Biography on athena the goddess of wisdome

Others say that she loved the new woman as if she was her own daughter. She also had a complicated relationship with Ares, especially in regard to war. While Ares had a blood lust and would fight for any cause, she believed in only fighting for causes she believed in and had merit. This also made her a better fighter in battles because she could keep a clear head.

Her victories led to her adopting a breastplate that showed her commitment to combat and the heroic ideal. She eventually became such a strong fighter that others turned to her for advice before battles. One legend claims that she and Poseidon had a deal where they would each grant the other a favor. When she needed his help, he rose from the sea and created a saltwater well to help her people.

Pallas is a Greek word that has several different meanings. It can mean someone who holds and uses a weapon or a young woman. Legend says that Pallas was the close friend and adopted sister of Athena after Triton adopted her. A different version of the story claims that Pallas as a giant or a Gorgon. Goddess Athena traveled to his region and fought with him.

When she won, she turned his skin into a cloak that she wore to show others of her victory. There are also legends that claim this was one of the names given to her father. In this version, they fought to the death. She had a cloak made from his skin to show that she was the champion. Most historians believe that the first legend is the oldest.

She had a statue built and added to the Trojan Acropolis that showed her as her dead friend. Locals viewed the statue as a talisman and believed that it had mystical powers. Legend said that no one could destroy the city as long as her statue was there. During the Trojan War, Cassandra hoped to save the statue and refused to leave its side.

Ajax the Lesser carried her away from the statue, which infuriated Athena so much that she released a storm that nearly wiped out the soldiers. The Greek goddess also has a connection to Medusa. Legend says that she was a young woman who followed Athena and worked in her temple in Athens. Poseidon was so obsessed with her that he ignored her vow of chastity and brutally raped her in the temple.

Athena was so upset at what he did to both the young woman and her temple that she transformed Medusa into the classic mythical creature with snakes for hair who could turn men to stone. Her dark side also appears in a poem written by Callimachus. Called Hymn 5, it tells the story of the Greek goddess bathing in secret on Mount Helicon. Tiresias, who was the son of one of her close friends, spotted her in the spring by accident and attempted to flee.

One of those which is not often commented on, is her ability to cause illusions or perhaps even to transform people's shapes. At one point she disguises Odysseus so that his wife and guests can not recognize him, she transformed Arachne into a Spider, and also appeared herself in various different forms. The most famous instance of Athena using her transforming powers, was when she turned Medusa into a monster.

Although Athena is often depicted as wearing armour and carrying a shield and spear, these were used mainly to give courage to other people. The Athenians looked on her as a protector of the city, and someone from whom to gain strength. Her main power was her brilliant, strategic mind. Unlike many of the Greek Gods, who it seems couldn't stop themselves from having children with other Gods, mortals, and even animals, Athena was a Virgin Goddess.

In this way, she shared something in common with her relatives Artemis and Hestia. One myth states that Athena once fought off Hephaestus who tried to rape her. His efforts were futile and so instead he ejaculated on her thigh. This notion was as ancient as the Homeric poems, in which she is described as assisting Odysseus against the lawless conduct of the suitors.

She was believed to have instituted the ancient court of the Areiopagus, and in cases where the votes of the judges were equally diviled, she gave the casting one in favour of the accused. The epithets which have reference to this part of the goddess's character are axiopoinos, the avenger Paus. As Athena promoted the internal prosperity of the state, by encouraging agriculture and industry, and by maintaining law and order in all public transactions, so also she protected the state from outward enemies, and thus assumes the character of a warlike divinity, though in a very different sense from Ares, Eris, or Enyo.

According to Homer Il. She does not love war for its own sake, but simply on account of the advantages which the state gains in engaging in it; and she therefore supports only such warlike undertakings as are begun with prudence, and are likely to be followed by favourable results. As the prudent goddess of war, she is also the protectress of all heroes who are distinguished for prudence and good counsel, as well as for their strength and valour, such as Heracles, Perseus, Bellerophontes, Achilles, Diomedes, and Odysseus.

In the war of Zeus against the giants, she assisted her father and Heracles with her counsel, and also took an active part in it, for she buried Enceladus under the island of Sicily, and slew Pallas. Spanheim, ad Callim. In the Trojan war she sided with the more civilised Greeks, though on their return home she visited them with storms, on account of the manner in which the Locrian Ajax had treated Cassandra in her temple.

As a goddess of war and the protectress of heroes, Athena usually appears in armour, with the aegis and a golden staff, with which she bestows on her favourites youth and majesty. The character of Athena, as we have here traced it, holds a middle place between the male and female, whence she is called in an Orphic hymn xxxi. Teiresias was deprived of his sight for having seen her in the bath Callim.

For this reason, the ancient traditions always describe the goddess as dressed; and when Ovid Heroid. Her statue also was always dressed, and when it was carried about at the Attic festivals, it was entirely covered. But, notwithstanding the common opinion of her virgin character, there are some traditions of late origin which describe her as a mother.

