape his daughter - logically parallels the story of Zeus, who rebelled against his father Kronos, who devoured his own children. When people's ideas about what is good and bad change, stories appear about how new deities kill old ones who are too wild and ferocious.
By the way, in another story with Pallas, his daughter turns out to be Athena’s playmate Nick. Perhaps Nike and Athena were originally sisters and killed their rapist father together. Either way, they are portrayed as inseparable.
Defender of women
Athena has a difficult relationship not only with Zeus. Firstly, it partially duplicates both his functions and the functions of some other gods, for example, Ares, the god of war, and Hephaestus, the god of blacksmiths and crafts. Secondly, she constantly competes with Ares and Poseidon, the god of the oceans, and invariably emerges victorious from the confrontation with them. But Poseidon is the brother of Zeus, the king of the gods. Athena is shown to be virtually his equal in strength.
One of Athena's constant opponents is the god of the seas Poseidon The most famous myth about their confrontation is the dispute over who will become the patron of the city of Athens. It is usually known in this form: the gods decide to see who can give people a more valuable gift. Poseidon sticks a trident into the ground, and a spring gushes out of the rock. Athena stabs the spear and it turns into an olive tree. But the spring contains salty sea water instead of fresh water. Poseidon's gift is declared useless, and Athena wins. The city is named after her.
There is another version of this myth. When it is the Athenians' turn to vote for the gods, all the men choose Poseidon and all the women choose Athena. There are one more women than men. The goddess wins. Enraged, Poseidon causes a flood that nearly wipes out the city. As punishment, Athenian women are forever deprived of the right to vote, citizenship, and the right to pass on their name (like patronymic) to their children.
Athena was depicted in royal robes and armor This myth shows, first of all, how popular Athena was among women. And not without reason. She patronized not only weaving and spinning. People approached her with requests to help get pregnant or save her from rape (who else?). For example, the Trojan princess Cassandra prayed to Athena for the latter. Athena could not help her, but took revenge by depriving the rapist of his mind. Athena herself in myths cleverly avoids rape. Father Zeus gives her as a wife to Hephaestus in payment for weapons for the gods. Hephaestus tries to take Athena by force, but she fights off and runs away.
Goddess of beauty and fertility
Another feature of Athena that is often forgotten is beauty and power over beauty. She participates in stories where her beauty is challenged. For example, during the famous trial of Paris, she competes equally with the main female goddess Hera and the goddess of beauty and love Aphrodite (by the way, the wife of Hephaestus). During the celebrations, a tall and at the same time very beautiful hetaera was chosen to portray Athena. Athena herself also bestows beauty and youth on Odysseus and Penelope when Odysseus returns home. She patronizes them and acts as a lover to a couple. So researchers have every reason to believe that the image of Aphrodite could be separated from the image of Athena. Hence the “common” husband.
Is the image of a goddess of both love and war surprising? No. It's not even unique. The ancient Akkadian goddess Ishtar, for example, combines these qualities. Only, unlike Ishtar, the goddess of war Athena and her favorites Odysseus and Achilles avoid war in every possible way. Odysseus finds a way to prevent war over the wedding of Helen the Beautiful, for example. True, he still has to participate in the war because of her next marriage.
Rebecca Guay. Athena We can judge the antiquity of Athena as a deity by the fact that she has animal attributes: she is associated with owls and snakes. She has “owl eyes” (that is, sparkling), she is depicted together with an owl. She conceives a snake son from Hephaestus (although she bears the conceived Gaia), on her shield is the head of a Gorgon with snake hair, Virgil describes her armor as covered with snake scales.
Snakes are a very archaic symbol of both fertility and connection with the afterlife. In addition, psychoanalysts interpret goddesses with snakes or snake attributes as female matriarchs who have tamed or appropriated the aggressive masculine principle. On Crete, an island where Athena was especially revered, many very ancient figurines of a female deity with snakes in her hands are found. Perhaps the Cretan snake goddess is related to Owl-Eye! It is significant that women in Crete were active social life.
