Greek Antiquity Athena/Minerva Antique Sculpture Display Scarce Terracotta

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Seller: memorabilia111 ✉️ (808) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US, Item: 176299957866 GREEK ANTIQUITY ATHENA/MINERVA ANTIQUE SCULPTURE DISPLAY SCARCE TERRACOTTA.

Description

An Ancient Greek Painted Terracotta Hollow Figure of Athena, Hellenistic Period Dimensions including base: H: 14 3/4 x W: 7 3/4 x D: 5 5/8 in. H: 12 1/2 W: 4 3/4 D: 3 in. Stair Galleries Lot Sticker. In protective display case.

Dimensions (INCHES)

H: 12 1/2 W: 4 3/4 D: 3


Athena[b] or Athene,[c] often given the epithet Pallas,[d] is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, handicraft, and warfare[1] who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva.[4] Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece, particularly the city of Athens, from which she most likely received her name.[5] The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion. In art, she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear. From her origin as an Aegean palace goddess, Athena was closely associated with the city. 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. The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is dedicated to her, along with numerous other temples and monuments. As the patron of craft and weaving, Athena was known as Ergane. She was also a warrior goddess, and was believed to lead soldiers into battle as Athena Promachos. Her main festival in Athens was the Panathenaia, which was celebrated during the month of Hekatombaion in midsummer and was the most important festival on the Athenian calendar. In Greek mythology, Athena was believed to have been born from the forehead of her father Zeus. In some versions of the story, Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus' forehead by parthenogenesis. In others, such as Hesiod's Theogony, Zeus swallows his consort Metis, who was pregnant with Athena; in this version, Athena is first born within Zeus and then escapes from his body through his forehead. In the founding myth of Athens, Athena bested Poseidon in a competition over patronage of the city by creating the first olive tree. 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. Athena was the patron goddess of heroic endeavor; she was believed to have aided the heroes Perseus, Heracles, Bellerophon, and Jason. Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War. She plays an active role in the Iliad, in which she assists the Achaeans and, in the Odyssey, she is the divine counselor to Odysseus. 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. Since the Renaissance, Athena has become an international symbol of wisdom, the arts, and classical learning. Western artists and allegorists have often used Athena as a symbol of freedom and democracy. Contents 1 Etymology 2 Origins 3 Cult and patronages 3.1 Panhellenic and Athenian cult 3.2 Regional cults 4 Epithets and attributes 5 Mythology 5.1 Birth 5.2 Pallas Athena 5.3 Lady of Athens 5.4 Patron of heroes 5.5 Punishment myths 5.6 Trojan War 6 Classical art 7 Post-classical culture 7.1 Art and symbolism 7.2 Modern interpretations 8 Genealogy 9 See also 10 Notes 11 References 11.1 Bibliography 12 External links Etymology The Acropolis at Athens (1846) by Leo von Klenze. Athena's name probably comes from the name of the city of Athens.[5][6] Athena is associated with the city of Athens.[5][7] The name of the city in ancient Greek is Ἀθῆναι (Athȇnai), a plural toponym, designating the place where—according to myth—she presided over the Athenai, a sisterhood devoted to her worship.[6] In ancient times, scholars argued whether Athena was named after Athens or Athens after Athena.[5] Now scholars generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city;[5][7] the ending -ene is common in names of locations, but rare for personal names.[5] Testimonies from different cities in ancient Greece attest that similar city goddesses were worshipped in other cities[6] and, like Athena, took their names from the cities where they were worshipped.[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).[6] The name Athenai is likely of Pre-Greek origin because it contains the presumably Pre-Greek morpheme *-ān-.[8] In his dialogue Cratylus, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (428–347 BC) gives some rather imaginative etymologies of Athena's name, based on the theories of the ancient Athenians and his own etymological speculations: That is a graver matter, and there, my friend, the modern interpreters of Homer may, I think, assist in explaining the view of the ancients. For most of these in their explanations of the poet, assert that he meant by Athena "mind" [νοῦς, noũs] and "intelligence" [διάνοια, diánoia], and the maker of names appears to have had a singular notion about her; and indeed calls her by a still higher title, "divine intelligence" [θεοῦ νόησις, theoũ nóēsis], as though he would say: This is she who has the mind of God [ἁ θεονόα, a theonóa). Perhaps, however, the name Theonoe may mean "she who knows divine things" [τὰ θεῖα νοοῦσα, ta theia noousa] better than others. Nor shall we be far wrong in supposing that the author of it wished to identify this Goddess with moral intelligence [εν έθει νόεσιν, en éthei nóesin], and therefore gave her the name Etheonoe; which, however, either he or his successors have altered into what they thought a nicer form, and called her Athena. — Plato, Cratylus 407b Thus, Plato believed that Athena's name was derived from Greek Ἀθεονόα, Atheonóa—which the later Greeks rationalised as from the deity's (θεός, theós) mind (νοῦς, noũs). 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.[9] Origins Fragment of a fresco from the Cult Center at Mycenae dating the late thirteenth century BC depicting a warrior goddess, possibly Athena, wearing a boar's tusk helmet and clutching a griffin.[10] Athena was originally the Aegean goddess of the palace, who presided over household crafts and protected the king.[11][12][13][14] A single Mycenaean Greek inscription 𐀀𐀲𐀙𐀡𐀴𐀛𐀊 a-ta-na po-ti-ni-ja /Athana potnia/ appears at Knossos in the Linear B tablets from the Late Minoan II-era "Room of the Chariot Tablets";[15][16][10] these comprise the earliest Linear B archive anywhere.[15] Although Athana potnia is often translated as "Mistress Athena", it could also mean "the Potnia of Athana", or the Lady of Athens.[10][17] However, any connection to the city of Athens in the Knossos inscription is uncertain.[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.[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". Similarly, in the Greek mythology and epic tradition, Athena figures as a daughter of Zeus (Διός θυγάτηρ; cfr. Dyeus).[20] However, the inscription quoted seems to be very similar to "a-ta-nū-tī wa-ya", quoted as SY Za 1 by Jan Best.[20] Best translates the initial a-ta-nū-tī, which is recurrent in line beginnings, as "I have given".[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 palladion, or her palladion in an aniconic representation.[21][22] In the "Procession Fresco" at Knossos, which was reconstructed by the Mycenaeans, two rows of figures carrying vessels seem to meet in front of a central figure, which is probably the Minoan precursor to Athena.[23] The early twentieth-century scholar Martin Persson Nilsson argued that the Minoan snake goddess figurines are early representations of Athena.[11][12] Nilsson and others have claimed that, in early times, Athena was either an owl herself or a bird goddess in general.[24] In the third book of the Odyssey, she takes the form of a sea-eagle.[24] Proponents of this view argue that she dropped her prophylactic owl-mask before she lost her wings. "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."[25] Ancient Akkadian cylinder seal (dating c. 2334–2154 BC) depicting Inanna, the goddess of war, armored and carrying weapons, resting her foot on the back of a lion[26] It is generally agreed that the cult of Athena preserves some aspects of the Proto-Indo-European transfunctional goddess.[27][28] The cult of Athena may have also been influenced by those of Near Eastern warrior goddesses such as the East Semitic Ishtar and the Ugaritic Anat,[10] both of whom were often portrayed bearing arms.[12] Classical scholar Charles Penglase notes that Athena resembles Inanna in her role as a "terrifying warrior goddess"[29] and that both goddesses were closely linked with creation.[29] Athena's birth from the head of Zeus may be derived from the earlier Sumerian myth of Inanna's descent into and return from the Underworld.[30][31] Plato notes that the citizens of Sais in Egypt worshipped a goddess known as Neith,[e] whom he identifies with Athena.[32] Neith was the ancient Egyptian goddess of war and hunting, who was also associated with weaving; her worship began during the Egyptian Pre-Dynastic period. In Greek mythology, Athena was reported to have visited mythological sites in North Africa, including Libya's Triton River and the Phlegraean plain.[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".[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.[37][38] Cult and patronages Panhellenic and Athenian cult Part of a series on Ancient Greek religion Laurel wreath Origins Sacred Places Deities Concepts Practices Hellenistic philosophy Philosophers Texts Other Topics P religion world.svg Religion portal Parthenon from west.jpg Ancient Greece portal vte Athenian tetradrachm representing the goddess Athena A new peplos was woven for Athena and ceremonially brought to dress her cult image (British Museum). In her aspect of Athena Polias, Athena was venerated as the goddess of the city and the protectress of the citadel.[12][39][40] In Athens, the Plynteria, or "Feast of the Bath", was observed every year at the end of the month of Thargelion.[41] The festival lasted for five days. During this period, the priestesses of Athena, or plyntrídes, performed a cleansing ritual within the Erechtheion, a sanctuary devoted to Athena and Poseidon.[42] Here Athena's statue was undressed, her clothes washed, and body purified.[42] Athena was worshipped at festivals such as Chalceia as Athena Ergane,[43][40] the patroness of various crafts, especially weaving.[43][40] She was also the patron of metalworkers and was believed to aid in the forging of armor and weapons.[43] During the late fifth century BC, the role of goddess of philosophy became a major aspect of Athena's cult.[44] As Athena Promachos, she was believed to lead soldiers into battle.[45][46] Athena represented the disciplined, strategic side of war, in contrast to her brother Ares, the patron of violence, bloodlust, and slaughter—"the raw force of war".[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.[47] The Greeks regarded Athena with much higher esteem than Ares.[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.[49] As the patroness of heroes and warriors, Athena was believed to favor those who used cunning and intelligence rather than brute strength.[50] The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis, which is dedicated to Athena Parthenos[51] In her aspect as a warrior maiden, Athena was known as Parthenos (Παρθένος "virgin"),[45][52][53] because, like her fellow goddesses Artemis and Hestia, she was believed to remain perpetually a virgin.[54][55][45][53][56] Athena's most famous temple, the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis, takes its name from this title.[56] According to Karl Kerényi, a scholar of Greek mythology, the name Parthenos is not merely an observation of Athena's virginity, but also a recognition of her role as enforcer of rules of sexual modesty and ritual mystery.[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.[56] Kerényi'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.[56] This role is expressed in a number of stories about Athena. Marinus of Neapolis reports that when 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.[57] Regional cults Reverse side of a Pergamene silver tetradrachm minted by Attalus I, showing Athena seated on a throne (c. 200 BC) Athena was not only the patron goddess of Athens, but also other cities, including Argos, Sparta, Gortyn, Lindos, and Larisa.[46] The various cults of Athena were all branches of her panhellenic cult[46] and often proctored various initiation rites of Grecian youth, such as the passage into citizenship by young men or the passage of young women into marriage.[46] These cults were portals of a uniform socialization, even beyond mainland Greece.[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.[58] In Arcadia, she was assimilated with the ancient goddess Alea and worshiped as Athena Alea.[59] Sanctuaries dedicated to Athena Alea were located in the Laconian towns of Mantineia and Tegea. The temple of Athena Alea in Tegea was an important religious center of ancient Greece.[g] The geographer Pausanias was informed that the temenos had been founded by Aleus.[60] Athena had a major temple on the Spartan Acropolis,[61][40] where she was venerated as Poliouchos and Khalkíoikos ("of the Brazen House", often latinized as Chalcioecus).[61][40] This epithet may refer to the fact that cult statue held there may have been made of bronze,[61] that the walls of the temple itself may have been made of bronze,[61] or that Athena was the patron of metal-workers.[61] Bells made of terracotta and bronze were used in Sparta as part of Athena's cult.[61] An Ionic-style temple to Athena Polias was built at Priene in the fourth century BC.[62] It was designed by Pytheos of Priene,[63] the same architect who designed the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.[63] The temple was dedicated by Alexander the Great[64] and an inscription from the temple declaring his dedication is now held in the British Museum.[62] Epithets and attributes See also: Category:Epithets of Athena Cult statue of Athena with the face of the Carpegna type (late 1st century BC to early 1st century AD), from the Piazza dell'Emporio, Rome Bust of the Velletri Pallas type, copy after a votive statue of Kresilas in Athens (c. 425 BC) Athena was known as Atrytone (Άτρυτώνη "the Unwearying"), Parthenos (Παρθένος "Virgin"), and Promachos (Πρόμαχος "she who fights in front"). The epithet Polias (Πολιάς "of the city"), refers to Athena's role as protectress of the city.[46] The epithet Ergane (Εργάνη "the Industrious") pointed her out as the patron of craftsmen and artisans.[46] Burkert notes that the Athenians sometimes simply called Athena "the Goddess", hē theós (ἡ θεός), certainly an ancient title.[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 (Αρεία).[46] Athena was sometimes given the epithet Hippia (Ἵππια "of the horses", "equestrian"),[40][65] referring to her invention of the bit, bridle, chariot, and wagon.[40] The Greek geographer Pausanias mentions in his Guide to Greece that the temple of Athena Chalinitis ("the bridler")[65] in Corinth was located near the tomb of Medea's children.[65] Other epithets include Ageleia, Itonia and Aethyia, under which she was worshiped in Megara.[66][67] The word aíthyia (αἴθυια) signifies a "diver", also some diving bird species (possibly the shearwater) and figuratively, a "ship", so the name must reference Athena teaching the art of shipbuilding or navigation.[68] In a temple at Phrixa in Elis, reportedly built by Clymenus, she was known as Cydonia (Κυδωνία).[69] Pausanias wrote that at Buporthmus there was a sanctuary of Athena Promachorma (Προμαχόρμα), meaning protector of the anchorage.[70][71] The Greek biographer Plutarch (AD 46–120) refers to an instance during the Parthenon's construction of her being called Athena Hygieia (Ὑγίεια, i. e. personified "Health") after inspiring a physician to a successful course of treatment.[72] The owl of Athena, surrounded by an olive wreath. Reverse of an Athenian silver tetradrachm, c. 175 BC In Homer's epic works, Athena's most common epithet is Glaukopis (γλαυκῶπις), which usually is translated as, "bright-eyed" or "with gleaming eyes".[73] The word is a combination of glaukós (γλαυκός, meaning "gleaming, silvery", and later, "bluish-green" or "gray")[74] and ṓps (ὤψ, "eye, face").[75] The word glaúx (γλαύξ,[76] "little owl")[77] is from the same root, presumably according to some, because of the bird's own distinctive eyes. Athena was clearly associated with the owl from very early on;[78] in archaic images, she is frequently depicted with an owl perched on her hand.[78] Through its association with Athena, the owl evolved into the national mascot of the Athenians and eventually became a symbol of wisdom.[4] In the Iliad (4.514), the Odyssey (3.378), the Homeric Hymns, and in Hesiod's Theogony, Athena is also given the curious epithet Tritogeneia (Τριτογένεια), whose significance remains unclear.[79] It could mean various things, including "Triton-born", perhaps indicating that the homonymous sea-deity was her parent according to some early myths.[79] One myth relates the foster father relationship of this Triton towards the half-orphan Athena, whom he raised alongside his own daughter Pallas.