ATHENA, the Attic (and Latin) form of the Homeric Athene, also called Pallas Athene, or simply Pallas, one of the most im portant goddesses in Greek mythology. No satisfactory deriva tion of the name Athena has been given; the name Pallas has been connected with the Greek pallake ("maiden"). According to the legend, her father Zeus swallowed his wife Metis ("coun sel'') when she was pregnant with Athena, since he had been warned that his children by her might prove stronger than him self and dethrone him. Hephaestus (or Prometheus) subse quently split open his head with a hatchet, and Athena sprang forth fully armed. (Hesiod, Theogony, 886; Pindar, Olym p., vii. 35.) According to Roscher, the manner of her birth repre sents the storrn-cloud split by lightning; Farnell sees in it an indication that, as the daughter of Metis, Athena was already invested with a mental and moral character. It is probable that her epithet, Tritogeneia, originated in Boeotia, whence it was conveyed by colonists to Cyrene and thence to Libya, where there was a river Triton. Here some local divinity, connected with the water and also of a warlike character, was identified by the colonists with their own Athena. The legend of her birth was also associated with several other rivers and lakes of the same name. In any case, it is fairly certain that Tritogeneia means "water-born," although an old interpretation derived it from trito, a supposed Boeotian word meaning "head." In Homer Athena already appears as the goddess of counsel, of war, of female arts and industries, and the protectress of Greek cities. Hence she is called Polias, Poliouchos, in many Greek states, and is frequently associated with Zeus Polieus. The most celebrated festival of the city-goddess was the Pan athenaea at Athens and other places, and as Panachais she was protectress of the Achaean League (q.v.). At Athens she pre sided over the phratries or clans, and was known as Apatouria and Phratria, and sacrifice was offered to her at the festival Apaturia (q.v.). Her images, called Palladia (see PALLADIUM), which guarded the heights, represented her with shield uplifted, brandishing her spear to keep off the foe. The cult of Athenia Itonia, whose earliest seat appears to have been among the Thessalians, made its way to Coronea in Boeotia, where her sanctuary was the seat of the Pan-Boeotian confederacy. Pecu liar to Arcadia is the title Athena Alea, probably = "warder off of evil," although others explain it as = "warmth," and see in it an allusion to her physical nature as one of the powers of light. Farnell points out that she is certainly looked upon also as being in some way connected with the health-divinities, since in her temple she is grouped with Asclepius and Hygieia (see HYGIEIA).
She already appears as the goddess of counsel in the Iliad and in Hesiod. The Attic bouleutai took the oath by Athena Boulaia; at Sparta she was Agoraia, presiding over the popular assemblies in the marketplace; in Arcadia Mechanitis, the discoverer of devices. Her connexion with the trial of Orestes (q.v.), the introduction of a milder form of punishment for justifiable homicide, and the institution of the court "at the Palladium" (Sanctuary of Pallas), show the important part played by her in the development of legal ideas.
The protectress of cities was naturally also a goddess of war. As such she appears in Homer and Hesiod and in post-Homeric legend as the slayer of the Gorgon and taking part in the battle of the giants. On numerous monuments she is represented as Areia, "the warlike," Nike phoros, "bringer of victory," holding an image of Nike (q.v.) in her outstretched hand. Martial music and the Pyrrhic dance, in which she herself is said to have taken part to commemorate the victory over the giants, and the build ing of warships were attributed to her. The epithets Hippia, Clialinitis ("the bridler"), and Damasippos ("horse-taming") usually referred to her as goddess of war-horses, may perhaps be reminiscences of an older religion in which the horse was sacred to her. As a war-goddess, she is the embodiment of pru dent and intelligent tactics, entirely different from Ares (q.v.), the personification of brute force and rashness.
The goddess of war develops into the goddess of peace and the pursuits connected with it. She is prominent as the pro moter of agriculture in Attic legend. The Athenian hero Erech theus (Erichthonios), originally an earth-god, is her foster-son, with whom she was honoured in the Erechtheum on the Acropo lis. Her oldest priestesses, the dew-sisters—Aglauros, Herse, Pandrosos—signify the fertilization of the earth by the dew and were probably at one time identified with Athena, who was also known as Aglauros and Pandrosos. Athena also gave the Atheni ans the olive-tree, which was supposed to have sprung from the bare soil of the Acropolis, when smitten by her spear, close to the horse (or spring of water) produced by the trident of Posei don, to which he appealed in support of his claim to the lord ship of Athens. She is also connected with Poseidon in the legend of Erechtheus, not as being in any way akin to the former in nature or character, but as indicating the contest between an old and a new religion. This god, whose worship was introduced into Athens at a later date by the Ionian immigrants, was identi fied with Erechtheus-Erichthonios, and thus was brought into connexion with the goddess, in order to effect a reconciliation of the two cults. Athena was said to have invented the plough, and to have taught men to tame horses and yoke oxen. Various arts were attributed to her—shipbuilding, the goldsmith's craft, full ing, shoemaking and other branches of industry. As early as Homer, she takes especial interest in the occupations of women , she makes Hera's and her own peplos (robe), and spinning and weaving are often called "the works of Athena." The custom of offering a beautifully woven peplos at the Panathenaic festi val is connected with her character as Ergane, the goddess of industry. As patroness of the arts, she is associated with Hephaestus and Prometheus, and in Boeotia she was regarded as the inventress of the flute.