And maybe the Athenians once did too. And the myth about the dispute between Athena and Poseidon was needed to establish as a matter of course the deprivation of the citizens of Athens from their civil rights. Anyway, one day the Greek gods lost to Christianity, and the temples of Athena, including famous Parthenon, were destroyed by people and time.
ATHENA - in Greek mythology, the goddess of wisdom and just war. The myth of the birth of Athena from Zeus and Metis (“wisdom”, Greek metis - “thought”, reflection) - the period of the formation of classical Olympic mythology. httr://www.5ballov.ru/referats/preview/19024/4
The birth of Athena is depicted in this myth from the standpoint of the heroic mythology of the patriarchal period, in which the male organizing principle was especially prominent. Athena is, as it were, a direct continuation of Zeus, the executor of his plans and will. She is the thought of Zeus, realized in action. Gradually, the motherhood of Metis takes on an increasingly abstract, and even symbolic, character, so that Athena is considered the offspring of Zeus alone and takes on the functions of the deity of wisdom, just as Zeus took them from Metis. Right there.
Zeus, knowing from Gaia and Uranus that his son from Metis would deprive him of power, swallowed his pregnant wife and then, with the help of Hephaestus (or Prometheus), who split his head with an ax, he himself gave birth to Athena, who emerged from his head in fully armed. Since this event supposedly took place near the lake (or river) Triton in Libya, Athena received the nickname Tritonidae or Tritogenae. Right there.
Athena is one of the most important figures not only in Olympic mythology; she is equal in importance to Zeus and sometimes even surpasses him, rooted in the most ancient period of the development of Greek mythology - matriarchy. She is equal in strength and wisdom to Zeus. She is given honors after Zeus and her place is closest to Zeus. Along with the new functions of the goddess of military power, Athena retained her matriarchal independence, manifested in her understanding as a maiden and protector of chastity. http://www.5ballov.ru/referats/preview/19024/4
The origins of Athena's wisdom go back to the image of the goddess with snakes of the Cretan-Mycenaean period. The image of a goddess with a shield of Mycenaean times is a prototype of Olympian Athena. Among the indispensable attributes of Athena is the aegis - a shield made of goatskin with the head of the snake-haired Medusa, which has enormous magical power, frightening gods and people. Right there.
There is numerous information about the cosmic features of the image of Athena. Her birth is accompanied by golden showers, she guards the lightning of Zeus. Her image, the so-called palladium, fell from the sky (hence Pallas Athena). Right there.
According to Herodotus, Athena is the daughter of Poseidon and the nymph Tritonis. Athena was identified with the daughters of Kekrops - Pandrosa ("all-wet") and Aglavra ("light-air"), or Agravla ("field-furrowed"). Right there.
The sacred tree of Athena was the olive. Athena's olive trees were considered the "trees of fate", and Athena herself was thought of as fate and the Great Mother Goddess. Right there.
The powerful goddess of the archaic, the owner of the aegis, Athena, during the period of heroic mythology, directs her strength to fight the titans and giants. Together with Hercules, Athena kills one of the giants, she piles the island of Sicily on another, and tears off the skin of a third and covers her body with it during the battle. Right there.
She is the killer of the gorgon Medusa and goes by the name "Gorgon Slayer". Athena demands sacred respect; no mortal can see her. There is a well-known myth about how she deprived young Tiresias (the son of her favorite Chariklo) of his sight when he accidentally saw her ablution. http://www.5ballov.ru/referats/preview/19024/4
Classical Athena is endowed with ideological and organizing functions: she patronizes heroes, protects public order, etc. Zeus sent Athena to help Hercules, and he brought the dog of the god Hades out of Erebus. Athena's favorite was Odysseus, an intelligent and brave hero. In Homer's poems (especially the Odyssey), not a single important event occurs without the intervention of Athena. She is the main defender of the Achaean Greeks and the constant enemy of the Trojans, although her cult also existed in Troy. Athena is the protector of Greek cities (Athens, Argos, Megara, Sparta, etc.), bearing the name “city defender”. Right there.