[80] Kerényi suggests that "Tritogeneia did not mean that she came into the world on any particular river or lake, but that she was born of the water itself; for the name Triton seems to be associated with water generally."[81][82] In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Athena is occasionally referred to as "Tritonia". 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.[83] Several scholars have suggested a connection to the Rigvedic god Trita,[84] who was sometimes grouped in a body of three mythological poets.[84] Michael Janda has connected the myth of Trita to the scene in the Iliad in which the "three brothers" Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades divide the world between them, receiving the "broad sky", the sea, and the underworld respectively.[85][86] Janda further connects the myth of Athena being born of the head (i. e. the uppermost part) of Zeus, understanding Trito- (which perhaps originally meant "the third") as another word for "the sky".[85] 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. Triton's mother, Amphitrite).[85] Yet another possible meaning is mentioned in Diogenes Laertius' biography of Democritus, that Athena was called "Tritogeneia" because three things, on which all mortal life depends, come from her.[87] Mythology Birth Athena is "born" from Zeus's forehead as a result of him having swallowed her mother Metis, as he grasps the clothing of Eileithyia on the right; black-figured amphora, 550–525 BC, Louvre. She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, so that she emerged full-grown from his forehead. There was an alternative story that Zeus swallowed Metis, the goddess of counsel, while she was pregnant with Athena, so that Athena finally emerged from Zeus. Being the favourite child of Zeus, she had great power. In the classical Olympian pantheon, Athena was regarded as the favorite daughter of Zeus, born fully armed from his forehead.[88][89][90][h] The story of her birth comes in several versions.[91][92][93] The earliest mention is in Book V of the Iliad, when Ares accuses Zeus of being biased in favor of Athena because "autos egeinao" (literally "you fathered her", but probably intended as "you gave birth to her").[94][95] She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. In the version recounted by Hesiod in his Theogony, Zeus married the goddess Metis, who is described as the "wisest among gods and mortal men", and engaged in sexual intercourse with her.[96][97][95][98] After learning that Metis was pregnant, however, he became afraid that the unborn offspring would try to overthrow him, because Gaia and Ouranos had prophesied that Metis would bear children wiser than their father.[96][97][95][98] In order to prevent this, Zeus tricked Metis into letting him swallow her, but it was too late because Metis had already conceived.[96][99][95][98] A later account of the story from the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, written in the second century AD, makes Metis Zeus's unwilling sexual partner, rather than his wife.[100][101] According to this version of the story, Metis transformed into many different shapes in effort to escape Zeus,[100][101] but Zeus successfully raped her and swallowed her.[100][101] After swallowing Metis, Zeus took six more wives in succession until he married his seventh and present wife, Hera.[98] Then Zeus experienced an enormous headache.[102][95][98] He was in such pain that he ordered someone (either Prometheus, Hephaestus, Hermes, Ares, or Palaemon, depending on the sources examined) to cleave his head open with the labrys, the double-headed Minoan axe.[103][95][104][101] Athena leaped from Zeus's head, fully grown and armed.[103][95][90][105] The "First Homeric Hymn to Athena" states in lines 9–16 that the gods were awestruck by Athena's appearance[106] and even Helios, the god of the sun, stopped his chariot in the sky.[106] Pindar, in his "Seventh Olympian Ode", states that she "cried aloud with a mighty shout" and that "the Sky and mother Earth shuddered before her."[107][106] Hesiod states that Hera was so annoyed at Zeus for having given birth to a child on his own that she conceived and bore Hephaestus by herself,[98] but in Imagines 2. 27 (trans. Fairbanks), the third-century AD Greek rhetorician Philostratus the Elder writes that Hera "rejoices" at Athena's birth "as though Athena were her daughter also." The second-century AD Christian apologist Justin Martyr takes issue with those pagans who erect at springs images of Kore, whom he interprets as Athena: "They said that Athena was the daughter of Zeus not from intercourse, but when the god had in mind the making of a world through a word (logos) his first thought was Athena."[108] According to a version of the story in a scholium on the Iliad (found nowhere else), when Zeus swallowed Metis, she was pregnant with Athena by the Cyclops Brontes.[109] The Etymologicum Magnum[110] instead deems Athena the daughter of the Daktyl Itonos.[111] Fragments attributed by the Christian Eusebius of Caesarea to the semi-legendary Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon, which Eusebius thought had been written before the Trojan war, make Athena instead the daughter of Cronus, a king of Byblos who visited "the inhabitable world" and bequeathed Attica to Athena.[112][113] Pallas Athena Detail of a Roman fresco from Pompeii showing Ajax the Lesser dragging Cassandra away from the palladion during the fall of Troy, an event which provoked Athena's wrath against the Greek armies[114] Athena's epithet Pallas is derived either from πάλλω, meaning "to brandish [as a weapon]", or, more likely, from παλλακίς and related words, meaning "youth, young woman".[115] On this topic, Walter Burkert says "she is the Pallas of Athens, Pallas Athenaie, just as Hera of Argos is Here Argeie."[5] In later times, after the original meaning of the name had been forgotten, the Greeks invented myths to explain its origin, such as those reported by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus and the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, which claim that Pallas was originally a separate entity, whom Athena had slain in combat.[116] In one version of the myth, Pallas was the daughter of the sea-god Triton;[80] she and Athena were childhood friends, but Athena accidentally killed her during a friendly sparring match.[117] Distraught over what she had done, Athena took the name Pallas for herself as a sign of her grief.[117] In another version of the story, Pallas was a Gigante;[103] Athena slew him during the Gigantomachy and flayed off his skin to make her cloak, which she wore as a victory trophy.[103][12][118][119] In an alternative variation of the same myth, Pallas was instead Athena's father,[103][12] who attempted to assault his own daughter,[120] causing Athena to kill him and take his skin as a trophy.[121] The palladion was a statue of Athena that was said to have stood in her temple on the Trojan Acropolis.[122] Athena was said to have carved the statue herself in the likeness of her dead friend Pallas.[122] The statue had special talisman-like properties[122] and it was thought that, as long as it was in the city, Troy could never fall.[122] When the Greeks captured Troy, Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, clung to the palladion for protection,[122] but Ajax the Lesser violently tore her away from it and dragged her over to the other captives.[122] Athena was infuriated by this violation of her protection.[114] 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.[123] Lady of Athens The Dispute of Minerva and Neptune by René-Antoine Houasse (c. 1689 or 1706) In Homer's Iliad, Athena, as a war goddess, inspired and fought alongside the Greek heroes; her aid was synonymous with military prowess. Also in the Iliad, Zeus, the chief god, specifically assigned the sphere of war to Ares, the god of war, and Athena. Athena's moral and military superiority to Ares derived in part from the fact that she represented the intellectual and civilized side of war and the virtues of justice and skill, whereas Ares represented mere blood lust. Her superiority also derived in part from the vastly greater variety and importance of her functions and from the patriotism of Homer's predecessors, Ares being of foreign origin. In the Iliad, Athena was the divine form of the heroic, martial ideal: she personified excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. The qualities that led to victory were found on the aegis, or breastplate, that Athena wore when she went to war: fear, strife, defense, and assault. Athena appears in Homer's Odyssey as the tutelary deity of Odysseus, and myths from later sources portray her similarly as helper of Perseus and Heracles (Hercules). As the guardian of the welfare of kings, Athena became the goddess of good counsel, of prudent restraint and practical insight, as well as of war. In a founding myth reported by Pseudo-Apollodorus,[110] Athena competed with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens.[124] They agreed that each would give the Athenians one gift[124] and that Cecrops, the king of Athens, would determine which gift was better.[124] Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring sprang up;[124] this gave the Athenians access to trade and water.[125] Athens at its height was a significant sea power, defeating the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis[125]—but the water was salty and undrinkable.[125] In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil's Georgics,[110] Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse.[124] Athena offered the first domesticated olive tree.[124][53] Cecrops accepted this gift[124] and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens.[124] The olive tree brought wood, oil, and food,[125] and became a symbol of Athenian economic prosperity.[53][126] Robert Graves was of the opinion that "Poseidon's attempts to take possession of certain cities are political myths",[125] which reflect the conflict between matriarchal and patriarchal religions.[125] The Athena Giustiniani, a Roman copy of a Greek statue of Pallas Athena. The guardian serpent of the Athenian Acropolis sits coiled at her feet.[127] Pseudo-Apollodorus[110] 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.[128][51][129] Athena wiped the semen off using a tuft of wool, which she tossed into the dust,[128][51][129] impregnating Gaia and causing her to give birth to Erichthonius.[128][51][129] Athena adopted Erichthonius as her son and raised him.[128][129] The Roman mythographer Hyginus[110] records a similar story in which Hephaestus demanded Zeus to let him marry Athena since he was the one who had smashed open Zeus's skull, allowing Athena to be born.[128] Zeus agreed to this and Hephaestus and Athena were married,[128] but, when Hephaestus was about to consummate the union, Athena vanished from the bridal bed, causing him to ejaculate on the floor, thus impregnating Gaia with Erichthonius.[128] The geographer Pausanias[110] records that Athena placed the infant Erichthonius into a small chest[130] (cista), which she entrusted to the care of the three daughters of Cecrops: Herse, Pandrosos, and Aglauros of Athens.[130] She warned the three sisters not to open the chest,[130] but did not explain to them why or what was in it.[130] Aglauros, and possibly one of the other sisters,[130] opened the chest.[130] Differing reports say that they either found that the child itself was a serpent, that it was guarded by a serpent, that it was guarded by two serpents, or that it had the legs of a serpent.[131] In Pausanias's story, the two sisters were driven mad by the sight of the chest's contents and hurled themselves off the Acropolis, dying instantly,[132] but an Attic vase painting shows them being chased by the serpent off the edge of the cliff instead.[132] 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.[51][133] Pausanias records that, during the Arrhephoria, two young girls known as the Arrhephoroi, who lived near the temple of Athena Polias, would be given hidden objects by the priestess of Athena,[134] which they would carry on their heads down a natural underground passage.[134] They would leave the objects they had been given at the bottom of the passage and take another set of hidden objects,[134] which they would carry on their heads back up to the temple.[134] The ritual was performed in the dead of night[134] and no one, not even the priestess, knew what the objects were.[134] The serpent in the story may be the same one depicted coiled at Athena's feet in Pheidias's famous statue of the Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon.[127] Many of the surviving sculptures of Athena show this serpent.[127] Herodotus records that a serpent lived in a crevice on the north side of the summit of the Athenian Acropolis[127] and that the Athenians left a honey cake for it each month as an offering.[127] On the eve of the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, the serpent did not eat the honey cake[127] and the Athenians interpreted it as a sign that Athena herself had abandoned them.[127] Another version of the myth of the Athenian maidens is told in Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – 17 AD); in this late variant Hermes falls in love with Herse. Herse, Aglaulus, and Pandrosus go to the temple to offer sacrifices to Athena. Hermes demands help from Aglaulus to seduce Herse. Aglaulus demands money in exchange. Hermes gives her the money the sisters have already offered to Athena. As punishment for Aglaulus's greed, Athena asks the goddess Envy to make Aglaulus jealous of Herse. When Hermes arrives to seduce Herse, Aglaulus stands in his way instead of helping him as she had agreed. He turns her to stone.[135] Patron of heroes Attic red-figure kylix painting from c. 480-470 BC showing Athena observing as the Colchian dragon disgorges the hero Jason[136] According to Pseudo-Apollodorus's Bibliotheca, Athena advised Argos, the builder of the Argo, the ship on which the hero Jason and his band of Argonauts sailed, and aided in the ship's construction.[137][138] Pseudo-Apollodorus also records that Athena guided the hero Perseus in his quest to behead Medusa.[139][140][141] She and Hermes, the god of travelers, appeared to Perseus after he set off on his quest and gifted him with tools he would need to kill the Gorgon.[141][142] Athena gave Perseus a polished bronze shield to view Medusa's reflection rather than looking at her directly and thereby avoid being turned to stone.[141][143] Hermes gave him an adamantine scythe to cut off Medusa's head.[141][144] When Perseus swung his blade to behead Medusa, Athena guided it, allowing his scythe to cut it clean off.[141][143] According to Pindar's Thirteenth Olympian Ode, Athena helped the hero Bellerophon tame the winged horse Pegasus by giving him a bit.[145][146] In ancient Greek art, Athena is frequently shown aiding the hero Heracles.[147] She appears in four of the twelve metopes on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia depicting Heracles's Twelve Labors,[148][147] including the first, in which she passively watches him slay the Nemean lion,[147] and the tenth, in which she is shown actively helping him hold up the sky.[149] She is presented as his "stern ally",[150] but also the "gentle... acknowledger of his achievements."[150] Artistic depictions of Heracles's apotheosis show Athena driving him to Mount Olympus in her chariot and presenting him to Zeus for his deification.[149] In Aeschylus's tragedy Orestes, Athena intervenes to save Orestes from the wrath of the Erinyes and presides over his trial for the murder of his mother Clytemnestra.[151] When half the jury votes to acquit and the other half votes to convict, Athena casts the deciding vote to acquit Orestes[151] and declares that, from then on, whenever a jury is tied, the defendant shall always be acquitted.[152] In The Odyssey, Odysseus' cunning and shrewd nature quickly wins Athena's favour.[153][138] For the first part of the poem, however, she largely is confined to aiding him only from afar, mainly by implanting thoughts in his head during his journey home from Troy. 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.[154][139][155] It is not until he washes up on the shore of the island of the Phaeacians, where Nausicaa is washing her clothes that Athena arrives personally to provide more tangible assistance.[156] She appears in Nausicaa's dreams to ensure that the princess rescues Odysseus and plays a role in his eventual escort to Ithaca.[157] Athena appears to Odysseus upon his arrival, disguised as a herdsman;[158][159][153] she initially lies and tells him that Penelope, his wife, has remarried and that he is believed to be dead,[158] but Odysseus lies back to her, employing skillful prevarications to protect himself.[160][159] Impressed by his resolve and shrewdness, she reveals herself and tells him what he needs to know in order to win back his kingdom.