Thus, Apollo is called a son of Hephaestus and Athena -- a legend which may have arisen at the time when the Ionians introduced the worship of Apollo into Attica, and when this new divinity was placed in some family connexion with the ancient goddess of the country. Lychnus also is called a son of Hephaestus and Athena. Athena was worshipped in all parts of Greece, and from the ancient towns on the lake Copais her worship was nitroduced at a very early period into Attica, where she became the great national divinity of the city and the country.

At Lindus in Rhodes her worship was likewise very ancient. Among the things sacred to her we may mention the owl, serpent, cock, and olive-tree, which she was said to have created in her contest with Poseidon about the possession of Attica. At Corone in Messenia her statue bore a crow in its hand. The sacrifices offered to her consisted of bulls, whence she probably derived the surname of taurobolos Suid.

Eustathius ad Hom. In Ilion, Locrian maidens or children are said to have been sacrificed to her every year as an atonement for the crime committed by the Locrian Ajax upon Cassandra; and Suidas s. Respecting the great festivals of Athena at Athens, see Dict. Panathenaea and Arrhephoria. Athena was frequently represented in works of art; but those in which her figure reached the highest ideal of perfection were the three statues by Pheidias.

The first was the celebrated colossal statue of the goddess, of gold and ivory, which was erected on the acropolis of Athens; the second was a still greater bronze statue, made out of the spoils taken by the Athenians in the battle of Marathon; the third was a small bronze statue called the beautiful or the Lemnian Athena, because it had been dedicated at Athens by the Lemnians.

The first of these statues represented the goddess in a standing position, bearing in her hand a Nike four cubits in height. The shield stood by her feet; her robe came down to her feet, on her breast was the head of Medusa, in her right hand she bore a lance, and at her feet there lay a serpent. We still possess a great number of representations of Athena in statues, colossal busts, reliefs, coins, and in vase-paintings.

The Mourning Athena or Athena Meditating is a famous relief sculpture dating to around — BC [ ] [ ] that has been interpreted to represent Athena Polias. Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria and Firmicus , denigrated Athena as representative of all the things that were detestable about paganism; [ ] they condemned her as "immodest and immoral".

During the Renaissance, Athena donned the mantle of patron of the arts and human endeavor; [ ] allegorical paintings involving Athena were a favorite of the Italian Renaissance painters. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Athena was used as a symbol for female rulers. A statue of Athena stands directly in front of the Austrian Parliament Building in Vienna, [ ] and depictions of Athena have influenced other symbols of Western freedom, including the Statue of Liberty and Britannia.

One of Sigmund Freud 's most treasured possessions was a small, bronze sculpture of Athena, which sat on his desk.

Biography on athena the goddess of wisdome

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. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects.

Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikidata item. Goddess of wisdom and war in ancient Greek religion and mythology. For the capital city of Greece, see Athens. Several terms redirect here. For other uses, see Athena disambiguation , Athene disambiguation , Athina disambiguation , and Pallas Athena disambiguation. Mattei Athena at Louvre. This article contains special characters.

Without proper rendering support , you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols. See also: Category:Epithets of Athena. Bust of the Velletri Pallas type, copy after a votive statue of Kresilas in Athens c. Panhellenic and Athenian cult. Sacred Places. Sacred Islands. Sacred Mountains. Rites of passage. Other Topics. Athena and Heracles on an Attic red-figure kylix , — BC.

Athena, detail from a silver kantharos with Theseus in Crete c. Paestan red-figure bell-krater c. Main article: Judgement of Paris. Attic black-figure exaleiptron of the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus c. Attic red-figure kylix of Athena Promachos holding a spear and standing beside a Doric column c. Restoration of the polychrome decoration of the Athena statue from the Aphaea temple at Aegina , c.

The Mourning Athena relief c. Attic red-figure kylix showing Athena slaying the Giant Enceladus c. Relief of Athena and Nike slaying the Giant Alkyoneus? Athena portrait by Eukleidas on a tetradrachm from Syracuse, Sicily c. Mythological scene with Athena left and Herakles right , on a stone palette of the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara , India.

Atena farnese , Roman copy of a Greek original from Phidias' circle, c. Pallas and the Centaur c. Athena Scorning the Advances of Hephaestus c. Minerva Victorious over Ignorance c. Minerva of Peace mosaic in the Library of Congress. Athena on the Great Seal of California. Pompeii 's Roman fresco shows Ajax dragging Cassandra away from palladium in the fall of Troy , event that provoked Athena's wrath to Greek armies [ ].

Clement of Alexandria Protr. ISBN Archived from the original on 5 November Retrieved 6 May History of Art: The Western Tradition. Translated by Cashford, Jules. London: Penguin Books. OCLC Archived from the original on 29 June Retrieved 20 February Archived from the original on 24 June Plutarch, Parallel Lives. The Parallel Lives by Plutarch published in Vol.

Beaumont A glossary of Greek birds. Oxford, Clarendon Press. Translated by Kenneth S. Prometheus: Archetypal Image of Human Existence. Princeton University Press.