Athena/Minerva

Atena

Atena (in attico Ἀθηνᾶ, traslitterato in Athēnâ), o Pallade, figlia prediletta di Zeus, dea della sapienza, delle arti e della guerra.
Divinità che difende gli eroi positivi, le donne industriose e gli artigiani.
Protettrice della città di Atene, durante la guerra di Troia si schiera con gli Achei. Vigila su Achille, appare in sogno a Nausicaa perché soccorra Ulisse naufrago sul lido dei Feaci.
È venerata presso i Romani col nome di Minerva.
La dea viene rappresentata con suoi simboli sacri: il serpente e l'ulivo; l'elmo, la lancia , lo scudo e l'Egida, ossia un mantello indistruttibile realizzato con la pelle della capra Amaltea, che aveva protetto e nutrito Zeus, sottratto a Crono dalla madre Rea.

Etimologia e origini del nome

È possibile che il nome 'Athena' sia di origine Lidia. Potrebbe trattarsi di una parola composta, derivata in parte dal tirreno ati, che significa "madre", e in parte dal nome della Dea hurrita Hannahannah che spesso è abbreviato in Ana. Sembrerebbe fare la sua comparsa in una singola iscrizione in lingua micenea nelle tavolette in scrittura Lineare B. In un testo facente parte del gruppo delle "Tavolette della stanza del carro" rinvenute a Cnosso, la più antica testimonianza di scrittura lineare B, si trova "A-ta-na-po-ti-ni-ja", "/Athana potniya/". Sebbene questa frase venga spesso tradotta come "Padrona Atena", letteralmente significa "la potnia di At(h)ana", che probabilmente vuol dire "La signora di Atene": non è comunque possibile stabilire con certezza se vi sia una connessione con la città di Atene. Si è rinvenuta anche la forma "A-ta-no-dju-wa-ja", "/Athana diwya/", la cui parte finale è la scomposizione in sillabe in Lineare B di quella che in greco è conosciuta come Diwia (in miceneo di-u-ja o di-wi-ja), ovvero "divina"- Atena, attributo della Dea della tessitura e delle arti.
Nel suo dialogo Cratilo, Platone fornisce un'etimologia del nome di Atena che rappresenta il punto di vista degli antichi Ateniesi sostenendo che derivi da "A-theo-noa" (A-θεο-νόα) o "E-theo-noa" (H-θεο-νόα), che significa "la mente di Dio", in quanto Atena era nata dalla mente di Zeus:

« "Questo è più difficile, amico mio. Pare che gli antichi riguardo ad Atena la pensassero allo stesso modo di come oggi fanno i bravi critici di Omero. Infatti la maggior parte di loro, studiando il poeta, sostengono che in Atena abbia voluto personificare il “nous” e la “dianoia”, ovvero la mente e il pensiero, e similmente sembra aver ragionato colui che le assegnò i nomi.; addirittura, appellandola con ancor maggiore solennità “theou nesis” (mente del Dio) dice che è la “theonoa”, ovvero la “mente divina”, servendosi della lettera “alfa” al posto della lettera “eta” come fanno gli stranieri, ed eliminando “iota” e “sigma”. Era assai poco distante dal chiamarla “Ethonoe”, dato che è colei che come indole ha il pensiero “en thoi ethei noesis”. Ma alla fine o lui stesso od altri, per renderne il nome più bello, la chiamarono Atena »

Platone ed Erodoto notarono anche che in Egitto, nella città di Sais, si adorava una dea il cui nome in egiziano era Neith e la identificano con Atena:

« ”I cittadini ritengono che la fondatrice della città sia una Dea: in lingua egiziana si chiama Neith e dicono che è la stessa che i greci chiamano Atena: sono grandi ammiratori degli Ateniesi e dicono di essere in qualche modo simili a loro »

I nomi e gli appellativi di Atena

Atena glaukopis (glaucopite)

Da Omero in poi, l'epiteto di Atena più comunemente usato in poesia è ”glaukopis” (γλαυκώπις), che viene solitamente tradotto come con lo sguardo scintillante o dagli occhi lampeggianti. Il termine è una combinazione di glaukos (γλαύκος, che significa "lucente", "argenteo" e, in epoche più tarde "blu-verdastro" e "grigio") e ops (ώψ, "occhio" o talvolta "viso").
È interessante notare che glaux (γλαύξ, civetta) deriva dalla medesima radice, probabilmente per i particolari occhi di cui è dotato l'animale. La figura di quest'uccello notturno, capace di vedere nell'oscurità, è strettamente legata alla Dea della saggezza: a partire fin dalle prime raffigurazioni è dipinta con la civetta appollaiata sulla testa. In epoca arcaica Atena potrebbe essere stata una Dea-uccello simile a Lilith o alla Dea raffigurata con ali e artigli da civetta sul Rilievo Burney, un rilievo in terracotta mesopotamico degli inizi del secondo millennio a.C.

Atena Tritogenia

Nell'Iliade (4.514), negli Inni omerici, nella Teogonia di Esiodo e nella Lisistrata di Aristofane viene attribuito ad Atena il singolare epiteto di Tritogeneia.
Il significato di questo termine non è chiaro; sembrerebbe voler dire "nata da Tritone", forse riferendosi al fatto che secondo alcuni antichi miti suo padre è il Dio del mare o, ipotesi ancor più dubbia, che fosse nata nei pressi del lago Tritone che si trova in Africa.
Altro possibile significato è tre volte nata o terza nata, riferendosi a lei come terza figlia di Zeus oppure alludendo al fatto che era nata da Zeus, da Metide e anche da sé stessa; varie leggende la indicano infatti come figlia nata successivamente ad Artemide e Apollo, al contrario di altre che ne parlano come della primogenita.

Pallade Atena

Un suo appellativo molto frequente è Pallade Atena (Παλλάς Αθηνά). L'epiteto deriva da un'ambigua figura mitologica chiamata Pallade, maschio o femmina che, al di fuori della sua relazione con la dea, è citata soltanto nell'Eneide di Virgilio. Secondo alcune versioni della leggenda Atena uccise Pallade per errore, come ad esempio in una versione pelasgica secondo la quale Pallade era una compagna di giochi della giovane Atena, che la uccise per sbaglio mentre simulavano un combattimento: Atena prese quindi il nome di Pallade in segno di lutto per dimostrare il suo rimorso. Nell'Inno omerico a Ermes, Pallade era invece il padre della Dea della Luna Selene. In altre versioni ancora si trattava di uno dei Giganti che Atena uccise nella Gigantomachia. Le cose però potrebbero essere andate in maniera ancora diversa, e Atena avrebbe soppiantato una precedente mitica Pallade assorbendola nella sua figura in modo meno "traumatico", quando questa divenne dapprima Pallas Athenaie, Pallade di Atene (come Hera di Argo era Here Argeie), e infine Pallade Atena, cambiando lentamente ma completamente identità. Per gli Ateniesi, d'altronde, ella era semplicemente La Dea (è thèa), senz'altro un epiteto molto antico.

Altri epiteti

• Atena Ergane (industriosa) – Come patrona di artisti e artigiani e ideatrice dei lavori femminili come la filatura, tessitura, ecc.
• Atena occhio azzurro
• Atena Parthenos (vergine) – Il nome con cui veniva adorata sull'Acropoli, specialmente durante le celebrazioni per lo svolgimento delle Panatenee.
• Atena Promachos (prima in battaglia) – Come condottiera di eserciti in battaglia.
• Atena Polias – Ovvero "Atena della città", come protettrice di Atene ma anche di altre città tra le quali Argo, Sparta, Gortyna, Lindos e Larissa. In tutte queste città il tempio di Atena era il più importante dell'acropoli.
• Atena Areia – Per il suo ruolo di giudice al processo di Oreste (che viene assolto) per l'assassinio della madre Clitennestra nonché per l'istituzione del tribunale per giudicare il comportamento degli uomini.
• Atena Itonia - Detta così da Itono, figlio di Anfizione. Le era dedicato un tempio a Coronea (Beozia) abbellito con statue di Agoracrito. In onore di Atena Itonia si celebravano le Pambeozie.
• Atena Atritonia - Dal verbo greco tryo, "logorare", "distruggere", più alfa privativo e quindi "l'instancabile" (cfr. per esempio"Ascolta anche me ora, figlia di Zeus, Atritonia [...]")

Atena nell'arte classica

L'iconografia classica di Atena prevede che sia ritratta in piedi mentre indossa l'armatura e l'elmo, tenuto alto sulla fronte; porta con sé una lancia e uno scudo sul quale è fissata la testa della Gorgone Medusa. Proprio in questa posizione è stata scolpita da Fidia nella sua famosa statua crisoelefantina, alta 11 metri – ora perduta – l'Athena Parthenos che si trovava nel Partenone. Spesso, poggiata sulla sua spalla, si trova la civetta, simbolo di saggezza.
A prescindere dagli attributi tipici, a partire dal V secolo a.C. sembra esserci stata una sostanziale uniformità di vedute tra gli artisti su quale dovesse essere l'aspetto della Dea. Un naso importante con un alto ponte che sembra essere la naturale continuazione della fronte, occhi profondi, labbra piene, una bocca stretta e appena più larga del naso, il collo allungato ne tratteggiano una bellezza serena ma un po' distaccata.