[161][159][153] She disguises him as an elderly beggar so that he will not be recognized by the suitors or Penelope,[162][159] and helps him to defeat the suitors.[162][163][159] Athena also appears to Odysseus's son Telemachus.[164] Her actions lead him to travel around to Odysseus's comrades and ask about his father.[165] He hears stories about some of Odysseus's journey.[165] Athena's push for Telemachos's journey helps him grow into the man role, that his father once held.[166] She also plays a role in ending the resultant feud against the suitors' relatives. She instructs Laertes to throw his spear and to kill Eupeithes, the father of Antinous. Athena and Heracles on an Attic red-figure kylix, 480–470 BC   Athena, detail from a silver kantharos with Theseus in Crete (c. 440-435 BC), part of the Vassil Bojkov collection, Sofia, Bulgaria   Silver coin showing Athena with Scylla decorated helmet and Heracles fighting the Nemean lion (Heraclea Lucania, 390-340 BC)   Paestan red-figure bell-krater (c. 330 BC), showing Orestes at Delphi flanked by Athena and Pylades among the Erinyes and priestesses of Apollo, with the Pythia sitting behind them on her tripod Punishment myths Classical Greek depiction of Medusa from the fourth century BC The Gorgoneion appears to have originated as an apotropaic symbol intended to ward off evil.[167] In a late myth invented to explain the origins of the Gorgon,[168] Medusa is described as having been a young priestess who served in the temple of Athena in Athens.[169] Poseidon lusted after Medusa, and raped her in the temple of Athena,[169] refusing to allow her vow of chastity to stand in his way.[169] Upon discovering the desecration of her temple, Athena transformed Medusa into a hideous monster with serpents for hair whose gaze would turn any mortal to stone.[170] 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.[171] According to Pindar, Athena gave the aulos to mortals as a gift.[171] Later, the comic playwright Melanippides of Melos (c. 480-430 BC) embellished the story in his comedy Marsyas,[171] 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.[171] The aulos was picked up by the satyr Marsyas, who was later killed by Apollo for his hubris.[171] Later, this version of the story became accepted as canonical[171] and the Athenian sculptor Myron created a group of bronze sculptures based on it, which was installed before the western front of the Parthenon in around 440 BC.[171] A myth told by the early third-century BC Hellenistic poet Callimachus in his Hymn 5 begins with Athena bathing in a spring on Mount Helicon at midday with one of her favorite companions, the nymph Chariclo.[129][172] Chariclo's son Tiresias happened to be hunting on the same mountain and came to the spring searching for water.[129][172] He inadvertently saw Athena naked, so she struck him blind to ensure he would never again see what man was not intended to see.[129][173][174] Chariclo intervened on her son's behalf and begged Athena to have mercy.[129][174][175] Athena replied that she could not restore Tiresias's eyesight,[129][174][175] so, instead, she gave him the ability to understand the language of the birds and thus foretell the future.[176][175][129] Minerva and Arachne by René-Antoine Houasse (1706) The fable of Arachne appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses (8 AD) (vi.5–54 and 129–145),[177][178][179] which is nearly the only extant source for the legend.[178][179] The story does not appear to have been well known prior to Ovid's rendition of it[178] and the only earlier reference to it is a brief allusion in Virgil's Georgics, (29 BC) (iv, 246) that does not mention Arachne by name.[179] According to Ovid, Arachne (whose name means spider in ancient Greek[180]) was the daughter of a famous dyer in Tyrian purple in Hypaipa of Lydia, and a weaving student of Athena.[181] She became so conceited of her skill as a weaver that she began claiming that her skill was greater than that of Athena herself.[181][182] Athena gave Arachne a chance to redeem herself by assuming the form of an old woman and warning Arachne not to offend the deities.[177][182] Arachne scoffed and wished for a weaving contest, so she could prove her skill.[183][182] Athena wove the scene of her victory over Poseidon in the contest for the patronage of Athens.[183][184][182] Athena's tapestry also depicted the 12 Olympian gods and defeat of mythological figures who challenged their authority.[185] Arachne's tapestry featured twenty-one episodes of the deities' infidelity,[183][184][182] including Zeus being unfaithful with Leda, with Europa, and with Danaë.[184] It represented the unjust and discrediting behavior of the gods towards mortals.[185] Athena admitted that Arachne's work was flawless,[183][182][184] but was outraged at Arachne's offensive choice of subject, which displayed the failings and transgressions of the deities.[183][182][184] Finally, losing her temper, Athena destroyed Arachne's tapestry and loom, striking it with her shuttle.[183][182][184] Athena then struck Arachne across the face with her staff four times.[183][182][184] Arachne hanged herself in despair,[183][182][184] but Athena took pity on her and brought her back from the dead in the form of a spider.[183][182][184] Trojan War Main article: Judgement of Paris Ancient Greek mosaic from Antioch dating to the second century AD, depicting the Judgement of Paris The myth of the Judgement of Paris is mentioned briefly in the Iliad,[186] but is described in depth in an epitome of the Cypria, a lost poem of the Epic Cycle,[187] which records that all the gods and goddesses as well as various mortals were invited to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (the eventual parents of Achilles).[186] Only Eris, goddess of discord, was not invited.[187] She was annoyed at this, so she arrived with a golden apple inscribed with the word καλλίστῃ (kallistēi, "for the fairest"), which she threw among the goddesses.[188] Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena all claimed to be the fairest, and thus the rightful owner of the apple.[188][129] The goddesses chose to place the matter before Zeus, who, not wanting to favor one of the goddesses, put the choice into the hands of Paris, a Trojan prince.[188][129] After bathing in the spring of Mount Ida where Troy was situated, the goddesses appeared before Paris for his decision.[188] In the extant ancient depictions of the Judgement of Paris, Aphrodite is only occasionally represented nude, and Athena and Hera are always fully clothed.[189] Since the Renaissance, however, Western paintings have typically portrayed all three goddesses as completely naked.[189] All three goddesses were ideally beautiful and Paris could not decide between them, so they resorted to bribes.[188] Hera tried to bribe Paris with power over all Asia and Europe,[188][129] and Athena offered fame and glory in battle,[188][129] 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.[190][129] This woman was Helen, who was already married to King Menelaus of Sparta.[190] Paris selected Aphrodite and awarded her the apple.[190][129] The other two goddesses were enraged and, as a direct result, sided with the Greeks in the Trojan War.[190][129] In Books V–VI of the Iliad, Athena aids the hero Diomedes, who, in the absence of Achilles, proves himself to be the most effective Greek warrior.[191][138] Several artistic representations from the early sixth century BC may show Athena and Diomedes,[191] including an early sixth-century BC shield band depicting Athena and an unidentified warrior riding on a chariot, a vase painting of a warrior with his charioteer facing Athena, and an inscribed clay plaque showing Diomedes and Athena riding in a chariot.[191] Numerous passages in the Iliad also mention Athena having previously served as the patron of Diomedes's father Tydeus.[192][193] When the Trojan women go to the temple of Athena on the Acropolis to plead her for protection from Diomedes, Athena ignores them.[114] Athena also gets into a duel with Ares, the god of the brutal wars, and her male counterpart.[citation needed] Ares blames her for encouraging Diomedes to tear his beautiful flesh.[citation needed] He curses her and strikes with all his strength.[citation needed] Athena, however, cleverly deflects his blow with her aegis, a powerful shield which even Zeus's thunderbolt and lightning cannot blast through.[citation needed] Athena picked up a massive boulder and threw it at Ares, who immediately crumpled to the ground.[citation needed] Aphrodite, who was then a lover of the war god came down from Olympus to carry Ares away but was struck by Athena's golden spear and fell.[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.[citation needed] In Book XXII of the Iliad, while Achilles is chasing Hector around the walls of Troy, Athena appears to Hector disguised as his brother Deiphobus[194] and persuades him to hold his ground so that they can fight Achilles together.[194] Then, Hector throws his spear at Achilles and misses, expecting Deiphobus to hand him another,[195] but Athena disappears instead, leaving Hector to face Achilles alone without his spear.[195] 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.[196] Even after Odysseus himself expresses pity for Ajax,[197] Athena declares, "To laugh at your enemies - what sweeter laughter can there be than that?" (lines 78–9).[197] Ajax later commits suicide as a result of his humiliation.[197] Classical art Athena appears frequently in classical Greek art, including on coins and in paintings on ceramics.[198][199] She is especially prominent in works produced in Athens.[198] In classical depictions, Athena is usually portrayed standing upright, wearing a full-length chiton.[200] She is most often represented dressed in armor like a male soldier[199][200][7] and wearing a Corinthian helmet raised high atop her forehead.[201][7][199] Her shield bears at its centre the aegis with the head of the gorgon (gorgoneion) in the center and snakes around the edge.[168] Sometimes she is shown wearing the aegis as a cloak.[199] As Athena Promachos, she is shown brandishing a spear.[198][7][199] Scenes in which Athena was represented include her birth from the head of Zeus, her battle with the Gigantes, the birth of Erichthonius, and the Judgement of Paris.[198] The Mourning Athena or Athena Meditating is a famous relief sculpture dating to around 470-460 BC[201][198] that has been interpreted to represent Athena Polias.[201] The most famous classical depiction of Athena was the Athena Parthenos, a now-lost 11.5 m (38 ft)[202] gold and ivory statue of her in the Parthenon created by the Athenian sculptor Phidias.[200][198] Copies reveal that this statue depicted Athena holding her shield in her left hand with Nike, the winged goddess of victory, standing in her right.[198] Athena Polias is also represented in a Neo-Attic relief now held in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,[201] which depicts her holding an owl in her hand[i] and wearing her characteristic Corinthian helmet while resting her shield against a nearby herma.[201] The Roman goddess Minerva adopted most of Athena's Greek iconographical associations,[203] but was also integrated into the Capitoline Triad.[203] Attic black-figure exaleiptron of the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus (c. 570–560 BC) by the C Painter[198]   Attic red-figure kylix of Athena Promachos holding a spear and standing beside a Doric column (c. 500-490 BC)   Restoration of the polychrome decoration of the Athena statue from the Aphaea temple at Aegina, c. 490 BC (from the exposition "Bunte Götter" by the Munich Glyptothek)   The Mourning Athena relief (c. 470-460 BC)[201][198]   Attic red-figure kylix showing Athena slaying the Gigante Enceladus (c. 550–500 BC)   Relief of Athena and Nike slaying the Gigante Alkyoneus (?) from the Gigantomachy Frieze on the Pergamon Altar (early second century BC)   Classical mosaic from a villa at Tusculum, 3rd century AD, now at Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican   Athena portrait by Eukleidas on a tetradrachm from Syracuse, Sicily c. 400 BC   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. 430 AD, Museo Archeologico, Naples   Athena (2nd century BC) in the art of Gandhara, displayed at the Lahore Museum, Pakistan Post-classical culture Art and symbolism Statue of Pallas Athena in front of the Austrian Parliament Building. Athena has been used throughout Western history as a symbol of freedom and democracy.[204] Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria and Firmicus, denigrated Athena as representative of all the things that were detestable about paganism;[205] they condemned her as "immodest and immoral".[206] During the Middle Ages, however, many attributes of Athena were given to the Virgin Mary,[206] who, in fourth century portrayals, was often depicted wearing the Gorgoneion.[206] Some even viewed the Virgin Mary as a warrior maiden, much like Athena Parthenos;[206] 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.[207] 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.[208] During the Renaissance, Athena donned the mantle of patron of the arts and human endeavor;[209] allegorical paintings involving Athena were a favorite of the Italian Renaissance painters.[209] In Sandro Botticelli's painting Pallas and the Centaur, probably painted sometime in the 1480s, Athena is the personification of chastity, who is shown grasping the forelock of a centaur, who represents lust.[210][211] Andrea Mantegna's 1502 painting Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue uses Athena as the personification of Graeco-Roman learning chasing the vices of medievalism from the garden of modern scholarship.[212][211][213] Athena is also used as the personification of wisdom in Bartholomeus Spranger's 1591 painting The Triumph of Wisdom or Minerva Victorious over Ignorance.[203] During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Athena was used as a symbol for female rulers.[214] In his book A Revelation of the True Minerva (1582), Thomas Blennerhassett portrays Queen Elizabeth I of England as a "new Minerva" and "the greatest goddesse nowe on earth".[215] A series of paintings by Peter Paul Rubens depict Athena as Marie de' Medici's patron and mentor;[216] the final painting in the series goes even further and shows Marie de' Medici with Athena's iconography, as the mortal incarnation of the goddess herself.[216] The German sculptor Jean-Pierre-Antoine Tassaert later portrayed Catherine II of Russia as Athena in a marble bust in 1774.[203] During the French Revolution, statues of pagan gods were torn down all throughout France, but statues of Athena were not.[216] Instead, Athena was transformed into the personification of freedom and the republic[216] and a statue of the goddess stood in the center of the Place de la Revolution in Paris.[216] In the years following the Revolution, artistic representations of Athena proliferated.[217] A statue of Athena stands directly in front of the Austrian Parliament Building in Vienna,[218] and depictions of Athena have influenced other symbols of Western freedom, including the Statue of Liberty and Britannia.[218] For over a century, a full-scale replica of the Parthenon has stood in Nashville, Tennessee.[219] 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.[219] The Great Seal of California bears the image of Athena kneeling next to a brown grizzly bear.[220] Athena has occasionally appeared on modern coins, as she did on the ancient Athenian drachma. Her head appears on the $50 1915-S Panama-Pacific commemorative coin.[221] Pallas and the Centaur (c. 1482) by Sandro Botticelli   Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue (1502) by Andrea Mantegna[212][211][213]   Athena Scorning the Advances of Hephaestus (c. 1555–1560) 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[216]   Minerva Protecting Peace from Mars (1629) by Peter Paul Rubens   Pallas Athena (c. 1655) by Rembrandt   Minerva Revealing Ithaca to Ulysses (fifteenth century) by Giuseppe Bottani   Minerva and the Triumph of Jupiter (1706) by René-Antoine Houasse   The Combat of Mars and Minerva (1771) by Joseph-Benoît Suvée   Minerva Fighting Mars (1771) by Jacques-Louis David   Minerva of Peace mosaic in the Library of Congress   Athena on the Great Seal of California Modern interpretations Modern Neopagan Hellenist altar dedicated to Athena and Apollo One of Sigmund Freud's most treasured possessions was a small, bronze sculpture of Athena, which sat on his desk.[222] Freud once described Athena as "a woman who is unapproachable and repels all sexual desires - since she displays the terrifying genitals of the Mother."[223] Feminist views on Athena are sharply divided;[223] some feminists regard her as a symbol of female empowerment,[223] while others regard her as "the ultimate patriarchal sell out... who uses her powers to promote and advance men rather than others of her sex."[223] In contemporary Wicca, Athena is venerated as an aspect of the Goddess[224] and some Wiccans believe that she may bestow the "Owl Gift" ("the ability to write and communicate clearly") upon her worshippers.