Athēné
（
Ἀθήνη) or
Pallas
Athēné. A Greek goddess, identified with the Roman Minerva.
According to the story most generally current, she was the daughter of Zeus, who had swallowed
his first wife, Metis (Counsel), the daughter of Oceanus, in the fear that she would bring
forth a son stronger than himself. Hephaestus (or, according to another version, Prometheus)
clave open the head of Zeus with an axe, on which Athené sprang forth in full
armour, the goddess of eternal virginity. But her ancient epithet
Τριτογένεια (born of Triton, or the roaring flood) points to
water—that is, to Oceanus —as the source of her being. Oceanus was,
according to Homer, the origin of all things and of all deities. The worship of
Athené and the story of her birth were accordingly connected with many brooks and
lakes in various regions—especially in Boeotia, Thessalia, and Libya—to
which the name Triton was attached.
From the first, Athené took a very prominent place in the Greek popular religion.
The Homeric hymns represent her as the favourite of her father, who refuses her nothing. When
solemn oaths were to be taken, they joined her name with those of Zeus and Apollo, in a way
which shows that the three deities represent the embodiment of all divine authority. With the
exception of the two gods just mentioned, there is no other deity whose original character as
a power of nature underwent so remarkable an ethical development. Both conceptions of
Athené, the natural and the ethical, were intimately connected in the religion of
Attica, whose capital, Athens, was named after Athené and was the most important
seat of her worship. Athené was originally the maiden daughter of the god of
heaven; the clear transparent æther, whose purity is always breaking forth in
unveiled brilliancy through the clouds that surround it. As a deity of the sky, she, with
Zeus, is the mistress of thunder and lightning. Like Zeus, she carries the
aegis (q.v.) with the Gorgon 's head, the symbol of
the tempest and its terrors. In many statues, accordingly, she is represented as hurling the
thunder-bolt. But she also sends down from sky to earth light and warmth and fruitful dew, and
with them prosperity to fields and plants. A whole series of fables and usages, belonging
especially to the Athenian religion, represent her as the helper and protector of agriculture.
The two deities Erechtheus and Erichthonius, honoured in Attica as powers of the fruitful
soil, are her fosterchildren. She was worshipped with Erechtheus in the temple named after him
the Erechtheum, the oldest sanctuary on the Athenian Acropolis. The names of her earliest
priestesses, the daughters of Cecrops—Aglaurus, Pandrosus, and
Hersé—signify the bright air, the dew, and the rain, and are mere
personifications of their qualities, of such value to the Athenian territory.
The sowing season was opened in Attica by three sacred services of ploughing. Of these, two
were in honour of Athené as inventress of the plough, while the third took place in
honour of Demeter. It was Athené, also, who had taught men how to attach oxen to
the yoke; above all, she had given them the olive-tree, the treasure of Attica. This tree she
had made to grow out of the rock of the citadel, when disputing the possession of the land
with Poseidon. Several festivals, having reference to these functions of the goddess, were
celebrated in Attica—the Callynteria and Plynteria, the Scirophoria, the Arrhephoria
or Hersephoria, and the Oschophoria, which were common to Athené with Dionysus.
(See
Dionysia.) Even her chief feast, the
Panathenaea, was originally a harvest festival. It is significant that the presentation of the
πέπλος or mantle, the chief offering at the celebration,
took place in the sowing season. But afterwards more was made of the intellectual gifts
bestowed by the goddess.
Athené was very generally regarded as the goddess of war—an idea which
in ancient times was the prevailing one. It was connected with the fact that, like her father,
Zeus, she was supposed to be able to send storms and bad weather. In this capacity she appears
in story as the true friend of all bold warriors, such as Perseus, Bellerophon, Iason,
Heracles, Diomedes, and Odysseus. But her courage is a wise courage, not a blind rashness like
that of Ares; and she is always represented, accordingly, as getting the better of him. In
this connection she was honoured in Athenian worship mainly as a protector and defender; thus
(to take a striking example), she was worshipped on the citadel of Athens under the name of
Πρόμαχος, “champion,”
“protector.” But she was also a goddess of victory. As the personification
of victory (Athené Niké) she had a second and especial temple on the
Athenian Acropolis. (See
Acropolis.) And the great
statues in the temples represented her, like Zeus, with Niké in her outstretched
hand. The occupations of peace, however, formed the main sphere of her activity. Like all the
other deities who were supposed to dispense the blessings of nature, she is the protectress of
growing children; and, as the goddess of the clear sky and of pure air, she bestows health and
keeps off sickness. Further, she is (with Zeus) the patroness of the Athenian
φρατρίαι or unions of kinsfolk. At Athens and Sparta she protects the
popular and deliberative assemblies; in many places, and especially at Athens, the whole
State is under her care (Athené Polias, Poliuchus). Elsewhere she presides over the
larger unions of kindred peoples. The festival of Athené Itonia at Coronea was a
confederate festival of all Boeotia. Under the title of
Παναχαΐς she was worshipped as the goddess of the Achaean League.
Speaking broadly, Athené represents human wit and cleverness, and presides over
the whole moral and intellectual side of human life. From her are derived all the productions
of wisdom and understanding, every art and science, whether of war or of peace. A number of
discoveries, of the most
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Athené. (Vatican Museum.)
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various kinds, is ascribed to her. It has been already mentioned that she was
credited with the invention of the plough and the yoke. She was often associated with Poseidon
as the inventress of horse-taming and ship-building. In the Athenian story she teaches
Erichthonius to fasten his horses to the chariot. In the Corinthian story she teaches
Bellerophon to subdue Pegasus. At Lindus in Rhodes she was worshipped as the goddess who
helped Danaüs to build the first fifty-oared ship. In the fable of the Argonauts it
is she who instructs the builders of the first ship, the Argo. Even in Homer all the
productions of women's art, as of spinning and weaving, are characterized
as “works of Athené.” Many a
Παλλάδιον, or statue of Pallas, bore a spindle and distaff in its left hand. As
the mistress and protectress of arts and handiwork, she was worshipped at the Chalkeia, or
Feast of Smiths, under the title of
Ἐργάνη. Under this
name, too, she is mentioned in several inscriptions found on the Acropolis. Her genius covers
the field of music and dancing. She is inventor of the flute and the trumpet, as well as of
the Pyrrhic war-dance, in which she was said to have been the earliest performer, at the
celebration of the victory of the Gods over the Giants.
It was
Phidias (q.v.) who finally fixed the
typical representation of Athené in works of art. Among his numerous statues of
her, three —the most celebrated —were set up on the Acropolis of Athens.
These were:
1.
The colossal statue of Athené Parthenos, wrought in ivory and gold, thirty feet
in height (with the pedestal), and standing in the Parthenon. (See
Parthenon.) The goddess was represented wearing a long robe falling down
to the feet, and on her breast was the aegis with the Gorgon 's head. A helmet was on her
head; in one hand she bore a Victory, six feet in height, in the other a lance, which leaned
against a shield adorned with scenes from the battles of the Amazons with the Giants.
2.
The bronze statue of Athené Promachos, erected from the proceeds of the spoils
taken at Marathon, and standing between the Propylaea and the Erechtheum. The proportions of
this statue were so gigantic that the gleaming point of the lance and the crest of the helmet
were visible to seamen on approaching the Piraeus from Sunium.
3.
The Lemnian Pallas, so named because it had been dedicated by the Athenian colonists in
Lemnos. The attractions of this statue won for it the name of “the
Beautiful.” Like the second, it was of bronze; being a representation of
Athené as the goddess of peace, it was without a helmet. See
Minerva.