La nascita di Atena

Tra gli dei dell'Olimpo Atena viene ritratta come la figlia prediletta di Zeus, nata già adulta e armata, dalla testa del padre o dal polpaccio secondo altri, dopo che lui ne aveva mangiato la madre Meti. Varie sono le versioni riguardo alla sua nascita; infatti una versione dice che Atena è solo figlia di Zeus. Quella più comune dice che Zeus si coricò con Meti, Dea della prudenza e della saggezza, ma subito dopo ebbe paura delle conseguenze che ne sarebbero derivate: una profezia diceva che i figli di Metide sarebbero stati più potenti del padre, fosse stato anche lo stesso Zeus. Per impedire che questo si verificasse, subito dopo aver giaciuto con lei, Zeus indusse Meti a trasformarsi in una goccia d'acqua oppure, a seconda della tradizione, in una mosca od in una cicala e la inghiottì, ma era ormai troppo tardi: la Dea aveva infatti già concepito un bambino. Meti cominciò immediatamente a realizzare un elmo e una veste per la figlia che portava in grembo, e i colpi di martello sferrati mentre costruiva l'elmo provocarono a Zeus un dolore terribile. Così Efesto aprì la testa di Zeus con un'ascia bipenne e Atena ne balzò fuori già adulta e armata e Zeus in questo modo uscì, malconcio ma vivo, dalla brutta disavventura.
Alcuni frammenti attribuiti alla storia dal semi-leggendario Sanchuniathon, che si dice essere stata scritta prima della guerra di Troia, suggeriscono che Atena sia invece la figlia di Crono, il re dei Titani, padre di Zeus, Dio del cielo, Poseidone, Dio del mare, e di Ade, Dio degli Inferi, fatto a pezzi dalla sua stessa arma per mano dei figli e gettato nel Tartaro (la parte più profonda degli Inferi).

Genealogia (Esiodo)

Urano

Gea

Genitali di  Urano

CRONO

Rea

Zeus

Era

Poseidone

Ade

Demetra

Estia

a

b

Ares

Efesto

Meti

Atena

Latona

Apollo

Artemide

Maia

Ermes

Semele

Dioniso

Dione

a

b

Afrodite

Leggende e racconti relativi ad Atena

Secondo quanto racconta lo Pseudo-Apollodoro, Efesto tentò di unirsi ad Atena ma non riuscì nell'intento. Il suo seme si sparse al suolo e fecondò Gea e così nacque Erittonio. Atena decise comunque di allevare il bambino come madre adottiva. Una versione alternativa dice che il seme di Efesto cadde sulla gamba della Dea, che se la pulì con uno straccetto di lana che gettò poi a terra: Erittonio sarebbe così nato dalla terra e dalla lana. Un'altra leggenda narra che Efesto avesse voluto sposare Atena ma che la Dea scomparve all'improvviso dal talamo nuziale, cosicché lo sperma di Efesto finì per cadere a terra. Atena chiuse dentro ad una cesta il bambino, che aveva la parte inferiore del corpo a forma di serpente e lo affidò alle tre figlie di Cecrope (Herse, Pandroso e Aglauro), avvisandole di non aprirla mai. Agraulo, curiosa, aprì ugualmente la cesta e la vista dell'aspetto mostruoso di Erittonio fece impazzire le tre sorelle che si uccisero lanciandosi giù dall'Acropoli, oppure secondo Igino, nel mare^.
Una versione diversa dice che, mentre Atena era andata a prendere una montagna per usarla per costruire l'Acropoli, due delle sorelle aprirono la cesta: un corvo vide la scena e volò a riferirlo alla Dea che accorse infuriata lasciando cadere la montagna, che ora è il Monte Licabetto. Herse e Pandroso impazzirono per la paura e si uccisero lanciandosi da una scogliera, e neppure il corvo fu risparmiato dall'ira di Atena che, si narra, fece diventare da allora nere le piume di quest'animale.
Erittonio diventò in seguito re di Atene e introdusse molti cambiamenti positivi nella cultura ateniese. Durante il suo regno Atena fu frequentemente al suo fianco per proteggerlo.

Aglauro

In un'altra versione del mito di Aglauro, narrata nelle Metamorfosi di Ovidio, Ermes si innamora di Herse. Quando le tre sorelle si recano al tempio per fare un'offerta sacrificale in onore di Atena, Ermes si avvicina ad Aglauro e le chiede il suo aiuto per sedurre Herse. Questa in cambio chiede a Ermes dei soldi e il Dio le dà il denaro che avevano sacrificato ad Atena. Atena, per punire l'avidità di Aglauro, ordina all'Invidia di possedere Aglauro: questa obbedisce e Aglauro ne resta pietrificata.

Poseidone

Atena era in competizione con Poseidone per diventare la divinità protettrice della città che, all'epoca in cui si svolge questa leggenda, ancora non aveva un nome. Si accordarono in questo modo: ciascuno dei due avrebbe fatto un dono agli Ateniesi e questi avrebbero scelto quale fosse il migliore, decidendo così la disputa. Poseidone piantò al suolo il suo tridente e dal foro ne scaturì una sorgente. Questa avrebbe dato loro sia nuove opportunità nel commercio che una fonte d'acqua, ma l'acqua era salmastra e non molto buona da bere. Atena invece offrì il primo albero di ulivo adatto ad essere coltivato. Gli Ateniesi scelsero l'ulivo e quindi Atena come patrona della città, perché l'ulivo avrebbe procurato loro legname, olio e cibo. Si pensa che questa leggenda sia sorta nel ricordo di contrasti sorti nel periodo Miceneo fra gli abitanti originari della città e dei nuovi immigrati. Alcuni credono che Atena avesse addirittura condiviso una relazione con Poseidone precedentemente alla contesa per la città.
Una diversa versione della leggenda dice che Poseidone offrì in dono, anziché la sorgente, il primo cavallo, ma gli Ateniesi scelsero comunque il dono di Atena. Si può fra l'altro supporre che uno dei motivi per cui la scelta dei cittadini si orientò in questo senso, fu che Poseidone era considerato una divinità molto difficile da compiacere, che spesso aveva causato distruzioni anche nelle città delle quali era patrono. Atena rappresentava quindi un'alternativa migliore per il suo carattere meno violento.

Aracne

Una donna di nome Aracne un giorno si vantò di essere una tessitrice migliore di Atena, che di quest'arte era la Dea stessa. Atena andò così da lei travestita come una vecchia e consigliò Aracne di pentirsi della sua arroganza (hybris), ma la donna invece la sfidò ad una gara. Atena allora riassunse le sue vere sembianze e accettò la sfida. La Dea realizzò un arazzo che rappresentava gli Dèi che punivano gli uomini, in particolare lo scontro fra Poseidone e la città di Atene, mentre Aracne ne fece uno in cui si derideva Zeus e le sue numerose amanti. Secondo la versione di questo mito narrata nelle Metamorfosi di Ovidio, quando Atena vide che Aracne non solo aveva insultato gli Dèi ma aveva realizzato un arazzo più bello del suo, fu oltraggiata. Ridusse l'opera di Aracne in brandelli e la colpì in testa tre volte. Terrificata e umiliata, Aracne si impiccò. Al che la Dea decise di trasformarla in un ragno, obbligandola a tessere la sua tela per l'eternità e a tramandare il suo sapere ai suoi discendenti.

Perseo e Medusa

• La testa di Medusa

Atena è al fianco di Perseo quando intraprende il viaggio al termine del quale affronterà Medusa, l'unica fra le tre Gorgoni ad essere mortale.
Atena detestava la giovane Medusa, perché, fiera della propria splendida chioma, aveva osato competere con lei nella bellezza. Offesa, la dea aveva mutato Medusa in una creatura ripugnante e la sua chioma in un groviglio di serpi, chiunque ne avesse incrociato lo sguardo sarebbe rimasto pietrificato.
Atena quindi istruisce Perseo a farsi cedere dalle tre Graie i tre oggetti prodigiosi che lo aiuteranno nell'impresa di decapitare la Gorgone la cui testa dovrà portare come dono nuziale a Polidette. L'eroe riceve da Ermes un affilatissimo falcetto adamantino, dalla stessa Atena riceve lo scudo lucente attraverso il quale potrà guardare senza restare pietrificato. Ottiene dalle Graie anche gli strumenti magici.
Con l'elmo di Ade, che rende invisibili, i calzari alati e la bisaccia magica dove nascondere la testa di Medusa, Perseo giunge all'oceano attraverso la tetra foresta di statue che precede la dimora di Medusa. Atena è ancora al suo fianco e gli guida la mano. Perseo porta a compimento la propria impresa: si rende invisibile indossando l'elmo di Ade, si libra in aria grazie ai sandali alati e recide il capo di Medusa. Atena lo fisserà sulla sua ègida.

