( or l.c. 924.) Pindar ad Pind. Ol.
7.66.) Other traditions again relate, that Athena sprang from the head of Zeus in frill
armour, a statement for which Stesichorus is said to have been the most ancient authority.
(Tzetz. ad Lycoph. 355; Philostr. Icon. 2.27; Schol.
ad Apollon. 4.1310.) All these traditions, however, agree in making
Athena a daughter of Zeus; but a second set regard her as the daughter of Pallas, the winged
giant, whom she afterwards killed on account of his attempting to violate her chastity, whose
skin ad Lycoph. l.c.; Cic. de Nat. Deor. 3.23.) A
third tradition carries us to Libya, and calls Athena a daughter of Poseidon and Tritonis.
Athena, says Herodotus (ad Lycoph. 519.) The connexion of Athena with Triton naturally suggests,
that we have to look for the most ancient seat of her worship in Greece to the banks of the
river Triton in Boeotia, which emptied itself into lake Copais, and on which there were two
ancient Pelasgian towns, Athenae and Eleusis, which were according to tradition swallowed up
by the lake. From thence her worship was carried by the Minyans into Attica, Libya, and other
countries. (Müller, Orchom. p. 355.) We must lastly notice one
tradition, which made Athena a daughter of Itonius and sister of Iodama, who was killed by
Athena (ad Lycoph.
355), and another according to which she was the daughter of Hephaestus.
These various traditions about Athena arose, as in most other cases, from local legends and from identifications of the Greek Athena with other divinities. The common notion which the Greeks entertained about her, and which was most widely spread in the ancient world, is, that she was the daughter of Zeus, and if we take Metis to have been her mother, we have at once the clue to the character which she bears in the religion of Greece ; for, as her father was the most powerful and her mother the wisest among the gods, so Athena was a combination of the two, that is, a goddess in whom power and wisdom were harmoniously blended. From this fundamental idea may be derived the various aspects under which she appears in the ancient writers. She seems to have been a divinity of a purely ethical character, and not the representative of any particular physical power manifested in nature; her power and wisdom appear in her being the protectress and preserver of the state and of social institutions. Everything, therefore, which gives to the state strength and prosperity, such as agriculture, inventions, and industry, as well as everything which preserves and protects it from injurious influence from without, such as the defence of the walls, fortresses, and harbours, is under her immediate care.
As the protectress of agriculture, Athena is represented as the inventor of the plough and
rake: she created the olive tree, the greatest blessing of Attica, taught the people to yoke
oxen to the plough, took care of the breeding of horses, and instructed men how to tame them
by the bridle, her own invention. Allusions to this feature of her character are contained in
the epithets ad
Lycoph. 520; Hesych. s. v.
s. v.) for the protection she was to afford to the fields. Besides
the inventions relating to agriculture, others also connected with various kinds of science,
industry, and art, are ascribed to her, and all her inventions are not of the kind which men
make by chance or accident, but such as require thought and meditation. We may notice the
invention of numbers (ad Pind. p. 344), the chariot, and navigation. [AETHYIA.] In regard to all kinds of useful arts, she was believed to have made men
acquainted with the means and instruments which are necessary for practising them, such as the
art of producing fire. She was further believed to have invented nearly every kind of work in
which women were employed, and she herself was skilled in such work : in short Athena and
Hephaestus were the great patrons both of the useful and elegant arts. Hence she is called
Od. xxiii 160, 18.190; Hymn. in Ven. 4, 7, &c.;
Hymn. 31.8; Spanh. ad Callim.
p. 643; Dict. of
Ant. under
As the patron divinity of the state, she was at Athens the protectress of the phratries and
houses which formed the basis of the state. The festival of the Apaturia had a direct
reference to this particular point in the character of the goddess. (Dict. of
Ant. s. v. Apaturia.) She also maintained the authority of the law, and justice, and
order, in the courts and the assembly of the people. This notion was as ancient as the Homeric
poems, in which she is described as assisting Odysseus against the lawless conduct of the
suitors. (Od. 13.394.) She was believed to have instituted the ancient court of the
Areiopagus, and in cases where the votes of Eum. 753; comp.
As Athena promoted the internal prosperity of the state, by encouraging agriculture and
industry, and by maintaining law and order in all public transactions, so also she protected
the state from outward enemies, and thus assumes the character of a warlike divinity, though
in a very different sense from Ares, Eris, or Enyo. According to Homer (ad
Callim. p. 643;
The character of Athena, as we have here traced it, holds a middle place between the male
and female, whence she is called in an Orphic hymn (31.10) Hymn. 9.3), whose heart is inaccessible to the passion of love, and who shuns
matrimonial connexion. Teircsias was deprived of his sight for having seen her in the bath
(Callim. Hymn. pp. 546,589), and Hephaestus, who made an attempt upon her
chastity, was obliged to flee. (ad Lycophr. 111.) For this reason, the ancient traditions
always describe the goddess as dressed; and when Ovid (Dor.
2.2.13.) Lychnus also is called a son of Hephaestus and Athena. (Spanheim, ad
Callim. p. 644.)
Athena was worshipped in all parts of Greece, and from the ancient towns on the lake Copais
her worship was nitroduced at a very early period into Attica, where she became the great
national divinity of the city and the country. Here she was afterwards regarded as the
MINERVA. Among the things sacred to her we may mention the owl, serpent, cock, and
olive-tree, which she was said to have created in her contest with Poseidon about the
possession of Attica. (Plut. de Is. et Os.;
s. v.), rams, and cows. (Hom. ad Hom. l.c.) remarks, that only female animals were
sacrificed to her, but no female lambs. In Ilion, Locrian maidens or children are said to have
been sacrificed to her every year as an atonement for the crime committed by the Locrian Ajax
upon Cassandra; and Suidas (s. v.
Dict. of Ant. s. vv. Panathenaea and Arrhephoria.
Athena was frequently represented in works of art; but those in which her figure reached the
highest ideal of perfection were the three statues by Pheidias. The first was the celebrated
colossal statue of the goddess, of gold and ivory, which was erected on the acropolis of
Athens; the second was a still greater bronze statue, made out of the spoils taken by the
Athenians in the battle of Marathon; the third was a small bronze statue called the beautiful
or the Lemnian Athena, because it had been dedicated at Athens by the Lemnians. The first of
these statues represented the goddess in a standing position, bearing in her hand a Nike four
cubits in height. The shield stood by her feet; her robe came down to her feet, on her breast
was the head of Medusa, in her right hand she bore a lance, and at her feet there lay a
serpent. (Dict. of Ant. s. v. Aegis.) 3. The round
Argolic shield. in the centre of which is represented the head of Medusa. 4. Objects sacred to
her, such as an olive branch, a serpent, an owl, a cock, and a lance. Her garment is usually
the Spartan tunic without sleeves, and over it Mythol. Bilderb. i. p. 46,
&c.; Welcker, Zeitschrift für Gesch. der alten Kunst, p. 256,
&c.)