[224] Due to her status as one of the twelve Olympians, Athena is a major deity in Hellenismos,[225] a Neopagan religion which seeks to authentically revive and recreate the religion of ancient Greece in the modern world.[226] 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.[227] It is traditional at exam time for students to leave offerings to the goddess with a note asking for good luck,[227] or to repent for accidentally breaking any of the college's numerous other traditions.[227] Pallas Athena is the tutelary goddess of the international social fraternity Phi Delta Theta.[228] Her owl is also a symbol of the fraternity.[228] Athena is the Olympian goddess of wisdom and war and the adored patroness of the city of Athens. A virgin deity, she was also – somewhat paradoxically – associated with peace and handicrafts, especially spinning and weaving. Majestic and stern, Athena surpassed everybody in both of her main domains. In fact, even Ares feared her; and all Greek heroes asked her for help and advice. Athena’s Role Athena's Name Athena’s name is closely linked with the name of the city of Athens. The Ancient Greeks debated whether she got her name after the city or the other way around. Modern scholars usually agree that the former was the case. Athena's Portrayal and Symbolism In art and literature, Athena is usually depicted as a majestic lady, with a beautiful, but stern face, unsmiling full lips, grey eyes and a graceful build, emanating power and authority. She is always regally clad in either a chiton or a full armor. In the former case, she is sometimes represented with a spindle. In the latter case, she wears an elaborately crested Corinthian helmet and holds a long spear in one hand and an aegis in the other. At the center of her aegis there’s oftentimes an image of a Gorgon’s head (Gorgoneion), symbolizing the gift she got from Perseus: the head of Medusa. Just like Medusa’s eyes, Athena’s shield can also turn her enemies to stone. As a symbol of her wisdom, there’s sometimes an owl flying in Athena’s vicinity or sitting on her shoulder; from time to time there may also be a snake or an olive branch. Athena's Epithets Athena was one of the most important Olympian gods and she had many functions. Unsurprisingly, she was known under many different epithets. Some of the most famous were “Virgin,” “Pallas,” “The Unwearying One,” “The One of the City,” “The One with gleaming eyes” and “The One who fights in front.” Who were Zeus’ Lovers? How was the World created? What is the Trojan Horse? Athena’s Early Life The Birth of Athena Athena was born in most miraculous circumstances. On learning that Metis’ next child may overthrow him, Zeus swallowed his first wife who was already pregnant with Athens. When the time came, Zeus started feeling tremendous headaches. As even he couldn’t bear them, Hephaestus struck him with his axe and – lo and behold! – Athena leapt out of Zeus’ head, fully armed and with a cry so mighty and fearsome that Uranus and Gaea were shaken to their bones with terror. Zeus was delighted and full of pride. Athena’s Childhood Friend Pallas As a child, Athena had a friend she loved above all. Her name was Pallas and she was all but her equal in the art of war. However, one day, as they were practicing some martial exercises, Athena accidentally killed her friend. Grief-stricken and in an attempt to preserve her memory, she added her friend’s name to her own. That’s why many people know Athena as Athena Pallas. Athena, Goddess of Wisdom Athena, The Virgin Goddess Just like Artemis and Hestia, Athena was never swayed by love or passion. Consequently, she never had any children. Some say that Erichthonius was an exception, but, in fact, Athena was only his foster-mother. True, Hephaestus did try to violate her, but she fought him off, so he spilled his semen over the Earth, after which Gaea was impregnated. When Erichthonius was born, Athena took him under her wing, just like she would do afterward with another cult hero, Heracles. Athena, the Patron of Athens Poseidon and Athena had a much-publicized quarrel over who deserves to be the patron of the most prosperous Ancient Greek city, Athens. Poseidon claimed that the city would benefit more from him than Athena and to prove this, he struck his trident into a rock, creating a seawater stream which welled up in the Temple of Erechtheion on the north side of the Acropolis. Smart as she was, Athena did nothing spectacular: she merely planted an olive tree. However, the first king of Athens, Cecrops – who was the judge of the contest – realized that the olive tree was much more beneficial, since it gave the Athenians fruit, oil and wood. Athena, the Patroness of Handicrafts Athena was a master artisan. As much as she was the women counterpart of Ares as a war goddess, she was also the female equivalent of Hephaestus when it came to arts and crafts. Homer says that Athena fashioned ornate and luxuriously embroidered robes for Hera and herself. Some even say that she combined her two main interests to invent the war chariot and even the warship. Athena and the Myth of Arachne However, the most famous myth which connects Athena with handicrafts is the story of Arachne, a mortal craftswoman who boasted that she was more skillful than Athena herself. Athena offered her a chance to repent, but after Arachne refused, she challenged her to a weaving duel. The goddess fashioned a beautiful tapestry which illustrated the gruesome fate of the mortals who had the hubris of challenging the gods. Arachne, on the other hand, chose for a subject the stories of the mortals unjustly victimized by the gods. She didn’t even have a chance to finish it: enraged and offended, Athena tore Arachne’s fabric to pieces and turned her into a spider. As such, Arachne is doomed to weave ever since. Athena, the Helper of Heroes As a war goddess associated with wisdom – unlike Ares who was associated with mere violence – Athena was often the main helper of Ancient Greece’s greatest heroes. Most famously, she guided Odysseus during his ten-year-long journey back to Ithaca. But, she also helped many others, such as Heracles, Perseus, Bellerophon, Jason, Diomedes, Argus, and Cadmus. Athena Sources Homer’s “Odyssey” is an invaluable source for Athena and her deeds. If you want something briefer, read “The Homeric Hymns to Athena” (11 and 28). In Hesiod’s “Theogony” you can find the story of her birth. See Also: Arachne, Odysseus, Athens, Metis Athena Video Athena Q&A Who was Athena? Athena is the Olympian goddess of wisdom and war and the adored patroness of the city of Athens. A virgin deity, she was also – somewhat paradoxically – associated with peace and handicrafts, especially spinning and weaving. What did Athena rule over? Athena ruled over the Wisdom, the War, the Weaving and the Crafts. Where did Athena live? Athena's home was Mount Olympus. Who were the parents of Athena? The parent of Athena was Zeus. Who were brothers and sisters of Athena? Athena had 26 siblings: Aeacus, Angelos, Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Dionysus, Eileithyia, Enyo, Eris, Ersa, Hebe, Helen of Troy, Hephaestus, Heracles, Hermes, Minos, Pandia, Persephone, Perseus, Rhadamanthus, the Graces, the Horae, the Litae, the Muses and the Moirai. Which were the symbols of Athena? Athena's symbols were the Owls, the Olive tree, the Snakes, the Aegis, the Armor, the Helmets, the Spears and the Gorgoneion. Which were the sacred animals of Athena? Athena's sacred animals were the Owl and the Snakes. Which were the sacred plants of Athena? Athena's sacred plants were the Olive tree. Athena, also spelled Athene, in Greek religion, the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. 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. relief of the Pensive Athena relief of the Pensive Athena Pensive Athena, relief sculpture from the Acropolis, Athens, c. 460 BCE; in the Acropolis Museum, Athens. © Harrieta171 (CC BY-SA 3.0) She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, so that she emerged full-grown from his forehead. There was an alternative story that Zeus swallowed Metis, the goddess of counsel, while she was pregnant with Athena, so that Athena finally emerged from Zeus. Being the favourite child of Zeus, she had great power. Athena’s association with the acropolises of various Greek cities probably stemmed from the location of the kings’ palaces there. She was thought to have had neither consort nor offspring. She may not have been described as a virgin originally, but virginity was attributed to her very early and was the basis for the interpretation of her epithets Pallas and Parthenos. As a war goddess Athena could not be dominated by other goddesses, such as Aphrodite, and as a palace goddess she could not be violated. In Homer’s Iliad, Athena, as a war goddess, inspires and fights alongside the Greek heroes; her aid is synonymous with military prowess. Also in the Iliad, Zeus, the chief god, specifically assigns the sphere of war to Ares, the god of war, and Athena. Athena’s 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. Her superiority also derives in part from the vastly greater variety and importance of her functions and from the patriotism of Homer’s predecessors, Ares being of foreign origin. In the Iliad, Athena is the divine form of the heroic, martial ideal: she personifies excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. 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. Athena appears in Homer’s Odyssey as the tutelary deity of Odysseus, and myths from later sources portray her similarly as helper of Perseus and Heracles (Hercules). As the guardian of the welfare of kings, Athena became the goddess of good counsel, of prudent restraint and practical insight, as well as of war. In post-Mycenaean times the city, especially its citadel, replaced the palace as Athena’s domain. She was widely worshipped, but in modern times she is associated primarily with Athens, to which she gave her name. Her emergence there as city goddess, Athena Polias (“Athena, Guardian of the City”), accompanied the ancient city-state’s transition from monarchy to democracy. She was associated with birds, particularly the owl, which became famous as the city’s own symbol, and with the snake. 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. She was also worshipped in many other cities, notably in Sparta. Parthenon Parthenon The Parthenon, on the Acropolis, in Athens. Adam Crowley/Getty Images Athena became the goddess of crafts and skilled peacetime pursuits in general. She was particularly known as the patroness of spinning and weaving. That she ultimately became allegorized to personify wisdom and righteousness was a natural development of her patronage of skill. Athena was customarily portrayed wearing body armour and a helmet and carrying a shield and a lance. Two Athenians, the sculptor Phidias and the playwright Aeschylus, contributed significantly to the cultural dissemination of Athena’s image. She inspired three of Phidias’s sculptural masterpieces, including the massive chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue of Athena Parthenos once housed in the Parthenon; and in Aeschylus’s dramatic tragedy Eumenides she founded the Areopagus (Athens’s 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. Athena Parthenos Athena Parthenos Athena Parthenos, full-scale replica of Phidias's chryselephantine sculpture by Alan LeQuire, 1982; in a full-scale replica of the Parthenon, Nashville, Tennessee. © f11photo/Shutterstock.com The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn, Managing Editor, Reference Content. Learn More in these related Britannica articles: Kedleston Hall Western architecture: High Classical (c. 450–400 bc) …for a great statue of Athena by the sculptor Phidias, a statue that honoured the city goddess. Such obvious implications of civic pride are enhanced by the unparalleled portrayal of a contemporary event on the frieze of the building: the procession of citizens in the yearly festival in honour of… limestone ostracon with a drawing of a cat bringing a boy before a mouse magistrate fable, parable, and allegory: The Greeks …was moralized; the goddess Pallas Athene, for example, who in physical allegory stood for the ether, in moral allegory was taken to represent reflective wisdom because she was born out of the forehead of her father, Zeus. Moral and physical interpretation is often intermingled.… Athens: Acropolis Athens: The Acropolis of Athens …a shelter for the goddess Athena—the patroness who lent her name to the city—not a place for mass worship. Its spiritual quality, the sensation of being almost afloat, is enhanced by the lack of a single straight vertical line in the peristyle (the surrounding colonnade); each vertical is almost imperceptibly… newsletter icon HISTORY AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Sign up here to see what happened On This Day, every day in your inbox! Email address Email address By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice. acropolis ARTICLE Introduction & Quick Facts FAST FACTS MEDIA ADDITIONAL INFO Home Visual Arts Architecture acropolis ancient Greek district     BY The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica | View Edit History FAST FACTS Related Content the Acropolis the Acropolis See all media Key People: Pericles Related Topics: ancient Greek civilization acropolis, (Greek: “city at the top”) central, defensively oriented district in ancient Greek cities, located on the highest ground and containing the chief municipal and religious buildings. Because the founding of a city was a religious act, the establishment of a local home for the gods was a basic factor in Greek city planning. From both a religious and a military point of view, a hilltop site was highly desirable: militarily, because an acropolis had to be a citadel; religiously, because a hill was imbued with natural mysteries—caves, springs, copses, and glens—that denoted the presence of the gods. Parthenon Parthenon The Parthenon, Athens. © Goodshoot/Jupiterimages Explore Athen's rich ancient culture and walk through Parthenon and Erectheum temple ruins atop the Acropolis Explore Athen's rich ancient culture and walk through Parthenon and Erectheum temple ruins atop the Acropolis Athens and the Acropolis, including the Parthenon and the Erechtheum. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. See all videos for this article Tour the ruins of ancient Greek culture and regard the detail of sculptures and carvings atop the Acropolis Tour the ruins of ancient Greek culture and regard the detail of sculptures and carvings atop the Acropolis Details of the Acropolis, Athens, Greece. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. See all videos for this article Athens has the best-known acropolis, built during the second half of the 5th century BC. The Athenian acropolis, located on a craggy, walled hill, was built as a home of Athena, the patron goddess of the city. The structures that survive consist of the Propylaea, the gateway to the sacred precinct; the Parthenon, the chief shrine to Athena and also the treasury of the Delian League; the Erechtheum, a shrine to the agricultural deities, especially Erichthonius; and the Temple of Athena Nike, an architectural symbol of the harmony with which the Dorian and Ionian peoples lived under the government of Athens. Acropolis: Temple of Athena Nike Acropolis: Temple of Athena Nike Temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis, Athens. © Ron Gatepain (A Britannica Publishing Partner) Acropolis: Erechtheum Acropolis: Erechtheum Caryatids supporting the porch of the Erechtheum on the Acropolis, Athens. Dennis Jarvis (CC-BY-2.0) (A Britannica Publishing Partner) November 3, 2015. According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, after years of excavations the remains of, the Acra, used by the Greeks more than 2,000 years ago to control the Temple Mount. Jerusalem. Archeology. BRITANNICA QUIZ Archaeology: Digging and Scraping Quiz What is the scientific discipline concerned with dating and interpreting past events according to the analysis of tree rings? What is the name for a central defensively oriented district in ancient Greek cities? Test your knowledge. Take the quiz. This article was most recently revised and updated by Robert Lewis, Assistant Editor. Learn More in these related Britannica articles: Principal sites associated with Aegean civilizations. Aegean civilizations: Neolithic (New Stone Age) …Neolithic, there existed independent walled acropolis towns with specialized industries like potteries; Sesklo is an important site several acres in extent, with nearly 30 houses, a sophisticated gate, and striking red-and-white pottery. In the Late Neolithic, walled communities with special big houses that had megarons (central halls), as at Dhimini,… Principal sites associated with Aegean civilizations. Aegean civilizations: The mainland …1400, a series of small acropolis palaces was built, usually with a simple megaron hall, as at Tiryns, in Late Helladic III A. These palaces developed into almost grandiose complexes by the later 13th century, with lower courses of well-dressed limestone and painted floors, surrounded by workshops and storerooms. The… Principal sites associated with Aegean civilizations. Aegean civilizations: Society …mainland Greece, dynasties controlled fortified acropolis centres with outlying towns dependent on princes. This system is recorded extensively in Greek myths with Bronze Age origins, which tell of kings, princesses, and heroes from a few reigning families. During the last phase of Mycenaean culture and presumably during the Dark Age,… newsletter icon HISTORY AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Sign up here to see what happened On This Day, every day in your inbox! Email address Email address By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice. Pallas ARTICLE Introduction & Quick Facts FAST FACTS ADDITIONAL INFO Home Science Astronomy Pallas asteroid     BY Edward F. Tedesco | View Edit History Pallas, third largest asteroid in the asteroid belt and the second such object to be discovered, by the German astronomer and physician Wilhelm Olbers on March 28, 1802, following the discovery of Ceres the year before. It is named after Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. Pallas’s orbital inclination of 34.8° is rather large, but its moderate orbital eccentricity (0.23), mean distance from the Sun of 2.77 astronomical units (about 414 million km [257 million miles]), and orbital period of 4.62 years are typical for asteroids located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The discoveries of Ceres and Pallas, together with that of two more asteroids (Juno and Vesta) over the next five years, gave rise to the surprisingly long-lived but no longer generally accepted idea that the asteroids are remnants of the “missing” planet between Mars and Jupiter predicted by Bode’s law—i.e., that they were pieces of an actual planet that broke up. Pallas has an ellipsoidal shape with radial dimensions of 275 × 258 × 238 km, equivalent to a sphere with a diameter of 513 km—i.e., about 15 percent of the diameter of the Moon. Pallas’s albedo (reflectivity) is 0.15. Its mass is about 1.2 × 1020 kg, and its density is about 3.4 grams per cubic cm (about that of the Moon). Pallas turns once on its axis every 7.8 hours. Compositionally, Pallas resembles the carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. Its surface is known to contain hydrated minerals. Edward F. Tedesco Learn More in these related Britannica articles: Hubble Space Telescope astronomy: Herschel and the new planet Pallas was discovered by German astronomer Wilhelm Olbers the following year. Herschel did not feel that these objects were large enough to be planets, so he proposed the term asteroid (Greek for “starlike”), which had been suggested to him by classicist Charles Burney, Jr., via… asteroid distribution between Mars and Jupiter asteroid: Early discoveries …over the next six years—Pallas, Juno, and Vesta—complicated that elegant solution to the missing-planet problem and gave rise to the surprisingly long-lived though no longer accepted idea that the asteroids were remnants of a planet that had exploded.… Olbers, detail from an engraving Wilhelm Olbers …physician who discovered the asteroids Pallas and Vesta, as well as five comets.… newsletter icon HISTORY AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Sign up here to see what happened On This Day, every day in your inbox! Email address Email address By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice. Minerva ARTICLE Introduction & Quick Facts FAST FACTS MEDIA ADDITIONAL INFO Home Philosophy & Religion Ancient Religions & Mythology Minerva Roman goddess Alternate titles: Menrva     BY The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica | View Edit History Minerva, in Roman religion, the goddess of handicrafts, the professions, the arts, and, later, war; she was commonly identified with the Greek Athena. Some scholars believe that her cult was that of Athena introduced at Rome from Etruria. This is reinforced by the fact that she was one of the Capitoline triad, in association with Jupiter and Juno. Her shrine on the Aventine in Rome was a meeting place for guilds of craftsmen, including at one time dramatic poets and actors. Minerva as goddess of war, bronze statuette, early Etruscan; in the British Museum Minerva as goddess of war, bronze statuette, early Etruscan; in the British Museum Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum Her worship as a goddess of war encroached upon that of Mars. The erection of a temple to her by Pompey out of the spoils of his Eastern conquests shows that by then she had been identified with the Greek Athena Nike, bestower of victory. Under the emperor Domitian, who claimed her special protection, the worship of Minerva attained its greatest vogue in Rome. Minerva Minerva Statue of Minerva. © Photos.com/Thinkstock mythology. Greek. Icarus and Daedalus BRITANNICA QUIZ Gods, Goddesses, and Greek Mythology In Greek mythology, who flew too close to the Sun? Spread your mental wings in this odyssey of mythical gods, goddesses, and famous characters of Greek mythology. This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper, Senior Editor. Learn More in these related Britannica articles: satyr ancient Italic people: Religion and mythology …Aphrodite/Venus, and Menrva to Athena/ Minerva. But their character and mythology often differed sharply from that of their Greek counterparts. Menrva, for example, an immensely popular deity, was regarded as a sponsor of marriage and childbirth, in contrast to the virgin Athena, who was much more concerned with the affairs… Temple of Diana Roman religion: The divinities of the later Regal period The functions of Minerva concerned craftsmen and reflected the growing industrial life of Rome. Two gods with Etruscan names, both worshiped at open altars before they had temples in Rome, were Vulcan and Saturn, the former a fire god identified with the Greek blacksmiths’ deity Hephaestus, and the… Celtic cross. Celtic religion: The Celtic gods There are dedications to “Minerva” in Britain and throughout the Celtic areas of the Continent. At Bath she was identified with the goddess Sulis, whose cult there centred on the thermal springs. Through the plural form Suleviae, found at Bath and elsewhere, she is also related to the numerous… newsletter icon HISTORY AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Sign up here to see what happened On This Day, every day in your inbox! Email address Email address By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice. myth ARTICLE Introduction The nature, functions, and types of myth Relation of myths to other narrative forms Fables Fairy tales Folktales Sagas and epics Legends Parables Etiologic tales Approaches to the study of myth and mythology Allegorical Romantic Comparative Folkloric Functionalist Structuralist Formalist Functions of myth and mythology Explanation Justification or validation Description Healing, renewal, and inspiration Myth in culture Myth and psychology Myth and science Myth and religion Ritual and other practices Religious symbolism and iconography Sacred texts Myth and the arts Oral traditions and written literature Visual arts Performing arts Music Myth and history Major types of myth Myths of origin Myths of eschatology and destruction Messianic and millenarian myths Myths of culture heroes and soteriological myths Myths of time and eternity Myths of providence and destiny Myths of rebirth and renewal Myths of memory and forgetting Myths of high beings and celestial gods Myths concerning founders of religions and other religious figures Myths of kings and ascetics Myths of transformation Myth in modern society Secularization of myth and mythology Demythologization of major religious traditions Political and social uses of myth Animals and plants in myth Relationships of opposition or difference Cosmogonies Animal and plant deities Hunting and agricultural deities Culture heroes Demonic plants and animals Relationships of descent Creation of human beings from plants or animals Totemism Hierarchy Relationships of mixture Relationships of transformation Relationships of identity Soul-stuff Death, or postmortem, soul Plural souls The alter ego, or life index Relationships of similarity FAST FACTS MEDIA ADDITIONAL INFO Home Philosophy & Religion Ancient Religions & Mythology myth     BY Jonathan Z. Smith | See All Contributors | View Edit History FAST FACTS 2-Min Summary Related Content mythological figure mythological figure See all media Key People: John William Waterhouse Related Topics: Germanic religion and mythology creation myth Greek mythology Japanese mythology sphinx myth, a symbolic narrative, usually of unknown origin and at least partly traditional, that ostensibly relates actual events and that is especially associated with religious belief. It is distinguished from symbolic behaviour (cult, ritual) and symbolic places or objects (temples, icons). Myths are specific accounts of gods or superhuman beings involved in extraordinary events or circumstances in a time that is unspecified but which is understood as existing apart from ordinary human experience. The term mythology denotes both the study of myth and the body of myths belonging to a particular religious tradition. Examine the ways in which mythology functioned for the ancient Greek population Examine the ways in which mythology functioned for the ancient Greek population This 1973 film, produced by Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation, explores Greek myth as early fiction, as history in disguise, and as the outgrowth of prehistoric ritual. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. See all videos for this article As with all religious symbolism, there is no attempt to justify mythic narratives or even to render them plausible. Every myth presents itself as an authoritative, factual account, no matter how much the narrated events are at variance with natural law or ordinary experience. By extension from this primary religious meaning, the word myth may also be used more loosely to refer to an ideological belief when that belief is the object of a quasi-religious faith; an example would be the Marxist eschatological myth of the withering away of the state. While the outline of myths from a past period or from a society other than one’s own can usually be seen quite clearly, to recognize the myths that are dominant in one’s own time and society is always difficult. This is hardly surprising, because a myth has its authority not by proving itself but by presenting itself. In this sense the authority of a myth indeed “goes without saying,” and the myth can be outlined in detail only when its authority is no longer unquestioned but has been rejected or overcome in some manner by another, more comprehensive myth. The word myth derives from the Greek mythos, which has a range of meanings from “word,” through “saying” and “story,” to “fiction”; the unquestioned validity of mythos can be contrasted with logos, the word whose validity or truth can be argued and demonstrated. Because myths narrate fantastic events with no attempt at proof, it is sometimes assumed that they are simply stories with no factual basis, and the word has become a synonym for falsehood or, at best, misconception. In the study of religion, however, it is important to distinguish between myths and stories that are merely untrue. The first part of this article discusses the nature, study, functions, cultural impact, and types of myth, taking into account the various approaches to the subject offered by modern branches of knowledge. In the second part, the specialized topic of the role of animals and plants in myth is examined in some detail. The mythologies of specific cultures are covered in the articles Greek religion, Roman religion, and Germanic religion. The nature, functions, and types of myth Myth has existed in every society. Indeed, it would seem to be a basic constituent of human culture. Because the variety is so great, it is difficult to generalize about the nature of myths. But it is clear that in their general characteristics and in their details a people’s myths reflect, express, and explore the people’s self-image. The study of myth is thus of central importance in the study both of individual societies and of human culture as a whole. Relation of myths to other narrative forms In Western culture there are a number of literary or narrative genres that scholars have related in different ways to myths. Examples are fables, fairy tales, folktales, sagas, epics, legends, and etiologic tales (which refer to causes or explain why a thing is the way it is). Another form of tale, the parable, differs from myth in its purpose and character. Even in the West, however, there is no agreed definition of any of these genres, and some scholars question whether multiplying categories of narrative is helpful at all, as opposed to working with a very general concept such as the traditional tale. Non-Western cultures apply classifications that are different both from the Western categories and from one another. Most, however, make a basic distinction between “true” and “fictitious” narratives, with “true” ones corresponding to what in the West would be called myths. If it is accepted that the category of traditional tale should be subdivided, one way of doing so is to regard the various subdivisions as comparable to bands of colour in a spectrum. Within this figurative spectrum, there will be similarities and analogies between myth and folktale or between myth and legend or between fairy tale and folktale. In the section that follows, it is assumed that useful distinctions can be drawn between different categories. It should, however, be remembered throughout that these classifications are far from rigid and that, in many cases, a given tale might be plausibly assigned to more than one category. Fables The word fable derives from the Latin word fabula, which originally meant about the same as the Greek mythos. Like mythos, it came to mean a fictitious or untrue story. Myths, in contrast, are not presented as fictitious or untrue. Fables, like some myths, feature personified animals or natural objects as characters. Unlike myths, however, fables almost always end with an explicit moral message, and this highlights the characteristic feature of fables—namely, that they are instructive tales that teach morals about human social behaviour. Myths, by contrast, tend to lack this directly didactic aspect, and the sacred narratives that they embody are often hard to translate into direct prescriptions for action in everyday human terms. Another difference between fables and myths relates to a feature of the narratives that they present. The context of a typical fable will be unspecific as to time and space—e.g., “A fox and a goose met at a pool.” A typical myth, on the other hand, will be likely to identify by name the god or hero concerned in a given exploit and to specify details of geography and genealogy—e.g., “Oedipus was the son of Laius, the king of Thebes.” Fairy tales The term fairy tale, if taken literally, should refer only to stories about fairies, a class of supernatural and sometimes malevolent beings—often believed to be of diminutive size—who were thought by people in medieval and postmedieval Europe to inhabit a kingdom of their own; a literary expression of this belief can be found in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The term fairy tale, however, is normally used to refer to a much wider class of narrative, namely stories (directed above all at an audience of children) about an individual, almost always young, who confronts strange or magical events; examples are “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Cinderella,” and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” The modern concept of the fairy tale seems not to be found earlier than the 18th century in Europe, but the narratives themselves have earlier analogues much farther afield, notably in the Indian Katha-saritsagara (The Ocean of Story) and in The Thousand and One Nights. Like myths, fairy tales present extraordinary beings and events. Unlike myths—but like fables—fairy tales tend to be placed in a setting that is geographically and temporally vague and might begin with the words “Once upon a time there was a handsome prince….” A myth about a prince, by contrast, would be likely to name him and to specify his lineage, since such details might be of collective importance (for example, with reference to issues of property inheritance or the relative status of different families) to the social group among which the myth was told. Folktales There is much disagreement among scholars as to how to define the folktale; consequently, there is disagreement about the relation between folktale and myth. One view of the problem is that of the American folklorist Stith Thompson, who