Giasone e gli Argonauti

In vista della spedizione degli Argonauti per recuperare il vello d'oro, Atena partecipò alla costruzione della nave Argo, ornando la prua con un intaglio di quercia di Dodona, sacra al padre Zeus. La dea seguì le imprese del suo protetto Giasone e dei suoi compagni.

Eracle

Atena era la dea protettrice del fratello Eracle e lo guidò e lo consigliò per tutta la vita. I due erano rispettivamente la figlia e il figlio preferiti da Zeus. In particolare, rilevante fu l'aiuto della dea in alcune delle fatiche di Eracle: nella prima fatica, dopo l'uccisione del leone di Nemea, Atena trasformata in anziana, consigliò Eracle su come scorticare la belva e gli suggerì di indossare la pelle come protezione invincibile agli attacchi dei nemici. Sempre Atena assistette il fratello nella sesta fatica di scacciare i letali uccelli del lago Stinfalo. Dopo aver fallito al primo tentativo , Eracle ricevette dalla dea due enormi sonagli di bronzo e con essi stordì gli uccelli, che fuggirono via liberando la popolazione vicina.

Tiresia e Cariclo

In una versione del mito, Atena accecò il giovane Tiresia dopo che l'aveva sorpresa mentre faceva il bagno nuda. Sua madre, la ninfa Cariclo, la supplicò di ritirare la sua maledizione, ma Atena non aveva il potere di farlo e decise, come riparazione, di dotarlo del dono della profezia.

Giudizio di Paride

Eris, Dea della Discordia, gettò una mela d'oro al banchetto nuziale di Peleo e Teti nell'Olimpo con incisa sopra la scritta "alla più bella". Per evitare contese fra le Dee, Zeus mandò Ermes con Atena, Afrodite ed Era sulla terra dove il giovane pastore Paride dovette fare da giudice su chi fosse la Dea più bella tra loro. Ogni Dea promise un dono a Paride in caso di vittoria: Era di renderlo ricco e potente (donandogli l'Asia minore), Atena di farlo il più saggio degli uomini (o, secondo una versione diversa, di renderlo invincibile in guerra) e Afrodite di dargli in sposa la donna più bella del mondo. Paride scelse Afrodite, causando così involontariamente la guerra di Troia.

Achille

Nella guerra di Troia, Atena combatte con i Greci, nonostante a Troia sia custodito il Palladio, simulacro ligneo della Dea a protezione della città. L'intervento di Atena, invisibile a tutti tranne che ad Achille, impedisce all'eroe, trattenendolo per i capelli, di uccidere Agamennone in un impeto d'ira.

Odisseo

L'astuto e scaltro Odisseo aveva conquistato la benevolenza e la protezione di Atena. Questa però non aveva potuto aiutarlo nel viaggio di ritorno verso Itaca. Solo quando giunse sulla costa dell'isola di Scheria dove Nausicaa, figlia del re Alcinoo, stava lavando i suoi panni, Atena poté intervenire ed apparve in sogno alla principessa inducendola a soccorrere Odisseo e ad aiutarlo a ritornare in patria.
Ad Itaca, Atena si presenta a Odisseo sotto mentite spoglie e, mentendo, gli dice che sua moglie Penelope si è risposata perché lo si crede morto. Odisseo però riconosce la dea che, compiaciuta dalla risolutezza e sagacia dell'eroe, gli rivela la propria natura e gli spiega come fare per riconquistare il suo regno. A questo scopo muta le sembianze di lui in quelle di un vecchio mendicante, Iro, in modo che non venga riconosciuto dai Proci (i principi pretendenti alla mano di Penelope), che si sono insediati a palazzo ed assediano la regina. Lo aiuta poi a sconfiggerli, intervenendo a risolvere anche la disputa finale con i loro parenti. La dea guidò anche Telemaco, il figlio di Odisseo, nei suoi viaggi (Telemachia) assumendo la forma del precettore Mentore.

Psicologia

Atena, la guerriera saggia e forte, rappresenta le qualità intellettuali, sia dell'uomo sia della donna (infatti la Dea era la protettrice delle arti femminili). Nella città di Atene erano gli uomini a prendere ogni decisione (anche riguardo alla vita delle proprie mogli o figlie), tuttavia la Dea Atena era considerata la custode del Tribunale, colei a cui spettava l'ultima parola, in caso di parità di voti. Tale prerogativa veniva fatta risalire al mitico giudizio di Oreste, accusato di matricidio.
Forse, il carattere della Dea va collegato all'idealizzazione delle donne di Sparta di condizione sociale elevata: dovevano essere atletiche, combattive, forti e sagge. La Dea è nata dal padre Zeus , è quindi "tutta del padre", con un carattere bellicoso, al punto da saper maneggiare la folgore di Zeus, con la quale uccide Aiace Oileo. Tuttavia, per contrasto, il culto femminile di Atena è attestato in Grecia e Magna Grecia dai numerosi ex voto ritrovati presso i templi; la dea viene anche invocata come protettrice delle nascite e dei bambini, in collegamento con il mito di Erittonio, suo figlio adottivo. Ad Atene, nella processione annuale delle feste Panatenaiche veniva donato alla statua della dea un prezioso peplo tessuto dalle fanciulle della città.

Copia romana, epoca imperiale, da un originale greco, probabilmente la statua di Atena Héphaïstia di Alcamène.

Marie-Lan Nguyen - Opera propria

Minerva

Minerva (in latino: Minerva, in greco antico: Ἀθηνᾶ) è la divinità romana della lealtà in lotta, delle grandi virtù della guerra giusta (guerra per giuste cause o per difesa), della saggezza, delle strategie, delle tessiture, riconosciuta anche protettrice degli artigiani. Da un punto di vista mitologico, la figura di Minerva deriva da quella di Atena, suo corrispettivo nella mitologia greca. Come per Atena anche per Minerva l'animale sacro è la civetta, talvolta il gufo. Figlia di Giove secondo il mito, nata dalla testa di quest'ultimo. 

Titoli e ruoli

Il termine Minerva fu probabilmente importato dagli etruschi che la chiamavano Menrva. I romani ne confusero il nome straniero con il loro lemma mens (mente) visto che la dea governava non solo la guerra, ma anche le attività intellettuali.
Minerva è la figlia di Giove e di Meti. Viene considerata la divinità vergine della guerra giusta, della saggezza, dell'ingegno, delle arti utili (architettura, ingegneria, scienza, matematica, geometria, artigianato e tessitura), nonché inventrice del telaio e del carro, e di svariate altre cose. I suoi simboli sono il gufo, l'ulivo, l'egida e una lancia nuova.
A differenza della corrispettiva greca Atena Minerva perse i ruoli di dea della guerra strategica poiché nella cultura romana la donna era relegata alla casa mentre in quella greca vi era più combattività nella dea.

Culto

Il celebre poeta romano Publio Ovidio Nasone la definì divinità dai mille compiti. Minerva fu adorata in tutta l'Italia, nonostante solo a Roma assumesse un aspetto da guerriera. Viene solitamente raffigurata mentre indossa una cotta di maglia ed un elmo, completa di lancia.
Dionigi di Alicarnasso riporta come l'antica città di Orvinium, nell'epoca in cui era abitata dagli Aborigeni, fosse dominata da un tempio dedicato alla dea.
I Romani ne celebravano la festa dal 19 al 23 marzo nei giorni che prendevano il nome di Quinquatria, i primi cinque successivi alle Idi di marzo, a partire dal diciannovesimo nel Calendario degli Artigiani. Una versione più contenuta, le Minusculae Quinquatria, si teneva dopo le Idi di giugno, il 13 giugno, con l'uso di flautisti, molto usati nelle cerimonie religiose. Il culto di Minerva era tenuto sul Campidoglio e faceva parte della Triade Capitolina, insieme a Giove e Giunone. Nella Roma attuale si può visitare la Piazza della Minerva, nei pressi del Pantheon.
Nel 207 a.C. una gilda di poeti e attori venne creata per fare offerte votive nel Tempio di Minerva sull'Aventino. Tra gli altri membri merita una menzione speciale Livio Andronico. Il santuario aventiniano rimase un importante centro culturale per gli artisti per la maggior parte della Repubblica romana.
Nelle Vite parallele di Plutarco (Pericle e Fabio Massimo), Minerva appare a Pericle in sogno ordinando delle cure per un cittadino malato di Atene. Dopo questo episodio venne eretta una statua in bronzo in onore delle divinità Ermes e Minerva.