A huge statue of Athena Promachos (“front line fighter”) with a spear shining in the sun adorned the Acropolis in Athens, where the Erechtheion and Parthenon temples were dedicated to the goddess. Right there.
A monument to the glorification of the wise ruler of the Athenian state, the founder of the Areopagus, is the tragedy of Aeschylus “Eumenides”. Right there.
Athena is always considered in the context of artistic craft, art, craftsmanship. She helps potters, weavers, needlewomen, and working people in general. Athena helped Prometheus steal fire from Hephaestus's forge. Right there.
Athena is credited with inventing the flute and teaching Apollo to play it. Her touch alone is enough to make a person beautiful (she raised Odysseus to stature, endowed him with curly hair, and clothed him with strength and attractiveness). She endowed Penelope with amazing beauty on the eve of meeting her husband. http://www.5ballov.ru/referats/preview/19024/4
Athena is the goddess of wisdom. She is characterized by wisdom in government affairs. For late antiquity, Athena was the principle of the indivisibility of the cosmic Mind and a symbol of comprehensive world wisdom. Athena was revered as the legislator and patroness of Athenian statehood - Phratria ("brotherly"), Bulaya ("councillor"), Soteira ("savior"), Pronoia ("provider").
Although the cult of Athena was widespread throughout mainland and island Greece (Arcadia, Argolis, Corinth, Sikyon, Thessaly, Boeotia, Crete, Rhodes), Athena was especially revered in Attica, in Athens (the name of the city of Athens was associated by the Greeks with the name of the patron goddess of the city) . Agricultural holidays were dedicated to her. During these celebrations, the statue of Athena was washed, and the young men took an oath of civil service to the goddess. Right there.
In Rome, Athena was identified with Minerva. Two large passages from Ovid's Fast are devoted to the Roman festivals of Minerva. Throughout antiquity, Athena remains evidence of the organizing and directing power of reason, which organizes cosmic and social life, glorifying the strict foundations of a state based on democratic legislation. Right there.
The image of Athena is reflected in many significant monuments of Greek sculpture. The giant statue of "Athena Parthenos" by Phidias, erected in Athens in the Parthenon in 438 BC, has not survived and is known to us from several smaller copies. Numerous figurines of the goddess have been preserved. Certain scenes from the myths about Athena are reflected in the relief plastic of the temples, for example, a multi-figure group on the eastern pediment of the Parthenon depicts the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus; on the western pediment, the dispute between Athena and Poseidon for the possession of the land of Attica is embodied. http://www.5ballov.ru/referats/preview/19024/4
Scenes dedicated to the birth of Athena, her participation in the Trojan War, and a dispute with Poseidon were common in Greek vase painting. There are images of Athena on Pompeii frescoes. Right there.
During the Renaissance, Athena is depicted in accordance with the ancient artistic tradition - in a shell and helmet. In a number of scenes, Athena appears as the personification of wisdom and symbolizes the triumph of reason ("Minerva conquers ignorance" by B. Spranger, "The Kingdom of Minerva" by A. Elsheimer), virtue and chastity ("Pallas and the Centaur" by S. Botticelli, "The Victory of Virtue over Sin" by A. . Mantegna), the world ("Minerva and Mars" by J. Tintoretto, P. Veronese, etc.). Right there.
Pallas Athena (Παλλάς Άθηνά) – ancient greek goddess war and victory, as well as wisdom, knowledge, arts and crafts, was one of the supreme deities and was revered throughout the ancient Hellenic world. Athena symbolizes the clarity of the ether, the heavenly force that controls lightning, clouds and luminaries, fertilizes the fields, gives birth to all living things and educates humanity. Subsequently, Athena became the goddess of spiritual activity, artistic thinking and science.