regarded myths as one type of folktale; according to this approach, the particular characteristic of myth is that its narratives deal with sacred events that happened “in the beginning.” Other scholars either consider folktale a subdivision of myth or regard the two categories as distinct but overlapping. The latter view is taken by the British Classicist Geoffrey S. Kirk, who in Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures (1970) uses the term myth to denote stories with an underlying purpose beyond that of simple story-telling and the term folktale to denote stories that reflect simple social situations and play on ordinary fears and desires. Examples of folktale motifs are encounters between ordinary, often humble, human beings and supernatural adversaries such as witches, giants, or ogres; contests to win a bride; and attempts to overcome a wicked stepmother or jealous sisters. But these typical folktale themes occur also in stories normally classified as myths, and there must always be a strong element of arbitrariness in assigning a motif to a particular category. A different and important aspect of the problem of defining a folktale relates to the historical origin of the concept. As with the notion of folklore, the notion of folktale has its roots in the late 18th century. From that period until the middle of the 19th century, many European thinkers of a nationalist persuasion argued that stories told by ordinary people constituted a continuous tradition reaching back into the nation’s past. Thus, stories such as the Märchen (“tales”) collected by the Grimm brothers in Germany are folktales because they were told by the people rather than by an aristocratic elite. This definition of folktale introduces a new criterion for distinguishing between myth and folktale—namely, what class of person tells the story—but it by no means removes all the problems of classification. Just as the distinction between folk and aristocracy cannot be transferred from medieval Europe to precolonial Africa or Classical Greece without risk of distortion, so the importing of a distinction between myth and folktale on the later European model is extremely problematic. Sagas and epics The word saga is often used in a generalized and loose way to refer to any extended narrative re-creation of historical events. A distinction is thus sometimes drawn between myths (set in a semidivine world) and sagas (more realistic and more firmly grounded in a specific historical setting). This rather vague use of saga is best avoided, however, since the word can more usefully retain the precise connotation of its original context. The word saga is Old Norse and means “what is said.” The sagas are a group of medieval Icelandic prose narratives; the principal sagas date from the 13th century and relate the deeds of Icelandic heroes who lived during the 10th and 11th centuries. If the word saga is restricted to this Icelandic context, at least one of the possible terminological confusions over words for traditional tales is avoided. While saga in its original sense is a narrative type confined to a particular time and place, epics are found worldwide. Examples can be found in the ancient world (the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer), in medieval Europe (the Nibelungenlied), and in modern times (the Serbo-Croatian epic poetry recorded in the 1930s). Among the many non-European examples are the Indian Mahabharata and the Tibetan Gesar epic. Epic is similar to saga in that both narrative forms look back to an age of heroic endeavour, but it differs from saga in that epics are almost always composed in poetry (with a few exceptions such as Kazak epic and the Turkish Book of Dede Korkut). The relation between epic and myth is not easy to pin down, but it is in general true that epics characteristically incorporate mythical events and persons. An example is the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, which includes, among many mythical episodes, an account of the meeting between the hero Gilgamesh and Utnapishtim, the only human being to have attained immortality and sole survivor (with his wife) of the flood sent by the gods. Myth is thus a prime source of the material on which epic draws. Legends In common usage the word legend usually characterizes a traditional tale thought to have a historical basis, as in the legends of King Arthur or Robin Hood. In this view, a distinction may be drawn between myth (which refers to the supernatural and the sacred) and legend (which is grounded in historical fact). Thus, some writers on the Iliad would distinguish between the legendary aspects (e.g., heroes performing actions possible for ordinary humans) and the mythical aspects (e.g., episodes involving the gods). But the distinction between myth and legend must be used with care. In particular, because of the assumed link between legend and historical fact, there may be a tendency to refer to narratives that correspond to one’s own beliefs as legends, while exactly comparable stories from other traditions may be classified as myths; hence a Christian might refer to stories about the miraculous deeds of a saint as legends, while similar stories about a pagan healer might be called myths. As in other cases, it must be remembered that the boundaries between terms for traditional narratives are fluid, and that different writers employ them in quite different ways. Parables The term myth is not normally applied to narratives that have as their explicit purpose the illustration of a doctrine or standard of conduct. Instead, the term parable, or illustrative tale, is used. Familiar examples of such narratives are the parables of the New Testament. Parables have a considerable role also in Sufism (Islamic mysticism), rabbinic (Jewish biblical interpretive) literature, Hasidism (Jewish pietism), and Zen Buddhism. That parables are essentially non-mythological is clear because the point made by the parable is known or supposed to be known from another source. Parables have a more subservient function than myths. They may clarify something to an individual or a group but do not take on the revelatory character of myth. Etiologic tales Etiologic tales are very close to myth, and some scholars regard them as a particular type of myth rather than as a separate category. In modern usage the term etiology is used to refer to the description or assignment of causes (Greek aitia). Accordingly, an etiologic tale explains the origin of a custom, state of affairs, or natural feature in the human or divine world. Many tales explain the origin of a particular rock or mountain. Others explain iconographic features, such as the Hindu narrative ascribing the blue neck of the god Shiva to a poison he drank in primordial times. The etiologic theme often seems to be added to a mythical narrative as an afterthought. In other words, the etiology is not the distinctive characteristic of myth. Approaches to the study of myth and mythology The importance of studying myth to provide a key to a human society is a matter of historical record. In the middle of the 19th century, for instance, a newly appointed British governor of New Zealand, Sir George Grey, was confronted by the problem of how to come to terms with the Maori, who were hostile to the British. He learned their language, but that proved insufficient for an understanding of the way in which they reasoned and argued. In order to be able to conduct negotiations satisfactorily, he found it necessary to study the Maori’s mythology, to which they made frequent reference. Other government officials and Christian missionaries of the 19th and 20th centuries made similar efforts to understand the mythologies of nations or peoples so as to facilitate communication. Such studies were more than a means to an end, whether efficient administration or conversion. They amounted to the discovery that myths present a model or charter for human behaviour and that the world of myth provides guidance for crucial elements in human existence—war and peace, life and death, truth and falsehood, good and evil. In addition to such practically motivated attempts to understand myth, theorists and scholars from many disciplines have interested themselves in the study of the subject. A close study of myth has developed in the West, especially since the 18th century. Much of its material has come from the study of the Greek and Roman classics, from which it has also derived some of its methods of interpretation. The growth of philosophy in ancient Greece furthered allegorical interpretations of myth—i.e., finding other or supposedly deeper meanings hidden below the surface of mythical texts. Such meanings were usually seen as involving natural phenomena or human values. Related to this was a tendency toward rationalism, especially when those who studied myths employed false etymologies. Rationalism in this context connotes the scrutiny of myths in such a way as to make sense of the statements contained in them without taking literally their references to gods, monsters, or the supernatural. Thus, the ancient writer Palaiphatos interpreted the story of Europa (carried off to Crete on the back of a handsome bull, which was actually Zeus in disguise) as that of a woman abducted by a Cretan called Tauros, the Greek word for bull; and Skylla, the bestial and cannibalistic creature who attacked Odysseus’s ship according to Homer’s Odyssey, was by the same process of rationalizing interpreted as simply the name of a pirate ship. Of special and long-lasting influence in the history of the interpretation of myth was Euhemerism (named after Euhemerus, a Greek writer who flourished about 300 BCE), according to which certain gods were originally great people venerated because of their benefactions to humankind. Titian: The Rape of Europa Titian: The Rape of Europa The Rape of Europa, oil on canvas by Titian, c. 1559–62; in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Courtesy of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston The early Church Fathers adopted an attitude of modified Euhemerism, according to which Classical mythology was to be explained in terms of mere humans who had been raised to superhuman, demonic status because of their deeds. By this means, Christians were able to incorporate myths from the culturally authoritative pagan past into a Christian framework while defusing their religious significance—the gods became ordinary humans. The Middle Ages did not develop new theoretical perspectives on myth, nor, despite some elaborate works of historical and etymological erudition, did the Renaissance. In both periods, interpretations in terms of allegory and Euhemerism tended to predominate. In early 18th-century Italy, Giambattista Vico, a thinker now considered the forerunner of all writers on ethnology, or the study of culture in human societies, built on traditional scholarship—especially in law and philosophy—to make the first clear case for the role of the creative imagination of human beings in the formation of distinct myths at successive cultural stages. His work, which was most notably expressed in his Scienza nuova (1725; The New Science of Giambattista Vico), had no influence in his own century. Instead, the notion that pagan myths were distortions of the biblical revelation (first expressed in the Renaissance) continued to find favour. Nevertheless, Enlightenment philosophy, reports from voyages of discovery, and missionary reports (especially the Jesuits’ accounts of North American Indians) contributed to scholarship and fostered greater objectivity. Bernhard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, a French scholar, compared Greek and American Indian myths and suggested that there was a universal human predisposition toward mythology. In De l’origine des fables (1724; “On the Origin of Fables”) he attributed the absurdities (as he saw them) of myths to the fact that the stories grew up among an earlier human society. About 1800 the Romantics’ growing fascination with language, the postulation of an Indo-European language family, the study of Sanskrit, and the growth of comparative studies, especially in history and philology, were all part of a trend that included the study of myth. The relevance of Indo-European studies to an understanding of Greek and Roman mythology was carried to an extreme in the work of Friedrich Max Müller, a German scholar who moved to Britain and undertook important research on comparative linguistics. In his view, expressed in such works as Comparative Mythology (1856), the mythology of the original Indo-European peoples had consisted of allegorical stories about the workings of nature, in particular such features as the sky, the sun, and the dawn. In the course of time, though, these original meanings had been lost (through, in Müller’s notorious phrasing, a “disease of language”), so that the myths no longer told in a “rationally intelligible” way of phenomena in the natural world but instead appeared to describe the “irrational” activities of gods, heroes, nymphs, and others. For instance, one Greek myth related the pursuit of the nymph Daphne by the god Phoebus Apollo. Since—in Müller’s interpretation of the evidence of comparative linguistics—“Daphne” originally meant “dawn,” and “Phoibos” meant “morning sun,” the original story was rationally intelligible as “the dawn is put to flight by the morning sun.” One of the problems with this view is, of course, that it fails to account for the fact that the Greeks continued to tell this and similar stories long after their supposed meanings had been forgotten; and they did so, moreover, in the manifest belief that the stories referred, not to nature, but precisely to gods, heroes, and other mythical beings. Lorenzo Bernini: Apollo and Daphne Lorenzo Bernini: Apollo and Daphne Apollo and Daphne, marble sculpture by Lorenzo Bernini, 1622–24; in the Borghese Gallery, Rome. SCALA/Art Resource, New York Interest in myth was greatly stimulated in Germany by Friedrich von Schelling’s philosophy of mythology, which argued that myth was a form of expression, characteristic of a particular stage in human development, through which humans imagine the Absolute (for Schelling an all-embracing unity in which all differences are reconciled). Scholarly interest in myth continued into the 20th century. Many scholars adopted a psychological approach because of interest aroused by the theories of Sigmund Freud. Subsequently, new approaches in sociology and anthropology continued to encourage the study of myth. Allegorical An example of an allegorical interpretation would be that given by an ancient commentator for the Iliad, book 20, verse 67. Referring to an episode in which the gods fight each other, the commentator cites critics who have explained the hostilities between the gods allegorically as an opposition between elements—dry against wet, hot against cold, light against heavy. Thus, the gods Apollo, Helios, and Hephaestus represent fire, and the god Poseidon and the river Scamander represent water. Similarly, the goddess Athena is interpreted as wisdom/sense, the god Ares as the absence of that quality, the goddess Aphrodite as desire, and the god Hermes as reason. An allegorical interpretation of a myth could be said to posit a one-to-one correspondence between mythical “clothing” and the ideas being so clothed. This approach tends to limit the meaning of a myth, whereas that meaning may in reality be multiple, operating on several levels. relief of the Pensive Athena relief of the Pensive Athena Pensive Athena, relief sculpture from the Acropolis, Athens, c. 460 BCE; in the Acropolis Museum, Athens. © Harrieta171 (CC BY-SA 3.0) Romantic In the late 18th century artists and intellectuals came increasingly to emphasize the role of the emotions in human life and, correspondingly, to play down the importance of reason (which had been regarded as supremely important by thinkers of the Enlightenment). Those involved in the new movement were known as Romantics. The Romantic movement had profound implications for the study of myth. Myths—both the stories from Greek and Roman antiquity and contemporary folktales—were regarded by the Romantics as repositories of experience far more vital and powerful than those obtainable from what was felt to be the artificial art and poetry of the aristocratic civilization of contemporary Europe. mosaic; Christianity READ MORE ON THIS TOPIC Christianity: Christian myth and legend Myths and legends number among the most creative and abundant contributions of Christianity to the history of human culture. They have inspired... This new attitude is illustrated in a work of the German critic and philosopher Johann Gottfried von Herder entitled “Auszug aus einem Briefwechsel über Ossian und die Lieder alter Völker” (1773; “Extract from a Correspondence on Ossian and the Songs of Ancient Peoples”). Ossian is the name of an Irish warrior-poet whose Gaelic songs were supposedly translated and presented to the world by James Macpherson in the 1760s. Although largely the work of Macpherson himself, these songs made a colossal impact when they were published. Herder believed that the more “savage,” that is, the more “alive” and “freedom-loving” a people (ein Volk) was, the more alive and free its songs would be. In opposition to the culture of the educated, Herder exalted the Kultur des Volkes (“culture of the people”). In 1769 Herder abandoned his job as a schoolteacher and took a boat from Riga, on the Baltic, to Nantes, on the Atlantic coast of France. In Journal meiner Reise im Jahre 1769 (1769; Journal of My Travels in the Year 1769), a description of the experience, he wrote: In everything [on board ship] there is experience to illuminate the original era of the myths. Then [i.e., in antiquity] every man, ignorant of nature, listened for signs and had to listen for them.