Calculus Minervae

Il calculus Minervae era la pietra di Minerva, cioè il voto decisivo in un organo collegiale che fosse in stallo per parità di voti su di una proposta, equamente approvata ed avversata dal medesimo numero di componenti (secondo Tito Livio circa cinquecento).
Si tratta della traduzione latina dell'Athenas psephos, il coccio che il presidente deponeva nell'urna per ultimo nella Bulè dei Cinquecento (l'organo legislativo nella Costituzione di Clistene, che però esercitava anche una funzione giurisdizionale). Tale definizione era data sull'esempio del leggendario voto di Atena in favore di Oreste, ricordato da Eschilo ne Le Eumenidi, decisivo per mandare esente da pena il matricida.
Nell'antica Roma la definizione fu ripresa nel 30 a.C. quando, nei processi criminali, un senatoconsulto riconobbe ad Ottaviano il calculus Minervae, il privilegio di aggiungere il suo voto a quello della minoranza, e quindi determinare l'assoluzione, qualora la sentenza fosse stata pronunciata con la maggioranza di un solo voto.
Nel mondo moderno la funzione del Presidente con voto decisivo in caso di parità è garantita in vari ordinamenti, tra i quali il Senato degli Stati Uniti d'America e la Commissione per la Verità e la Riconciliazione del Sudafrica (nella quale il presidente Desmond Tutu espresse un voto decisivo nell'ultima seduta). Ciò si distingue dallo swing vote, che è il voto oscillante di un componente non ideologizzato in un organo collegiale dispari, che tendenzialmente è portato a decidere chi vince: il caso del giudice Sandra O'Connor della Corte suprema degli Stati Uniti è considerato quello più appropriato a rendere il concetto, almeno nei tempi più recenti.

detail from Image:Minerva-Vedder-Highsmith.jpeg

Artist is Elihu Vedder (1836–1923). Photographed in 2007 by Carol Highsmith (1946–),

Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom, handicraft, and warfare, who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. 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. She is usually shown in art wearing a helmet and holding a spear. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion.
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 head of her father Zeus. 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 also 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, afterwards 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.

Etymology

Athena is associated with the city of Athens. The name of the city in ancient Greek is Ἀθῆναι (Athenai), a plural toponym, designating the place where—according to myth—she presided over the Athenai, a sisterhood devoted to her worship. In ancient times, scholars argued whether Athena was named after Athens or Athens after Athena. Now scholars generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city; the ending -ene is common in names of locations, but rare for personal names. Testimonies from different cities in ancient Greece attest that similar city goddesses were worshipped in other cities and, like Athena, took their names from the cities where they were worshipped. For example, in Mycenae there was a goddess called Mykene, whose sisterhood was known as Mykenai, 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). The name Athenai is likely of Pre-Greek origin because it contains the presumably Pre-Greek morpheme *-ān-.
In his dialogue Cratylus, the 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.

Origins

Athena was originally the Aegean goddess of the palace, who presided over household crafts and protected the king. 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"; these comprise the earliest Linear B archive anywhere. Although Athana potnia is often translated Mistress Athena, it could also mean "the Potnia of Athana", or the Lady of Athens. However, any connection to the city of Athens in the Knossos inscription is uncertain. In the still undeciphered corpus of Linear A tablets—written in the unclassified Minoan language—a sign series a-ta-no-dju-wa-ja is to be found. 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), 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). However, the inscription quoted seems to be very similar to "a-ta-nū-tī wa-ya", quoted as SY Za 1 by Jan Best. Best translates the initial a-ta-nū-tī, which is recurrent in line beginnings, as "I have given".
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. 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. The early twentieth-century scholar Martin Persson Nilsson argued that the Minoan snake goddess figurines are early representations of Athena.
Nilsson and others have claimed that, in early times, Athena was either an owl herself or a bird goddess in general. In the third book of the Odyssey, she takes the form of a sea-eagle. 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."
It is generally agreed that the cult of Athena preserves some aspects of the Proto-Indo-European transfunctional goddess. 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, both of whom were often portrayed bearing arms. 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 Netherworld.
Miriam Robbins Dexter has suggested that, at least at some point in her history, Athena was a solar deity. Athena bears traits common with Indo-European solar goddesses, including the possession of a mirror and the invention of weaving, characteristics which are also held by the Baltic goddess Saulė. Athena's association with Medusa, who is also suspected of being a solar goddess, adds further solar iconography to her cultus. Athena was later syncretized with Sulis, a Celtic goddess whose name is derived from the common Proto-Indo-European root for many solar deities. Though the sun in Greek myth is personified as the male Helios, several relictual solar goddesses are known, such as Alectrona.
Plato notes that the citizens of Sais in Egypt worshipped a goddess known as Neith, whom he identifies with Athena. 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. 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". The "Black Athena" hypothesis stirred up widespread controversy near the end of the twentieth century, but it has now been widely rejected by modern scholars.

Cult and patronages

In her aspect of Athena Polias, Athena was venerated as the goddess of the city and the protectress of the citadel. In Athens, the Plynteria, or "Feast of the Bath", was observed every year at the end of the month of Thargelion. 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. Here Athena's statue was undressed, her clothes washed, and body purified.
Athena was worshipped at festivals such as Chalceia as Athena Ergane, the patroness of various crafts, especially weaving. She was also the patron of metalworkers and was believed to aid in the forging of armor and weapons. During the late 5th century BC, the role of goddess of philosophy became a major aspect of Athena's cult.
As Athena Promachos, she was believed to lead soldiers into battle. 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". Athena was believed to only support those fighting for a just cause and was thought to view war primarily as a means to resolve conflict. In her aspect as a warrior maiden, Athena was also known as Parthenos, which means "virgin", because she was believed to have never married or taken a lover. Athena was especially worshipped in this role during the festivals of the Panathenaea and Pamboeotia, both of which prominently featured displays of athletic and military prowess. As the patroness of heroes and warriors, Athena was believed to favor those who used cunning and intelligence rather than brute strength.
Athena was not only the patron goddess of Athens, but also other cities, including Argos, Sparta, Gortyn, Lindos, and Larisa. The various cults of Athena were all branches of her panhellenic cult 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. These cults were portals of a uniform socialization, even beyond mainland Greece.
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. In Arcadia, she was assimilated with the ancient goddess Alea and worshiped as Athena Alea. 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. The geographer Pausanias was informed that the temenos had been founded by Aleus. Votive bronzes at the site from the Geometric and Archaic periods take the forms of horses and deer; there are sealstone and fibulae. In the Archaic period, the nine villages that underlie Tegea banded together in a synoecism to form one city. Tegea was listed in Homer's Catalogue of Ships as one of the cities that contributed ships and men for the Achaean assault on Troy.
Athena had a major temple on the Spartan Acropolis, where she was venerated as Poliouchos and Khalkíoikos ("of the Brazen House", often latinized as Chalcioecus). This epithet may refer to the fact that cult statue held there may have been made of bronze, that the walls of the temple itself may have been made of bronze, or that Athena was the patron of metal-workers. Bells made of terracotta and bronze were used in Sparta as part of Athena's cult.
An Ionic-style temple to Athena Polias was built at Priene in the fourth century BC. It was designed by Pytheos of Priene, the same architect who designed the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The temple was dedicated by Alexander the Great and an inscription from the temple declaring his dedication is now held in the British Museum.

Epithets and attributes

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. The epithet Ergane (Εργάνη "the Industrious") pointed her out as the patron of craftsmen and artisans. Burkert notes that the Athenians sometimes simply called Athena "the Goddess", hē theós (ἡ θεός), certainly an ancient title. 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).
Athena was sometimes given the epithet Hippia (Ἵππια "of the horses", "equestrian"), referring to her invention of the bit, bridle, chariot, and wagon. The Greek geographer Pausanias mentions in his Guide to Greece that the temple of Athena Chalinitis ("the bridler") in Corinth was located near the tomb of Medea's children. Other epithets include Ageleia, Itonia and Aethyia, under which she was worshiped in Megara. 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. In a temple at Phrixa in Elis, reportedly built by Clymenus, she was known as Cydonia (Κυδωνία).
The Greek biographer Plutarch (46–120 AD) refers to an instance during the Parthenon's construction of her being called Athena Hygieia (Ὑγίεια, i. e. personified "Health"):
A strange accident happened in the course of building, which showed that the goddess was not averse to the work, but was aiding and co-operating to bring it to perfection. One of the artificers, the quickest and the handiest workman among them all, with a slip of his foot fell down from a great height, and lay in a miserable condition, the physicians having no hope of his recovery. When Pericles was in distress about this, the goddess [Athena] appeared to him at night in a dream, and ordered a course of treatment, which he applied, and in a short time and with great ease cured the man. And upon this occasion it was that he set up a brass statue of Athena Hygeia, in the citadel near the altar, which they say was there before. But it was Phidias who wrought the goddess's image in gold, and he has his name inscribed on the pedestal as the workman of it.In Homer's epic works, Athena's most common epithet is Glaukopis (γλαυκῶπις), which usually is translated as, "bright-eyed" or "with gleaming eyes". The word is a combination of glaukós (γλαυκός, meaning "gleaming, silvery", and later, "bluish-green" or "gray") and ṓps (ὤψ, "eye, face"). The word glaúx (γλαύξ, "little owl") 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; in archaic images, she is frequently depicted with an owl perched on her hand. Through its association with Athena, the owl evolved into the national mascot of the Athenians and eventually became a symbol of wisdom.
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. It could mean various things, including "Triton-born", perhaps indicating that the homonymous sea-deity was her parent according to some early myths. One myth relates the foster father relationship of this Triton towards the half-orphan Athena, whom he raised alongside his own daughter Pallas. Karl 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." 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. Several scholars have suggested a connection to the Rigvedic god Trita, who was sometimes grouped in a body of three mythological poets. 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. 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". 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).