IN ancient greek mythology The fifth child of Zeus, according to legend, was the daughter Athena, who was born in a very unusual way. Zeus, in secret from Hera, married the daughter of Ocean, the Nereid Thetis, but fearing that he would have a son who would surpass his father in power, Zeus swallowed his pregnant wife. The ripened fruit ended up after some time in his head, from where, with the help of Hephaestus (according to other legends, with the help of Prometheus and Hermes), who cut the head of Zeus with an ax, a warlike goddess was born in full armor in the terrible confusion of all nature. According to another version of the legend, Zeus and Hera decided to try whether it was possible to produce offspring without marital embraces: Hera gave birth to Hephaestus, Zeus gave birth to Pallas Athena. As a child, Athena amazed everyone with her intelligence, zeal for learning and gaining knowledge, so it is no coincidence that when Athena grew up, her father made her the goddess of wisdom, the patroness of sciences, crafts and inventions.
As the goddess of courage and militancy, Athena is known in the Homeric legends of the epic Iliad. Perseus, Bellerophon, Tydeus, Jason, Hercules, Achilles, Diomedes, Odysseus are her favorite heroes. In contrast to Ares, the deity of mad courage, Athena personifies conscious courage and bravery; she gives help to her favorites in moments of extreme danger and leads them to victory; therefore, the goddess Nike is her constant companion. As a goddess - a woman with traits of masculinity and courage, Athena is contrasted with Aphrodite, a purely feminine goddess.
Athena taught Erichthonius to tame and harness horses; maintained friendly relations with the wise Centaur Chiron, whom Athena herself endowed with a brilliant mind and much knowledge; taught Bellerophon to tame the winged Pegasus. She had a close relationship with horse racing and maritime affairs; So, with her help, Danaus built a fifty-oared ship for crossing to Greece, and the Argonauts built the ship Argo; wooden horse, which contributed to the destruction of Troy, was built as a gift to her. Later, myths of an ethical nature were included in the legends about Athena, and new features were added to the mentioned features of her divine character. Athena became the goddess of peace and prosperity, sanctified marriages, helped during childbirth, sent health to people, averted illness and misfortune, patronized the reproduction of families and clans, and promoted the prosperity of cities.
Star atlas "Uranography" by John Hevelius, 1690
One day, Athena entered into a competition with her uncle Poseidon, the god of the seas, for the right to give her name to the capital of Hellas - a beautiful white-stone city with giant palaces, temples built in honor of the gods, and sports stadiums. The competition was judged by the city residents themselves. Poseidon promised to give them a lot of water, and Athena gave the city a seedling olive tree and said that with him they would always have food and money. The townspeople believed the goddess Athena.
Since then, the main city of Greece has been called Athens (Greek Αθήναι, Latin Athenae). In honor of the great patroness, the famous Acropolis complex, unsurpassed in beauty, was built on the highest hill in the city. This is what they called in the old days the ancient fortress city, which was always built on the very high place cities. Its central palace was dedicated to Athena and was called the Parthenon (translated from Greek as maiden). An olive tree always grows on the territory of the Acropolis, and the expression “Appear with an olive branch in your hands” speaks of the intention of the visitor to resolve the matter peacefully. Athens is a city that in ancient times served, both in cultural, historical and political terms, as the main focus of Hellenic life and was nicknamed by ancient poets “the eye of Hellas.” The city is located on a series of rocky hills, in the most extensive plain of Attica, between the rivers Ilissos and Kefissos, at a distance of approximately five kilometers in a straight line from the sea and seven from its later harbor, Piraeus.
The initial history of the city of Athens, like ancient history the entire region, is lost in the darkness of the unknown. Tradition attributes its founding to King Kekrops. Initially, the city occupied only the upper area of a steep hill, accessible only from the western side, which served throughout antiquity as a fortress (Acropolis), a political and religious center, the core of the entire city.