As in the case of Aphrodite and Apollo, Roscher deduces all the characteristics of Athena from a single conception—that of the goddess of the storm or the thunder-cloud. There seems, however, little reason for regarding her as a nature-goddess at all, but rather as the presiding divinity of states and cities, of the arts and industries—in short, as the goddess of the whole intellectual side of human life.
Little is known of the ceremonies or festivals which attended her worship, except those at Athens, where the following, among others, were celebrated : (I) the Skiroplioria, with a procession from the Acropolis to the village of Skiron, in the height of summer, the priests who were to entreat her to keep off the summer heat walking under a sunshade (Skiron) held over them; (2) The Chalkeia ("feast of smiths"), at which the birth of Erechtheus and the invention of the plough were celebrated; (3) The Plunteria and Kallunteria (feasts of washing and adorn ing), at which her ancient wooden image and peplos in the Erech theum and the temple itself were cleaned, with a procession in which bunches of figs (frequently used in lustrations) were car ried; (4) Arrhephoria, or Errephoria, perhaps = Hersephoria, "dew-bearing," at which two maidens of noble birth, between seven and II years of age, carried certain unknown sacred ob jects from the temple of Athena on the Acropolis to that of Aphrodite "in the gardens," and returned with certain other objects to the Acropolis. Two other maidens began the weav ing of the new peplos for the statue of Athena Polias, which was presented to the goddess every year; (5) the Panathenaea (q.v.) at which the new robes for the image of the goddess were carried through the city, spread like a sail on a mast; (6) Mention should also be made of the Argive ceremony, at which the xoanon (ancient wooden statue) of Athena was washed in the river Inachus, a symbol of her purification after the battle with the giants.
The usual attributes of Athena were the helmet, the aegis (q.v.), the round shield with the head of Medusa in the centre, the lance, an olive branch, the owl, the cock and the snake. Of these the aegis is probably intended as a battle-charm, like the Gorgon's head on the shield and the faces on the shields of Chinese soldiers ; the owl probably represents the form under which she was worshipped in primitive times, and subsequently became her favourite bird (the epithet Glaukopis, meaning "keen-eyed" in Homer, may have originally signified "owl faced") ; the snake, a common companion of the earth-deities, probably refers to her connexion with Erechtheus-Erichthonios. As to artistic representations of the goddess, we have first the rude figure which seems to be a copy of the Palladium; secondly, the still rude but otherwise more interesting figures of her on the early painted vases ; and thirdly, the type of her as produced by Pheidias, from which little variation appears to have been made. Of his numerous statues of her, the three most celebrated were set up on the Acropolis. (I) Athena Parthenos, in the Par thenon. It was in ivory and gold, and 3o ft. high. She was repre sented standing, in a long tunic ; on her head was a helmet, orna mented with sphinxes and griffins; on her breast was the aegis, fringed with serpents and the Gorgon's head in centre. In her right hand was a Nike or winged victory, while her left held a spear, which rested on a shield on which were represented the battles of the Amazons with the giants ; (2; A colossal statue said to have been formed from the spoils taken at Marathon, the so-called Athena Promachos; (3) Athena Lemnia, so called because it had been dedicated by the Athenian cleruchies in Lemnos. In this she was represented without arms, as a bril liant type of virgin beauty. The two last statues were of bronze. From the time of Pheidias calm earnestness, self-conscious might, and clearness of intellect, were the main characteristics of the goddess. The eyes, slightly cast down, betoken an atti tude of thoughtfulness; the forehead is clear and open; the mouth indicates firmness and resolution. The whole suggests a masculine rather than a feminine form.
From Greece the worship of Athena extended to Magna Graecia, where a number of temples were erected to her in various places. In Italy proper she was identified with Minerva (q.v.).