Mythology

Birth

Although Athena appears before Zeus at Knossos—in Linear B, as 𐀀𐀲𐀙𐀡𐀴𐀛𐀊, a-ta-na po-ti-ni-ja, "Mistress Athena"—in the Classical Olympian pantheon, Athena was remade as the favourite daughter of Zeus, born fully armed from his forehead. The story of her birth comes in several versions. In the version recounted by Hesiod in his Theogony, Zeus lay with Metis, the goddess of crafty thought and wisdom, but he immediately feared the consequences because Gaia and Ouranos had prophesized that Metis would bear children wiser than he himself. In order to prevent this, Zeus swallowed Metis, but it was too late because Metis had already conceived.
Eventually Zeus experienced an enormous headache; Prometheus, Hephaestus, Hermes, Ares, or Palaemon (depending on the sources examined) cleaved Zeus’ head with the double-headed Minoan axe, the labrys. Athena leaped from Zeus's head, fully grown and armed, with a shout—"and pealed to the broad sky her clarion cry of war. And Ouranos trembled to hear, and Mother Gaia…" Plato, in the Laws, attributes the cult of Athena to the culture of Crete, introduced, he thought, from Libya during the dawn of Greek culture. Classical myths thereafter note that Hera was so annoyed at Zeus for having produced a child that she conceived and bore Hephaestus by herself, 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."
A scholium on the Iliad makes Athena the daughter of Brontes the Cyclops, who seduced Metis and impregnated her, prompting Zeus to swallow her. The Etymologicum Magnum instead deems Athena the daughter of the Daktyl Itonos. 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.

Pallas Athena

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". On this topic, Walter Burkert says "she is the Pallas of Athens, Pallas Athenaie, just as Hera of Argos is Here Argeie." 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 ancient mythographer Pseudo-Apollodorus, which claim that Pallas was originally a separate entity, whom Athena had slain in combat.
In one version of the myth, Pallas was the daughter of the sea-god Triton; she and Athena were childhood friends, but Athena accidentally killed her during a friendly sparring match. Distraught over what she had done, Athena took the name Pallas for herself as a sign of her grief. In another version of the story, Pallas was a Gigante; Athena slew him during the Gigantomachy and flayed off his skin to make her cloak, which she wore as a victory trophy. In an alternate variation of the same myth, Pallas was instead Athena's father, who attempted to assault his own daughter, causing Athena to kill him and take his skin as a trophy.
The palladion was a statue of Athena that was said to have stood in her temple on the Trojan Acropolis. Athena was said to have carved the statue herself in the likeness of her dead friend Pallas. The statue had special talisman-like properties and it was thought that, as long as it was in the city, Troy could never fall. When the Greeks captured Troy, Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, clung to the palladion for protection, but Ajax the Lesser violently tore her away from it and dragged her over to the other captives. Athena was infuriated by this violation of her protection. Though 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.

Lady of Athens

In a founding myth reported by Pseudo-Apollodorus, Athena competed with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens. They agreed that each would give the Athenians one gift and that Cecrops, the king of Athens, would determine which gift was better. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring sprang up; this gave the Athenians access to trade and water. Athens at its height was a significant sea power, defeating the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis—but the water was salty and undrinkable. In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil's Georgics Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse. Athena offered the first domesticated olive tree. Cecrops accepted this gift and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens. The olive tree brought wood, oil, and food, and became a symbol of Athenian economic prosperity. Robert Graves was of the opinion that "Poseidon's attempts to take possession of certain cities are political myths", which reflect the conflict between matriarchal and patriarchal religions.

Pseudo-Apollodorus 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. Athena wiped the semen off using a tuft of wool, which she tossed into the dust, impregnating Gaia and causing her to give birth to Erichthonius, whom Athena adopted as her own child. The Roman mythographer Hyginus 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. Zeus agreed to this and Hephaestus and Athena were married, 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.
The geographer Pausanias records that Athena placed the infant Erichthonius into a small chest (cista), which she entrusted to the care of the three daughters of Cecrops: Herse, Pandrosos, and Aglauros of Athens. She warned the three sisters not to open the chest, but did not explain to them why or what was in it. Aglauros, and possibly one of the other sisters, opened the chest. 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. 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, but an Attic vase painting shows them being chased by the serpent off the edge of the cliff instead.
Erichthonius was one of the most important founding heroes of Athens and the legend of the daughters of Cecrops was a cult myth linked to the rituals of the Arrhephoria festival. 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, which they would carry on their heads down a natural underground passage. They would leave the objects they had been given at the bottom of the passage and take another set of hidden objects, which they would carry on their heads back up to the temple. The ritual was performed in the dead of night and no one, not even the priestess, knew what the objects were. 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. Many of the surviving sculptures of Athena show this serpent.
Herodotus records that a serpent lived in a crevice on the north side of the summit of the Athenian Acropolis and that the Athenians left a honey cake for it each month as an offering. On the eve of the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, the serpent did not eat the honey cake and the Athenians interpreted it as a sign that Athena herself had abandoned them. 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.
Athena never had a consort or lover and is thus known as Athena Parthenos, "Virgin Athena". Her most famous temple, the Parthenon, on the Acropolis in Athens takes its name from this title. It is not merely an observation of her virginity, but a recognition of her role as enforcer of rules of sexual modesty and ritual mystery. Even beyond recognition, the Athenians allotted the goddess value based on this pureness of virginity as it upheld a rudiment of female behavior in the patriarchal society. Kerényi's study and theory of Athena accredits her virginal epithet to be a result of the relationship to her father Zeus and a vital, cohesive piece of her character throughout the ages. 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.

Patron of heroes

According to Pseudo-Apollodorus's Bibliotheca, Athena guided the hero Perseus in his quest to behead Medusa. 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. 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. Hermes gave him an adamantine scythe to cut off Medusa's head. When Perseus swung his blade to behead Medusa, Athena guided it, allowing his scythe to cut it clean off. According to Pindar's Thirteenth Olympian Ode, Athena helped the hero Bellerophon tame the winged horse Pegasus by giving him a bit. In ancient Greek art, Athena is frequently shown aiding the hero Heracles. She appears in four of the twelve metopes on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia depicting Heracles's Twelve Labors, including the first, in which she passively watches him slay the Nemean lion, and the tenth, in which she is shown actively helping him hold up the sky. She is presented as his "stern ally", but also the "gentle... acknowledger of his achievements." Artistic depictions of Heracles's apotheosis show Athena driving him to Mount Olympus in her chariot and presenting him to Zeus for his deification. 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. When half the jury votes to acquit and the other half votes to convict, Athena casts the deciding vote to acquit Orestes and declares that, from then on, whenever a jury is tied, the defendant shall always be acquitted.
In The Odyssey, Odysseus' cunning and shrewd nature quickly wins Athena's favour. 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. 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. She appears in Nausicaa's dreams to ensure that the princess rescues Odysseus and plays a role in his eventual escort to Ithaca. Athena appears to Odysseus upon his arrival, disguised as a herdsman; she initially lies and tells him that Penelope, his wife, has remarried and that he is believed to be dead, but Odysseus lies back to her, employing skillful prevarications to protect himself. Impressed by his resolve and shrewdness, she reveals herself and tells him what he needs to know in order to win back his kingdom. She disguises him as an elderly beggar so that he will not be recognized by the suitors or Penelope, and helps him to defeat the suitors. Athena also appears to Odysseus's son Telemachus. Her actions lead him to travel around to Odysseus's comrades and ask about his father. He hears stories about some of Odysseus's journey. Athena's push for Telemachos's journey helps him grow into the man role, that his father once held. 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.

Punishment myths

The Gorgoneion appears to have originated as an apotropaic symbol intended to ward off evil. In a late myth invented to explain the origins of the Gorgon, Medusa is described as having been a young priestess who served in the temple of Athena in Athens. Poseidon lusted after Medusa, and raped her in the temple of Athena, refusing to allow her vow of chastity to stand in his way. 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.
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. According to Pindar, Athena gave the aulos to mortals as a gift. Later, the comic playwright Melanippides of Melos (c. 480-430 BC) embellished the story in his comedy Marsyas, 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. The aulos was picked up by the satyr Marsyas, who was later killed by Apollo for his hubris. Later, this version of the story became accepted as canonical 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.
In one version of the Tiresias myth, Tiresias stumbled upon Athena bathing, and she struck him blind to ensure he would never again see what man was not intended to see. Tiresias's mother Chariclo intervened on his behalf and begged Athena to have mercy. Athena could not restore Tiresias's eyesight, so instead she gave him the ability to understand the language of the birds and thus foretell the future.