According to legend, the Pelasgians leveled the top of the hill, surrounded it with walls and built on the western side to protect the entrance a strong outer fortification with nine gates located one behind the other (hence the name Enneapylon, that is, nine gates, or Pelasgikon, the so-called Pelasgian fortress) . The ancient kings of this part of Attica and their retinue lived inside the castle; here also stood the most ancient temple of the deity under whose special protection the city was located, namely Athens the City Defender (Pallas Athens), along with which the earth-shaking god of the sea, Posseidon and Erechtheus, was also revered (as a result of which the temple itself was usually called Erechtheion).
ATHENA - in Greek mythology, the goddess of wisdom and justice
heavy war.
The myth of the birth of Athena from Zeus and Metis (“wisdom”,
Greek metis - “thought”, “reflection”) - period of registration
classical Olympic mythology.
The birth of Athena is depicted in this myth from the perspective of heroic
some mythology of the period of patriarchy, in which especially
the masculine organizing principle was present. Athena appears as if impossible
a rare continuation of Zeus, the executor of his plans
and will. She is the thought of Zeus, realized in action. Post-
Metis's motherhood gradually becomes more and more abstract and
same symbolic character, so that Athena is considered the offspring
one Zeus and assumes the functions of the deity of wisdom,
just as Zeus received them from Metis.
Zeus, knowing from Gaia and Uranus that his son is from Metis
deprive him of power, swallowed his pregnant wife and then
with the help of Hephaestus (or Prometheus), who split his head
with an ax, he himself gave birth to Athena, who emerged from his
heads in full military armor. Since this event is about
allegedly originated near the lake (or river) Triton in Libya, Athena received
la nickname Tritonidae or Tritogenea.
Athena is one of the most important figures not only in the Olympic
mythology, in its importance it is equal to Zeus and sometimes even
Surpasses it, rooted in the most ancient period of development of the Greek
ical mythology - matriarchy. She is equal in strength and wisdom
Zeus. She is given honors after Zeus and her place is near
closest to Zeus. Along with the new functions of the goddess of military power,
cabbage soup, Athena retained her matriarchal independence, manifesting
which was understood as a virgin and protector of chastity.
The origins of Athena's wisdom go back to the image of the goddess with snakes
Crete-Mycenaean period. Image of the goddess with a Mykens shield
from what time - the prototype of the Olympic Athena. Among the indispensable
attributes of Athena - aegis - shield made of goatskin with a snake's head -
the hair of Medusa, which has enormous magical power,
frightens gods and people.
There is numerous information about the cosmic features of the image of Aphi-
us. Her birth is accompanied by golden showers, she keeps
lightning of Zeus. Her image, the so-called palladium, fell from the sky
(hence Pallas Athena).
According to Herodotus, Athena is the daughter of Poseidon and the nymph Tritonis.
Athena was identified with the daughters of Cecrops - Pandrosa ("all-
lazhnaya") and Aglavra ("light-air"), or Agravla ("field-
furrow").
The sacred tree of Athena was the olive. The olive trees of Athens are counted
were "trees of fate", and Athena herself was thought of as fate
and the Great Mother Goddess.
The powerful goddess of the archaic, the owner of the aegis, Athena in the pe-
period of heroic mythology directs its power to fight against
titans and giants. Together with Hercules, Athena kills one
of the giants, on another she piles the island of Sicily, with
the third one tears off the skin and covers his body with it during sex.
marriage.
She is the killer of the gorgon Medusa and goes by the name "Gorgon Slayer".
Athena demands sacred respect for herself, not a single mortal
Noy can't see her. There is a well-known myth about how she deprived
the view of young Tiresias (the son of his favorite Chariklo), when he
I accidentally saw her ablution.
Classical Athena is endowed with ideological and organizing functions
Yami: she patronizes heroes, protects public
row, etc. Zeus sent Athena to help Hercules, and he brought
from Erebus the dog of the god Hades. Athena's favorite was Odysseus, smart and
brave hero. In Homer's poems (especially the Odyssey), not a single
An important event does not happen without the intervention of Athena. She -
the main defender of the Achaean Greeks and constant enemy of the Trojans,
although her cult also existed in Troy. Athena - protector of the Greeks
many cities (Athens, Argos, Megara, Sparta, etc.), bearing the name
"city defenders".