…Then, Jupiter’s lightning was terrifying—as indeed it is [i.e., now] on the Ocean.…There are a thousand new and more natural explanations of mythology…if one reads, say, Orpheus, Homer, Pindar…on board ship. In other words, for Herder ancient myths were the natural expressions of the concerns that would have confronted the ancients; and those concerns were the very ones that, according to Herder, still confronted the Volk—e.g., ordinary sailors—in Herder’s own day. Comparative Since the Romantic movement, all study of myth has been comparative, although comparative attempts were made earlier. The prevalence of the comparative approach has meant that since the 19th century even the most specialized studies have made generalizations about more than one tradition or at the very least have had to take comparative works by others into account. Indeed, for there to be any philosophical inquiry into the nature and function of myth at all, there must exist a body of data about myths across a range of societies. Such data would not exist without a comparative approach. Folkloric The classic folklore approach is that of Wilhelm Mannhardt, a German scholar, who attempted to collect data on the “lower mythology,” which he considered to be more or less homogeneous in ancient and popular peasant traditions and basic to all formation of myth. Mannhardt saw sufficient analogies and similarities between the ancient and modern data to permit use of the latter in interpreting the former. Like Herder, he saw the source of mythology in the traditions passed on among the Volk. He collected information not only about popular stories but also about popular customs. He interpreted ancient Greek rituals by relating them to customs of the agricultural peoples of northern Europe, proposing this link in his book Antike Wald- und Feldkulte (1877; “Ancient Wood and Field Cults”). Other people who examined myth from the folklore standpoint included Sir James Frazer, the British anthropologist, the brothers Grimm (Jacob, who influenced Mannhardt, and Wilhelm), who are well-known for their collections of folklore, and Stith Thompson, who is notable for his classification of folk literature, particularly his massive Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (1955). The Grimms shared Herder’s passion for the poetry and stories of the Volk. Their importance stems in part from the academic diligence and meticulousness that they brought to the recording and study of popular tradition. In addition to their collection of Märchen (“tales”), they published volumes of Deutsche Sagen (“German Legends”). These were tales that purported to record actual events and that were ostensibly set in a specific place and period, as opposed to the “once-upon-a-time-in-the-forest” setting characteristic of the Märchen. Collecting and classifying mythological themes have remained the principal activities of the folklore approach. “The Elves and the Shoemaker” “The Elves and the Shoemaker” “The Elves and the Shoemaker,” illustration by George Cruikshank, etching for Grimm's Fairy Tales. From 'Graphic Works of George Cruikshank', Richard A. Vogler, ed., Dover Publications, Inc. Functionalist One of the leading exponents of the functionalist approach to myth was the French sociologist Marcel Mauss, who used the phrase “total social facts” in reference to religious symbols and myths and their irreducibility in terms of other functions. In his Essai sur le don (1925; The Gift), Mauss referred to a system of gift giving to be found in traditional, preindustrial societies. Observing that there was a mass of complex data on the subject, Mauss continued: in these “early” societies, social phenomena are not discrete; each phenomenon contains all the threads of which the social fabric is composed. In these total social phenomena, as we propose to call them, all kinds of institutions find simultaneous expression: religious, legal, moral, and economic. In his introduction to the English edition Edward Evans-Pritchard commented on that passage: “Total” is the key word of the Essay. The exchanges of archaic societies which he examines are total social movements or activities. They are at the same time economic, juridical, moral, aesthetic, religious, mythological…phenomena.…Their meaning can therefore only be grasped if they are viewed as a complex concrete reality. Functionalism is primarily associated with the anthropologists Bronisław Malinowski and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, however. Both ask not what the origin of any given social behaviour may be but how it contributes to maintaining the system of which it is a part. In this view, in all types of society, every aspect of life—every custom, belief, or idea—makes its own special contribution to the continued effective working of the whole society. Functionalism has had a wide appeal to anthropologists in Britain and the United States, especially as an interpretation of myth as integrated with other aspects of society and as supporting existing social relationships. Structuralist Structuralist approaches to myth are based on the analogy of myth to language. Just as a language is composed of significant oppositions (e.g., between phonemes, the constituent sounds of the language), so myths are formed out of significant oppositions between certain terms and categories. Structuralist analysis aims at uncovering what it sees as the logic of myth. It is argued that supposedly primitive thought is logically consistent but that the terms of this logic are not those with which modern Western culture is familiar. Instead they are terms related to items of the everyday world in which the “primitive” culture exists. This logic is usually based on empirical categories (e.g., raw/cooked, upstream/downstream, bush/village) or empirical objects (e.g., buffalo, river, gold, eagle). Some structuralists, such as the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, have emphasized the presence of the same logical patterns in myths throughout the world. In earlier anthropology, “primitive mentality” was characterized by the inability to make distinctions, by a sense of “mystic participation” or identity between human beings, the cosmos, and all other beings. Beginning with complex kinship systems and later exploring other taxonomies, structuralists argue to the opposite conclusion: the supposedly primitive human beings are, if anything, obsessed with the making of distinctions; their taxonomies reveal a complexity and sophistication that rival those of modern humanity. Formalist In contrast to the structuralists’ search for the underlying structure of myths, the 20th-century Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp investigated folktales by dividing the surface of their narratives into a number of basic elements. These elements correspond to different types of action that, in Propp’s analysis, always occur in the same sequence. Examples of the types of action isolated by Propp are “An interdiction is addressed to the hero”; “The interdiction is violated”; “The false hero or villain is exposed”; and “The hero is married and ascends the throne.” An important development of Propp’s approach was made in the late 20th century by the German historian of religion Walter Burkert. Burkert detected certain recurrent patterns in the actions described in Greek myths, and he related these patterns (and their counterparts in Greek ritual) to basic biologic or cultural “programs of action.” An example of this relation is given in Burkert’s Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (1979). Burkert shows how certain Greek myths have a recurring pattern that he calls “the girl’s tragedy.” According to this pattern, a girl first leaves home; after a period of seclusion, she is raped by a god; there follows a time of tribulation, during which she is threatened by parents or relatives; eventually, having given birth to a baby boy, the girl is rescued, and the boy’s glorious future is assured. The reason for the frequency and persistence of this pattern is, in Burkert’s view, the fact that it reflects a basic biologic sequence or “program of action”; puberty, defloration, pregnancy, delivery. Another pattern Burkert explains in a similar way is found in myths about the driving out of the scapegoat. This pattern, Burkert argues, stems from a real situation that must often have occurred in early human or primate history; a group of humans, or a group of apes, when pursued by carnivores, were able to save themselves through the sacrifice of one member of the group. The persistence of these patterns through time is explained, according to Burkert, by the fact that they are grounded in basic human needs—above all, the need to survive. Functions of myth and mythology Explanation The most obvious function of myths is the explanation of facts, whether natural or cultural. One North American Indian (Abenaki) myth, for example, explains the origin of corn (maize): a lonely man meets a beautiful woman with long, fair hair; she promises to remain with him if he follows her instructions; she tells him in detail how to make a fire and, after he has done so, she orders him to drag her over the burned ground; as a result of these actions, he will see her silken hair (viz., the cornstalk) reappear, and thereafter he will have corn seeds for his use. Henceforth, whenever Abenaki Indians see corn (the woman’s hair), they know that she remembers them. Obviously, a myth such as this one functions as an explanation, but the narrative form distinguishes it from a straightforward answer to an intellectual question about causes. The function of explanation and the narrative form go together, since the imaginative power of the myth lends credibility to the explanation and crystallizes it into a memorable and enduring form. Hence myths play an important part in many traditional systems of education. Justification or validation Many myths explain ritual and cultic customs. According to myths from the island of Ceram (in Indonesia), in the beginning life was not complete, or not yet “human”: vegetation and animals did not exist, and there was neither death nor sexuality. In a mysterious manner Hainuwele, a girl with extraordinary gift-bestowing powers, appeared. The people killed her at the end of their great annual celebration, and her dismembered body was planted in the earth. Among the species that sprang up after this act of planting were tubers—the staple diet of the people telling the myth. With a certain circularity frequent in mythology, the myth validates the very cultic celebration mentioned in the myth. The cult can be understood as a commemoration of those first events. Hence, the myth can be said to validate life itself together with the cultic celebration. Comparable myths are told in a number of societies where the main means of food production is the cultivation of root crops; the myths reflect the fact that tubers must be cut up and buried in the earth for propagation to take place. Ritual sacrifices are typical of traditional peasant cultures. In most cases such customs are related to mythical events. Among important themes are the necessity of death (e.g., the grain “dies” and is buried, only to yield a subsequent harvest), a society’s cyclic renewal of itself (e.g., New Year’s celebrations), and the significance of women and sexuality. New Year’s celebrations, often accompanied by a temporary abandonment of all rules, may be related to or justified by mythical themes concerning a return to chaos and a return of the dead. In every mythological tradition one myth or cluster of myths tends to be central. The subject of the central mythology is often cosmogony (origin of the cosmos). In many of those ceremonies that each society has developed as a symbol of what is necessary to its well-being, references are made to the beginning of the world. Examples include the enthronements of kings, which in some traditions (as in Fiji or ancient India) are associated with a creation or re-creation of the world. Analogously, in ancient Mesopotamia the creation epic Enuma elish, which was read each New Year at Babylon, celebrated the progress of the cosmos from initial anarchy to government by the kingship of Marduk; hence the authority of earthly rulers, and of earthly monarchy in general, was implicitly supported and justified. Ruling families in ancient civilizations frequently justified their position by invoking myths—for example, that they had divine origins. Examples are known from imperial China, pharaonic Egypt, the Hittite empire, Polynesia, the Inca empire, and India. Elites have also based their claims to privilege on myths. The French historian of ancient religion Georges Dumézil was the pioneer in suggesting that the priestly, warrior, and producing classes in ancient Indo-European societies regarded themselves as having been ordained to particular tasks by virtue of their mythological origins. And in every known cultural tradition there exists some mythological foundation that is referred to when defending marriage and funerary customs. Description Inasmuch as myths deal with the origin of the world, the end of the world, or a paradisiacal state, they are capable of describing what people can never “see for themselves” however rational and observant they are. It may be that the educational value of myths is even more bound up with the descriptions they provide than with the explanations. In traditional, preindustrial societies myths form perhaps the most important available model of instruction, since no separate philosophical system of inquiry exists. Healing, renewal, and inspiration Creation myths play a significant role in healing the sick; they are recited (e.g., among the Navajo people of North America) when an individual’s world—that is to say, the person’s life—is in jeopardy. Thus, healing through recitation of a cosmogony is one example of the use of myth as a magical incantation. Another example is the case of Icelandic poets, who, in the singing of the episode in Old Norse mythology in which the god Odin wins for gods and humans the “mead of song” (a drink containing the power of poetic inspiration), can be said to be celebrating the origins of their own art and, hence, renewing it. The poetic aspect of myths in archaic and preindustrial traditions is considerable. Societies in which artistic endeavour is not yet specialized tend to rely on mythical themes and images as a source of all self-expression. Mythology has also exerted an aesthetic influence in more modern societies. An example is the prevalence of themes from Greek and Roman Classical mythology in Western painting, sculpture, and literature. Myth in culture Myth and psychology One of the most celebrated writers about myth from a psychological standpoint was Sigmund Freud. In his Die Traumdeutung (1899; The Interpretation of Dreams) he posited a phenomenon called the Oedipus complex, that is, the male child’s repressed desire for his mother and a corresponding wish to supplant his father. (The equivalent for girls was the Electra complex.) According to Freud, this phenomenon was detectable in dreams and myths, fairy tales, folktales—even jokes. Later, in Totem und Tabu (1913; Totem and Taboo), Freud suggested that myth was the distorted wish-dreams of entire peoples. More than that, however, he saw the Oedipus complex as a memory of a real episode that had occurred in what he termed the “primal horde,” when sons oppressed by their father had revolted, had driven out or killed him, and had taken his wives for themselves. That subsequent generations refrained from doing so was, Freud suggested, due to a collective bad conscience. The relevance of Freud’s investigations to the study of myth lies in his view that the formation of mythic concepts does not depend on cultural history. Instead, Freud’s analysis of the psyche posited an independent, trans-historical mechanism, based on a highly personal biologic conception of human beings. His anthropological theories have since been refuted (e.g., totemic [symbolic animal] sacrifice as the earliest ritual custom, which he related to the first parricide), but his analysis is still regarded with interest by some reputable social scientists. Criticism, however, has been leveled against the explanation of myths in terms of only one theme and in terms of the “repression” of conscious ideas. Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud, 1921. Mary Evans/Sigmund Freud Copyrights (courtesy of W.E. Freud) Another theorist preoccupied with psychological aspects of myth was the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung, who, like Freud, was stimulated by a theory that no longer has much support—i.e., the theory of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, a French philosopher, associating myth with prelogical mentality. This, according to Lévy-Bruhl, was a type of thought that had been common to archaic human beings, that was still common to so-called primitives, and in which people supposedly experienced some form of “mystical participation” with the objects of their thought, rather than a separation of subject and object. Jung’s theory of the “collective unconscious,” which bears a certain resemblance to Lévy-Bruhl’s theory, enabled him to regard the foundation of mythical images as positive and creative, in contrast with Freud’s more negative view of mythology. Jung evolved a theory of archetypes. Broadly similar images and symbols occur in myths, fairy tales, and dreams because the human psyche has an inbuilt tendency to dwell on certain inherited motifs (archetypes), the basic pattern of which persists, however much details may vary. But critics of Jung have hesitated to accept his theory of archetypes as an account of mythology. Among objections raised, two may be mentioned. First, the archetypal symbols identified by Jung are static, representing personal types that conflate aspects of the personality: they do not help to illuminate—in the way that the analyses of Propp and Burkert do—the patterns of action that myths narrate. Second, Jungian analysis is essentially aimed at relating myth to the individual psyche, whereas myth is above all a social phenomenon, embedded in society and requiring explanation with reference to social structures and social functions. Myth and science Attention has sometimes focused on changes occurring in the way the real world is apprehended by different peoples and how these changes in “reality” are reflected in myths. This reality changes continually throughout history, and these changes have especially occupied philosophers and historians of science, for a sense of reality in a culture is basic to any scientific pursuit by that culture, beginning with the earliest philosophical inquiries into the nature of the world. Though it would perhaps be going too far to identify the images and concepts that make up a culture’s scientific sense of reality with myth, parallels between science and myth, as well as the presence of a mythological dimension to science, are generally reckoned to exist. The function of models in physics, biology, medicine, and other sciences resembles that of myths as paradigms, or patterns, of the human world. In medicine, for instance, the human body is sometimes likened to a machine or the human brain to a computer, and such models are easily understood. Once a model has gained acceptance, it is difficult to replace, and in this respect it resembles myth, while at the same time, just as in myth, there may be a great variety of interpretations. In the 17th century it was assumed that the universe could be explained entirely in terms of minute corpuscles, their motion and interaction, and that no entities of any other sort existed. To the extent that many models in the history of science have partaken of this somewhat absolutist character, science can be said to resemble myth. There are, however, important differences. Despite the relative infrequency with which models in science have been replaced, replacement does occur, and a strong awareness of the limitations of models has developed in modern science. In contrast, a myth is not as a rule regarded by the community in which it functions as open to replacement, although an outside observer might record changes and even the substitution of a new myth for an old one. Moreover, in spite of the broad cultural impact of theories and models such as those of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, it is in general true to say that models in science have their principal value for the scientists concerned. Hence, they function most strongly for a relatively small segment of society, even though, for instance, a medical theory held in academic circles in one century can filter down into folk medicine in the next. As a rule, myth has a much wider impact. Modern science did not evolve in its entirety as a rebellion against myth, nor at its birth did it suddenly throw off the shackles of myth. In ancient Greece the naturalists of Ionia (western Asia Minor), long regarded as the originators of science, developed views of the universe that were in fact very close to the creation myths of their time. Those who laid the foundations of modern science, such as Nicholas of Cusa, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, and Gottfried Leibniz, were absorbed by metaphysical problems of which the traditional, indeed mythological, character is evident. Among these problems were the nature of infinity and the question of the omnipotence of God. The influence of mythological views is seen in the English physician William Harvey’s association of the circulation of the blood with the planetary movements and Charles Darwin’s explanation of woman’s menstrual cycles by the tides of the ocean. Several thinkers (e.g., the theologian Paul Tillich and the philosopher Karl Jaspers) have argued convincingly for a mythological dimension to all science. Myth, in this view, is that which is taken for granted when thought begins. It is at the same time the limit reached in the course of scientific analysis, when it is found that no further progress in definition can be made after certain fundamental principles have been reached. In recent scientific researches, especially in astronomy and biology, questions of teleology (final ends) have gained in importance, as distinct from earlier concerns with questions of origin. These recent concerns stimulate discussion about the limits of what can be scientifically explained, and they reveal anew a mythological dimension to human knowledge. Myth and religion The place of myth in various religious traditions differs. Ritual and other practices The idea that the principal function of a myth is to provide a justification for a ritual was adopted without any great attempt to make a case for it. At the beginning of the 20th century, many scholars thought of myths in their earliest forms as accounts of social customs and values. According to Sir James Frazer, myths and rituals together provided evidence for humanity’s earliest preoccupation—namely, fertility. Human society developed in stages—from the magical through the religious to the scientific—and myths and rituals (which survived even into the scientific stage) bore witness to archaic modes of thought that were otherwise difficult to reconstruct. As for the relationship between myth and ritual, Frazer argued that myths were intended to explain otherwise unintelligible rituals. Thus, in Adonis, Attis, Osiris (1906) he stated that the mythical story of Attis’s self-castration was designed to explain the fact that the priests of Attis’s cult castrated themselves at his festival. In a much more articulate way, biblical scholars stressed the necessity to look for the situation in life and custom (the “Sitz im Leben”) that mythical texts originally possessed. A number of scholars, mainly in Britain and the Scandinavian countries and usually referred to as the Myth and Ritual school (of which the best-known member is the British biblical scholar S.H. Hooke), have concentrated on the ritual purposes of myths. Their work has centred on the philological study of the ancient Middle East both before and since the rise of Islam and has focused almost exclusively on rituals connected with sacred kingship and New Year’s celebrations. Of particular importance was the discovery that the creation epic Enuma elish was recited at the Babylonian New Year’s festival: the myth was, it was argued, expressing in language that which the ritual was enacting through action. Classical scholars have subsequently investigated the relations between myth and ritual in ancient Greece. Particularly influential has been the study of sacrifice by Walter Burkert titled Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth (1983). Connections between myths and cult behaviour certainly exist, but there is no solid ground for the suggestion, following Frazer, that, in general, ritual came first and myth was then formulated as a subsequent explanation. If it is only the subsequent myth that has made the sense of the earlier ritual explicit, the meaning of the ritual may remain a riddle. There is in fact no unanimous opinion about which originated first. Modern scholars are inclined to turn away from the question of temporal priority and to concentrate instead on the diversity of the relationship between myth and ritual. While it is clear that some myths are linked to rituals, so that it makes sense to say that the myth is expressing in the language of narrative that which the ritual expresses through the symbolism of action, in the case of other myths no such ritual exists. The content of important myths concerning the origin of the world usually reflects the dominant cultural form of a tradition. The myths of hunter-gatherer societies tell of the origin of game animals and hunting customs; agricultural civilizations tend to give weight to agricultural practices in their myths; pastoral cultures to pastoral practices; and so on. Thus, many myths present models of acts and organizations central to the society’s way of life and relate these to primordial times. Myths in specific traditions deal with matters such as harvest customs, initiation ceremonies, and the customs of secret societies. Religious symbolism and iconography Sacred objects are found in all religious traditions, and sacred images in most. They are the material counterparts of myth inasmuch as they represent sacred realities of figures, as myths do in narrative form. Representing does not entail faithful copying of natural or human forms, and in this respect religious symbolism is again like myth in that both depict the extraordinary rather than the ordinary. Many symbolic representations have their sources in myths. Representations in human form, especially “natural” human form, are rare. The sculptures of divine figures in Classical Greece (by sculptors such as Phidias and Praxiteles) are the exception. Usually the degree of representation occurring in cult practices and the depiction of mythical themes has been considerably less humanistic. An example is the way geometric and animal figures abound in the history of religions. Another example is the use of sacred masks, as in the mysteries of Dionysus, an ecstatic cult in the Aegean world of Classical antiquity, and the indigenous traditions of Australia, America, prehistoric Europe, and elsewhere. Praxiteles: Hermes Carrying the Infant Dionysus Praxiteles: Hermes Carrying the Infant Dionysus Hermes Carrying the Infant Dionysus, marble statue by Praxiteles, c. 350–330 BCE (or perhaps a fine Hellenistic copy of his original); in the Archaeological Museum, Olympia, Greece. Height 2.15 metres. Laitue Sacred texts The Hebrew Bible is usually regarded as embodying much material that anthropologists would regard as containing mythical themes in just the same way as the practices of the ancient Greeks, Chinese, or Abenaki peoples are bound up with myths. Yet the religion of Israel was in many respects critical of myths (in the sense of noncanonical, approved narratives). Similarly, it rejected any representation of God in natural forms. Anti-mythological tendencies exist in the religions that have their roots in Israel. The New Testament of Christianity in some instances derogates myths by describing them as “godless” and “silly.” Islam’s emphasis on the transcendence of God, as attested in the Qurʾān, similarly allows little room for mythological stories. The activities of the supernatural beings known as jinn, however, are acknowledged even by official Islam, besides being prominent in popular belief (as in The Thousand and One Nights); and other mythological themes, for example motifs relating to the end of time (eschatology), also figure in Islamic religion, above all in its Shīʾite form. Orthodox Shīʾite Muslims believe in the existence of 12 imams, semidivine descendants of the Prophet Muhammad through his son-in-law ʿAlī. Toward the end of time, according to the beliefs of Shīʾism, the 12th imam will return to bring truth and justice to humankind. Other traditions with sacred scriptures are more tolerant of myth, for example Hinduism and Buddhism. Running through certain central texts of the Hindu sacred tradition is the theme of the contrast between the One and the Many. Thus, the philosophical poem known as the Bhagavadgita contrasts the person who sees Infinity within the ordinary finite world with the person who merely sees the diversity of appearances. Yet this ascetic and abstract view by no means excludes a rich and extraordinarily diverse mythology, which is reflected in the tremendous variety of Indian religious statuary and which mirrors the religious complexity of Indian society. A justification for the coexistence of an ideal of unity with a pluralistic reality is found in the Rigveda, where it is written that although God is One the sages give him many names. Buddhism also finds room for exuberant mythology as well as for the plainer truths of sacred doctrine. Buddhism embraces not only the teachings of the Buddha about the pursuit of the path to enlightenment and nirvana but also the mythical figures of Yamantaka, who wears a necklace of skulls, and the grossly fat god of wealth Jambhala. Myth and the arts Oral traditions and written literature Myths in ancient civilizations are known only by virtue of the fact that they became part of a written tradition. In the case of Greece, virtually all myths are “literature” in the form in which they have survived, the oldest source being the works ascribed to the Greek poets Homer and Hesiod (usually dated, in written form, to the 8th century BCE). Literary forms such as the epic have frequently served as vehicles for transmitting myths inasmuch as they present an authoritative account. The Homeric epics were both an example and an exploration of heroic values, and the poems became the basis of education in Classical Greece. The great epics of India (Mahabharata and Ramayana) came to function as encyclopaedias of knowledge and provided models for all human existence. Ravana Ravana Ravana, the many-headed demon-king, detail from a painting of the Ramayana, c. 1720; in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, gift of George P. Bickford Visual arts In principle, the sort of relationship that exists between myth and literature exists also with respect to the other arts. In the case of architecture and sculpture, archaeological discoveries confirm the primacy of mythical representations. Among the earliest known three-dimensional objects built by human beings are prehistoric megalithic and sepulchral structures. Mythological details cannot actually be discerned, but it is generally believed that such structures express mythological concerns and that mythical images dictated the shape. An especially intriguing example is the stone circle at Stonehenge in southern England. Axes of this construction are aligned with significant risings and settings of the sun and moon, but the idea that the circle was built for a religious purpose must remain likely rather than certain. Grave monuments of rulers are among the most important remains of ancient civilizations (e.g., the Egyptian pyramids; and the sepulchral structures of Chinese rulers since the Zhou dynasty, c. 1046–256 BCE). There is worldwide evidence that in archaic cultures human beings considered the points of the compass to have mythological affiliations (e.g., the west and death or the east and a new beginning). Mythological views even influenced building activity. One architectural feature that can have mythological significance is the column. In a number of popular traditions the sky is believed to be supported by one or more columns. The relatively strict separation between religious and civil architecture that modern people are perhaps inclined to take for granted has not existed in most cultures and periods and perhaps is not universal even in modern times. Even when art ceases to represent mythological matters outright, it is still usually far from representational. That art has ceased to represent mythology is challenged by some theorists, who argue that what seems to be abandonment of mythological forms is really only a change in mythology. The opposing arguments are analogous to the favourable or unfavourable attitudes toward myth that religions have developed.
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