The fable of Arachne appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses (8 AD) (vi.5–54 and 129–145), which is nearly the only extant source for the legend. The story does not appear to have been well known prior to Ovid's rendition of it 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. According to Ovid, Arachne (whose name means spider in ancient Greek) was the daughter of a famous dyer in Tyrian purple in Hypaipa of Lydia, and a weaving student of Athena. She became so conceited of her skill as a weaver that she began claiming that her skill was greater than that of Athena herself. Athena gave Arachne a chance to redeem herself by assuming the form of an old woman and warning Arachne not to offend the deities. Arachne scoffed and wished for a weaving contest, so she could prove her skill.
Athena wove the scene of her victory over Poseidon in the contest for the patronage of Athens. Arachne's tapestry featured twenty-one episodes of the deities' infidelity, including Zeus being unfaithful with Leda, with Europa, and with Danaë. Athena admitted that Arachne's work was flawless, but was outraged at Arachne's offensive choice of subject, which displayed the failings and transgressions of the deities. Finally, losing her temper, Athena destroyed Arachne's tapestry and loom, striking it with her shuttle. Athena then struck Arachne across the face with her staff four times. Arachne hanged herself in despair, but Athena took pity on her and brought her back from the dead in the form of a spider.

Trojan War

The myth of the Judgement of Paris is mentioned briefly in the Iliad, but is described in depth in an epitome of the Cypria, a lost poem of the Epic Cycle, 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). Only Eris, goddess of discord, was not invited. 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. Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena all claimed to be the fairest, and thus the rightful owner of the apple.
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. After bathing in the spring of Mount Ida where Troy was situated, the goddesses appeared before Paris for his decision. In the extant ancient depictions of the Judgement of Paris, Aphrodite is only occasionally represented nude, and Athena and Hera are always fully clothed. Since the Renaissance, however, western paintings have typically portrayed all three goddesses as completely naked.
All three goddesses were ideally beautiful and Paris could not decide between them, so they resorted to bribes. Hera tried to bribe Paris with power over all Asia and Europe, and Athena offered wisdom, fame and glory in battle, 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. This woman was Helen, who was already married to King Menelaus of Sparta. Paris selected Aphrodite and awarded her the apple. The other two goddesses were enraged and, as a direct result, sided with the Greeks in the Trojan War.
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. Several artistic representations from the early sixth century BC may show Athena and Diomedes, 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. Numerous passages in the Iliad also mention Athena having previously served as the patron of Diomedes's father Tydeus. When the Trojan women go to the temple of Athena on the Acropolis to plead her for protection from Diomedes, Athena ignores them.
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 and persuades him to hold his ground so that they can fight Achilles together. Then, Hector throws his spear at Achilles and misses, expecting Deiphobus to hand him another, but Athena disappears instead, leaving Hector to face Achilles alone without his spear. 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. Even after Odysseus himself expresses pity for Ajax, Athena declares, "To laugh at your enemies - what sweeter laughter can there be than that?" (lines 78-9). Ajax later commits suicide as a result of his humiliation.

Classical art

In early, archaic portraits of Athena in black-figure pottery, the goddess retains some of her Minoan-Mycenaean character, such as great bird wings, although this is not true of archaic sculpture such as those of Aphaean Athena, where Athena has subsumed an earlier, invisibly numinous—Aphaea—goddess with Cretan connections in her mythos.
In classical depictions, Athena is usually portrayed standing upright, wearing a full-length chiton. She is sometimes dressed in armor, and is often represented wearing a Corinthian helmet raised high atop her forehead. Her shield bears at its centre the aegis with the head of the gorgon (gorgoneion) in the center and snakes around the edge. It is in this standing posture that she was depicted in Phidias's famous lost gold and ivory statue of her, 36 m tall, the Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon.
Apart from her attributes, there seems to be a relative consensus in late sculpture from the Classical period, the fifth century BC onward, as to what Athena looked like. Most noticeable in the face is perhaps the full round strong, chin with a high nose that has a high bridge as a natural extension of the forehead. The eyes typically are somewhat deeply set. The unsmiling lips are usually full, but the mouth is depicted fairly narrow, usually just slightly wider than the nose. The neck is somewhat long.
The Mourning Athena is a famous relief sculpture dating to around 470-460 BC that has been interpreted to represent Athena Polias. Athena Polias is also represented in a Neo-Attic relief now held in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which depicts her holding an owl in her hand and wearing her characteristic Corinthian helmet while resting her shield against a nearby herma

Post-classical culture

Art and symbolism

Early Christian writers such as Clement of Alexandria and Firmicus denigrated Athena as representative of all the things that were detestable about paganism; they condemned her as "immodest and immoral". During the Middle Ages, however, many attributes of Athena were given to the Virgin Mary, who, in fourth century portrayals, was often depicted wearing the Gorgoneion. Some even viewed the Virgin Mary as a warrior maiden, much like Athena Parthenos; 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. 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.
During the Renaissance, Athena donned the mantle of patron of the arts and human endeavor; allegorical paintings involving Athena were a favorite of the Italian Renaissance painters. 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. 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.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Athena was used as a symbol for female rulers. 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". A series of paintings by Peter Paul Rubens depict Athena as Marie de' Medici's patron and mentor; 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. During the French Revolution, statues of pagan gods were torn down all throughout France, but statues of Athena were not. Instead, Athena was transformed into the personification of freedom and the republic and a statue of the goddess stood in the center of the Place de la Revolution in Paris. In the years following the Revolution, artistic representations of Athena proliferated.
A statue of Athena stands directly in front of the Austrian Parliament Building in Vienna, and depictions of Athena have influenced other symbols of western freedom, including the Statue of Liberty and Britannia. For over a century, a full-scale replica of the Parthenon has stood in Nashville, Tennessee 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. The state seal of California bears the image of Athena kneeling next to a brown grizzly bear. 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.

Modern interpretations

One of Sigmund Freud's most treasured possessions was a small, bronze statue of Athena, which sat on his desk. Freud once described Athena as "a woman who is unapproachable and repels all sexual desires - since she displays the terrifying genitals of the Mother." Feminist views on Athena are sharply divided; some feminists regard her as a symbol of female empowerment, 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." In contemporary Wicca, Athena is venerated as an aspect of the Goddess and some Wiccans believe that she may bestow the "Owl Gift" ("the ability to write and communicate clearly") upon her worshippers. Due to her status as one of the twelve Olympians, Athena is a major deity in Hellenismos, a Neopagan religion which seeks to authentically revive and recreate the religion of ancient Greece in the modern world.
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. It is traditional at exam time for students to leave offerings to the goddess with a note asking for good luck, or to repent for accidentally breaking any of the college's numerous other traditions. Pallas Athena is the tutelary goddess of the international social fraternity Phi Delta Theta. Her owl is also a symbol of the fraternity.

Mattei Athena Louvre Ma530 n2

Jastrow and one more author - Own work

Quotes

• Φοβού τους Δαναούς και δώρα φέροντες.
  • Translation:(Beware Greeks even though are bearing gifts).
  • Trojan Horse or the Iliad

• The Greeks used a wooden horse to get into Troy.
  • Trojan Horse

• When Pandora opened the jar, all the evil flooded out into the world.
  • Pandora's box

• The only thing left inside the jar was Hope.
  • Pandora's Box

• Everything King Midas touched turned to gold.
  • King Midas

• King Minos built a labyrinth to house the monster.
  • Minotaur

• Flora and Fauna
  • Two Greek Goddesses, the first of plants, the second of animals.

• Icarus flew too close to the sun.
  • Daedulus and Icarus

• The Twelve Tasks of Heracles.
  • Heracles-later Romanised as the 'The Twelve Tasks of Hercules'

• A Sisyphean Task.
  • From the myth of Sisyphus-means a never ending task

• The phoenix rises from the ashes

• Aphrodite rose from the waves
  • The birth of Aphrodite (a well-known allusion)

Less Precise Quotes

Theseus (from "Heroes, Gods and Monsters" (a collection of Greek Myths & Legends))
Theseus: It's a complete honor to have my head bashed in with a club like this.
Theseus: (after killing Procrustes) So you have done to travellers, so shall you endure; you've made your bed, now lie on it.

• Pygmalion loathing their lascivious life,
  Abhorr'd all womankind, but most a wife:
  So single chose to live, and shunn'd to wed,
  Well pleas'd to want a consort of his bed.
  Yet fearing idleness, the nurse of ill,
  In sculpture exercis'd his happy skill;
  And carv'd in iv'ry such a maid, so fair,
  As Nature could not with his art compare,
  Were she to work; but in her own defence
  Must take her pattern here, and copy hence.
  Pleas'd with his idol, he commends, admires,
  Adores; and last, the thing ador'd, desires.
  A very virgin in her face was seen,
  And had she mov'd, a living maid had been:
  One wou'd have thought she cou'd have stirr'd, but strove
  With modesty, and was asham'd to move.
  Art hid with art, so well perform'd the cheat,
  It caught the carver with his own deceit:
  He knows 'tis madness, yet he must adore,
  And still the more he knows it, loves the more:
  The flesh, or what so seems, he touches oft,
  Which feels so smooth, that he believes it soft.
  Fir'd with this thought, at once he strain'd the breast,
  And on the lips a burning kiss impress'd.
  'Tis true, the harden'd breast resists the gripe,
  And the cold lips return a kiss unripe:
  But when, retiring back, he look'd again,
  To think it iv'ry, was a thought too mean:
  So wou'd believe she kiss'd, and courting more,
  Again embrac'd her naked body o'er.