A huge statue of Athena Promachos ("front line fighter") with
a spear shining in the sun decorated the acropolis in Athens, where bo-
The Erechtheion and Parthenon temples were dedicated to the gyne.
Monument to the glorification of the wise ruler of Athens
state, the founders of the Areopagus, is the tragedy of Aeschi-
la "Eumenides".
Athena is always considered in the context of artistic
crafts, art, craftsmanship. She helps potters, weavers
boors, needlewomen, working people in general. Athena helped Pro-
I intend to steal fire from Hephaestus’s forge.
Athena is credited with inventing the flute and teaching it to play.
Apollo is on it. One touch is enough to
to make a person beautiful (She raised Odysseus to her camp,
endowed with curly hair, clothed with strength and attractiveness -
ness). She endowed Penelope on the eve of meeting her husband
amazing beauty.
Athena is the goddess of wisdom. She is characterized by wisdom in
government affairs. For late antiquity, Athena appeared
the principle of the indivisibility of the cosmic Mind and the symbol of the all-encompassing
more world wisdom. As legislator and patroness
Athenian statehood was revered by Athena - Phratry
("brotherly"), Bulaya ("advisory"), Soteira ("savior"),
Pronoia ("seer").
Although the cult of Athena was widespread throughout the mainland and
island Greece (Arcadia, Argolis, Corinth, Sikyon, Thessa-
lia, Boeotia, Crete, Rhodes), Athena was especially revered in Atti-
ke, in Athens (the Greeks associated the name of the city of Athens with the name
goddesses - patroness of the city). The land was dedicated to her
business holidays. During these festivities there was
washing the statue of Athena, the young men took the oath of citizenship
service to the goddess.
In Rome, Athena was identified with Minerva. Roman holiday
Two large passages from Ovi's "Fast" are dedicated to the deities of Minerva.
diya. Throughout antiquity, Athena remains a witness
the organizing and directing power of the mind, which stubbornly
completes cosmic and social life, glorifying strict
foundations of a state based on democratic legislation
body
The image of Athena is reflected in many significant pa-
pendulums of Greek plastic art. Giant statue of "Athena Parfait"
nose" by Phidias, staged in Athens in the Parthenon in 438 BC
AD, has not survived and is known to us from several reduced
copies. Numerous figurines of the goddess have been preserved. Separate
great scenes of the myths about Athena are reflected in relief plastic
temples, for example, a multi-figure group on the eastern pediment
The Parthenon depicts the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus, on
the falling pediment embodies the dispute between Athena and Poseidon for possession
land of Attica.
Scenes dedicated to
related to the birth of Athena, her participation in the Trojan War, the dispute with
Poseidon. There are images of Athena on Pompeian frescoes.
kah.
During the Renaissance, Athena is depicted according to
ancient artistic tradition - in armor and helmet. In a number
scenes Athena appears as the personification of wisdom and symbolizes
triumph of reason (“Minerva conquers ignorance” by B. Spranger,
"The Kingdom of Minerva" by A. Elsheimer), virtue and chastity
(“Pallas and the Centaur” by S. Botticelli, “The Victory of Virtue over
sin" by A. Mantegna), the world ("Minerva and Mars" by J. Tintoretto,
P. Veronese and others).
In musical and dramatic art, myths about Athena were
provided the plot for the libretto of several works 17-18
centuries, including the operas “The Birth of Athena” by A. Draghi, “Miner-
va" by R. Kaiser, "Pallas and Mars" by M. Grimani, "Pallas of the triumph-
howling" by F.B. Conti; cantatas "The Dispute of Pallas and Venus" by L. Caldara
and "Pallas" by P.V. Guglielmi.