• Pygmallion Ovid Metamorphosis 

About Greek myths

• No fable made famous by the Greeks is to be neglected.
  • Hippolytus of Rome Philosophumena; or the Or The Refutation Of All Heresies Pg. 32

The Acropolis at Athens (1846) by Leo von Klenze. Athena's name probably comes from the name of the city of Athens.

Neue Pinakothek, Munich

Minerva (/mɪˈnɜːr.və/; Latin: [mɪˈnɛr.wa]; Etruscan: Menrva) was the Roman goddess of wisdom and strategic warfare, although it is noted that the Romans did not stress her relation to battle and warfare as the Greeks would come to, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. From the second century BC onward, the Romans equated her with the Greek goddess Athena.
Following the Greek myths around Athena, she was born of Metis, who had been swallowed by Jupiter, and burst from her father's head, fully armed and clad in armor. After impregnating the titaness Metis notably forcefully which resulted in her attempting to change shape or shapeshift to escape him, Jupiter recalled the prophecy that his own child would overthrow him as he had Saturn and in turn, Saturn had Caelus.
Fearing that their child would be male, and would grow stronger than he was and rule the Heavens in his place, Jupiter swallowed Metis whole after tricking her into turning herself into a fly. The titaness gave birth to Minerva and forged weapons and armor for her child while within Jupiter's body nevertheless. It is said in some versions that Metis continued to live inside of Jupiter's mind and that she is the source of his wisdom though others say she was simply a vessel for the birth of Minerva. Nevertheless, the constant pounding and ringing left Jupiter with agonizing pain and to relieve the pain, Vulcan used a hammer to split Jupiter's head and, from the cleft, Minerva emerged, whole, adult, and in full battle armor.
She was the virgin goddess of music, poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, and the crafts. She is often depicted with her sacred creature, an owl usually named as the "owl of Minerva", which symbolised her association with wisdom and knowledge as well as, less frequently, the snake and the olive tree.

Worship in Rome and Italy

Minerva was worshipped at several locations in Rome, including most prominently as part of the Capitoline Triad, and also at the Temple of Minerva Medica, and at the "Delubrum Minervae", a temple founded around 50 BC by Pompey on the site now occupied by the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
The Romans celebrated her festival from March 19 to March 23 during the day which is called, in the neuter plural, Quinquatria, the fifth after the Ides of March, the nineteenth, an artisans' holiday. A lesser version, the Minusculae Quinquatria, was held on the Ides of June, June 13, by the flute-players, who were particularly useful to religion. In 207 BC, a guild of poets and actors was formed to meet and make votive offerings at the temple of Minerva on the Aventine Hill. Among others, its members included Livius Andronicus. The Aventine sanctuary of Minerva continued to be an important center of the arts for much of the middle Roman Republic.
As Minerva Medica, she was the goddess of medicine and physicians. As Minerva Achaea, she was worshipped at Lucera in Apulia where votive gifts and arms said to be those of Diomedes were preserved in her temple.
Her worship also was spread throughout the empire. In Britain, for example, she was syncretized with the local goddess Sulis, who often was invoked for restitution for theft.
In Fasti III, Ovid called her the "goddess of a thousand works". Minerva was worshipped throughout Italy, and when she eventually became equated with the Greek goddess Athena, she also became a goddess of battle. Unlike Mars, god of war, she was sometimes portrayed with sword lowered, in sympathy for the recent dead, rather than raised in triumph and battle lust. In Rome her bellicose nature was emphasized less than elsewhere.

Roman coinage

Minerva is featured on the coinage of different Roman Emperors. She often is represented on the reverse side of a coin holding an owl and a spear among her attributes.

Etruscan Menrva

Stemming from an Italic moon goddess *Meneswā ('She who measures'), the Etruscans adopted the inherited Old Latin name, *Menerwā, thereby calling her Menrva. It is presumed that her Roman name, Minerva, is based on this Etruscan mythology. Minerva was the goddess of wisdom, war, art, schools, and commerce. She was the Etruscan counterpart to Greek Athena. Like Athena, Minerva burst from the head of her father, Jupiter (Greek Zeus), who had devoured her mother (Metis) in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent her birth.
By a process of folk etymology, the Romans could have linked her foreign name to the root men- in Latin words such as mens meaning "mind", perhaps because one of her aspects as goddess pertained to the intellectual. The word mens is built from the Proto-Indo-European root *men- 'mind' (linked with memory as in Greek Mnemosyne/μνημοσύνη and mnestis/μνῆστις: memory, remembrance, recollection, manush in Sanskrit meaning mind).
The Etruscan Menrva was part of a holy triad with Tinia and Uni, equivalent to the Roman Capitoline Triad of Jupiter-Juno-Minerva.

Universities and educational establishments

As a patron goddess of wisdom, Minerva frequently features in statuary, as an image on seals, and in other forms at educational institutions.

Use by societies and governments

• The Seal of California depicts the Goddess Minerva. Her birth fully-grown parallels California becoming a state without first being a territory.
• In the early twentieth century, Manuel José Estrada Cabrera, President of Guatemala, tried to promote a "Worship of Minerva" in his country; this left little legacy other than a few interesting Hellenic style "Temples" in parks around Guatemala.
• According to John Robison's Proofs of a Conspiracy (1798), the third degree of the Bavarian Illuminati was called Minerval or Brother of Minerva, in honour of the goddess of learning. Later, this title was adopted for the first initiation of Aleister Crowley's OTO rituals.
• Minerva is displayed on the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government.
• Minerva is featured in the logo of the Max Planck Society.
• Minerva alongside Mars is displayed on the cap badge of the Artists Rifles Territorial SAS Regiment of the British Army.
• Kingston upon Hull's oldest Masonic lodge is named The Minerva Lodge.
• Minerva is the patron goddess of the Theta Delta Chi and Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternities, the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, and the Kappa Kappa Gamma and Delta Sigma Theta^{[additional citation(s) needed]} sororities
• LSV Minerva is the oldest student society in the Netherlands and strongly related to Leiden University.
• Minerva Schools at KGI is an innovative global four-year undergraduate program that took their name from Minerva.

Public monuments, places, and modern culture

• A statue of Minerva is displayed by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and is the university's new graphic identity starting 2004.
• A small Roman shrine to Minerva stands in Handbridge, Chester. It sits in a public park, overlooking the River Dee.
• A statue to Minerva was designed by John Charles Felix Rossi to adorn the Town Hall of Liverpool, where it has stood since 1799. It remains extant and was restored as part of the 2014 renovations conducted by the city.
• The Minerva Roundabout in Guadalajara, Mexico, located at the crossing of the López Mateos, Vallarta, López Cotilla, Agustín Yáñez, and Golfo de Cortez avenues, features the goddess standing on a pedestal, surrounded by a large fountain, with an inscription that says "Justice, wisdom and strength guard this loyal city".
• A bronze statue of Minerva stands in Monument Square (Portland, Maine). "Our Lady of Victories Monument" dedicated in 1891, features a 14-feet-tall bronze figure by Franklin Simmons atop a granite pedestal with smaller bronze sculptures by Richard Morris Hunt.
• A sculpture of Minerva by Andy Scott, known as the Briggate Minerva, stands outside Trinity Leeds shopping centre.
• Minerva is displayed as a statue in Pavia, Italy, near the train station, and is considered as an important landmark in the city.
• Minerva is displayed as a cast bronze statue in the Minneapolis Central Library, rendered in 1889 by Jakob Fjelde.
• Minerva is displayed as a 7-ft statue in the Science Library at the State University of New York at Albany and is on the official academic seal of the University.
• Minerva is displayed as a bronze statue in Frederick Ruckstull's 1920 Altar to Liberty: Minerva monument near the top of Battle Hill, the highest point of Brooklyn, New York, in Green-Wood Cemetery.
• Minerva is displayed as an 11-ft statue in Antonin Carlès's 1895 "James Gordon Bennett Memorial" in New York City's Herald Square.
• A statue of Minerva is displayed at Wells College outside of Main Building. Each year, the senior class decorates Minerva at the beginning of the fall semester. Minerva remains decorated throughout the school year; then during the morning of the last day of classes and after singing around the Sycamore tree, the senior class takes turns kissing the feet of Minerva, believed to be good luck and bring success and prosperity to all graduation seniors.

 

Raised-relief image of Minerva on a Roman gilt silver bowl, first century BC 

Photo: Andreas Praefcke - Self-photographed 

Athena bowl from the Hildesheim Silver Treasure; 1st century BC

 Marble Greek copy signed "Antiokhos", a first-century BC variant of Phidias' fifth-century Athena Promachos that stood on the Acropolis 

Antiochos (signed), copy of Phidias - Marie-Lan Nguyen (September 2006)Athena of the Parthenos Athena type. Pentelic marble, Greek copy from the 1st century BC after the original from the 5th century BC. Some 17th-century restorations: arms, ends of the belt, some folds of the peplos, aegis, tip of the nose.

Temple of Minerva in Sbeitla, Tunisia 

Bernard Gagnon - Own work

 Athenian tetradrachm representing the goddess Athena 

cgb.fr - http://vso.numishop.eu/fiche-v51_0137-vso_mo-1-ATTIQUE_ATHENES_Tetradrachme_c_410_AC_.html 

Nom de l'atelier : Attique, Athènes Métal : argent Diamètre : 24,5mm Axe des coins : 9h. Poids : 17,21g. Titulature avers : Anépigraphe. Description avers : Tête d'Athéna à droite, coiffée du casque attique à cimier, orné de trois feuilles d'olivier et d'une palmette avec collier et boucles d'oreilles. Description revers : Chouette debout à droite, la tête de face ; derrière, une branche d'olivier et un croissant ; le tout dans les restes d'un carré creux. Légende revers : AQE Traduction revers : (Athènes).

 circa 410 AC.

 A head of "Sulis-Minerva" found in the ruins of the Roman baths in Bath 

Stan Zurek - Own work 

A head of Minerva found in ruins of Roman baths in Bath, England.

 A new peplos was woven for Athena and ceremonially brought to dress her cult image (British Museum). 

Unknown, under the direction of Pheidias. - Twospoonfuls (2008) 

Peplos scene. Block V (fragment) from the east frieze of the Parthenon, ca. 447–433 BC.

 Minerva and owl (right) depicted on Confederate currency (1861) 

Image by Godot13 

First series $100 Confederate States of America banknote. Uniface. Vignettes of Justice and Minerva. First series (Act of March 9, 1861 amended August 3, 1861), interest bearing at 3.65%, total authorized circulation $1,000,000. Between 1861–64 there were 72 different types issued with numerous varieties.

 Athena depicted on a coin of Attalus I, ruler of Pergamon, c. 200 BC

 Denarius of the Roman Emperor Domitian. Minerva on the reverse. dated c. 90 AD. References: BMC 167, Paris 159, Cohen 260, RIC 691. 

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 

Jastrow (2006) 

Cult statue of Athena with the face of the type of Carpegna Athena. Pink alabaster (draping, aegis), basalt (hair, gorgoneion), Luna marble (gorgoneion, right foot) and plaster (face), late 1st century BC–early 1st century CE. From the Piazza dell' Emporio (Rome), 1923.

 Sebastiano ricci, allegoria della francia sotto minerva che calpesta l'ignoranza e incorona la virtù, 1717-18

Italian paintings in the Louvre

Bust of the Velletri Pallas type, copy after a votive statue of Kresilas in Athens (c. 425 BC) 

Unknown (Greek original by Kresilas) - User:Bibi Saint-Pol, own work, 2007-02-08 

Bust of Athena, type of the “Velletri Pallas” (inlaid eyes are lost). Copy of the 2nd century CE after a votive statue of Kresilas in Athens (ca. 430–420 BC)

The Judgement of Paris. Marble, limestone and glass tesserae, 115–150 AD. From the Atrium House triclinium in Antioch-on-the-Orontes (Turkey). 

Unknown - Mbzt Own work

 The owl of Athena, surrounded by an olive wreath. Reverse of an Athenian silver tetradrachm, c. 175 BC 

No machine-readable author provided. MatthiasKabel assumed (based on copyright claims). - No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims). 

Owl standing on oil amphora, all surrounded by a wreath of olive leaves. Silver tetradrachm from Athens, "new style" (ca. 200-150 BC), reverse.

 Goltzius Minerva 1596

Hendrick Goltzius - Dorota Suchocka (2007). Ars una species mille: 150 dzieł na 150-lecie Muzeum Narodowego w Poznaniu ze zbiorów Poznańskiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Nauk. National Museum in Poznań. ISBN 83-89053-66-7

 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. 

User:Bibi Saint-Pol and one more author - Own work

Minerva by Paolo Veronese, 16th century, Pushkin Museum

Paolo Veronese - Opera propria

 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 invoked Athena's wrath against the Greek armies

WolfgangRieger - Marisa Ranieri Panetta (ed.): Pompeji. Geschichte, Kunst und Leben in der versunkenen Stadt. Belser, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-7630-2266-X, p. 349

Scene from the trojan war: Cassandra clings to the Xoanon, the wooden cult image of Athene, while Ajax the Lesser is about to drag her away in front of her father Priam (standing on the left). Roman fresco from the atrium of the Casa del Menandro (I 10, 4) in Pompeii.

Pieter van Lint - An Allegory with Labour being rewarded by Abundance and Peace, witnessed by Minerva and Time

tra il 1624 e il 1690

  The Dispute of Minerva and Neptune by René-Antoine Houasse (c. 1689 or 1706)

 Balen Minerva among the Muses (detail)
Hendrick van Balen 

anni '20 del XVII sec.

 Attic red-figure kylix painting from c. 480-470 BC showing Athena observing as the Colchian dragon disgorges the hero Jason

Shii, 2006-03-20

Jason being regurgitated by the snake who keeps the Golden Fleece (center, hanging on the tree); Athena stands to the right. Red-figured cup by Douris, c. 480-470 BC. From Cerveteri (Etruria)

 Signé le 7 novembre 1659. Portraits équestres de Louis XIV suivi d'Anne d'Autriche et de son frère Philippe, duc d'Anjou accueillis par Minerve, Vénus et Junon qui leur présentent la couronne d'Espagne
Claude Deruet

Athena and Heracles on an Attic red-figure kylix, 480–470 BC

Python (potter) and Douris (painter) - User:Bibi Saint-Pol, own work, 2007-02-13

Heracles and Athena. Tondo of an Attic red-figure kylix, 480–470 BC. From Vulci.

Angelika Kauffmann Selbstbildnis mit Büste der Minerva 1780

Angelika Kauffmann

 Athena, detail from a silver kantharos with Theseus in Crete (c. 440-435 BC), part of the Vassil Bojkov collection, Sofia, Bulgaria

 Неизвестный иностранный(?) художник. "Аллегория на основание Академии художеств". Вторая половина 1750-х. Холст, масло. ГТГ. 79,5х66,3. Эта работа представляет собой довольно редкий даже для искусства России XVIII столетия тип живописной аллегории. В ней прославляются деяния императрицы Елизаветы Петровны, медальон с профильным портретом которой держит в руках античная богиня мудрости Минерва. Справа вверху изображен Геркулес с палицей в руке, что служит намеком на воинские победы России в Семилетней войне, которую она вела с 1756 по 1763 годы. Муза истории Клио вписывает в книгу, лежащую на спине Сатурна (или Кроноса, олицетворяющего время), новое великое деяние государыни – основание Императорской Академии трех знатнейших художеств. Фигурки путти с атрибутами трех искусств (палитра, кирпич и скульптурная голова) олицетворяют живопись, архитектуру и скульптуру, а младенец с огнем во лбу – юного гения российских искусств.Неизвестный художник 

 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

Python (as painter) - Jastrow (2006)

Orestes at Delphi. Paestan red-figured bell-krater, ca. 330 BC.

 Pittura del Quattrocento italiano al Louvre

 Andrea mantegna, minerva caccia i vizi dal giardino delle virtù

Sailko - Opera propria

 Minerva and Arachne by René-Antoine Houasse (1706)

Pittura del Quattrocento italiano al Louvre

 Andrea mantegna, minerva caccia i vizi dal giardino delle virtù

Sailko - Opera propria

 Ancient Greek mosaic from Antioch dating to the second century AD, depicting the Judgement of Paris

Marie-Lan Nguyen (User:Jastrow)

 Andrey Ivanovich Ivanov - Minerva in the Heavens, 1820

 Attic black-figure exaleiptron of the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus (c. 570–560 BC)

C Painter - original file by User:Bibi Saint-Pol File:Exaleiptron birth Athena Louvre CA616.jpg

Birth of Athena. Attic exaleiptron (black-figured tripod), ca. 570–560 BC. Found in Thebes

 Andries Cornelis Lens - Mars, Minerva and Venus
1774-1775

 Attic red-figure kylix of Athena Promachos holding a spear and standing beside a Doric column (c. 500-490 BC)

© Marie-Lan Nguyen 

 Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson - Minerva between Apollo and Mercury, 1814-15

 Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson - Unkonwn

 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)

Photography by Marsyas - Own work

Restitution du décor polychrome de la déesse Athéna provenant du fronton Ouest temple d'Athéna Aphaia à Égine. Vers 490 av. J.-C. Exposition « Bunte Götter » dans la version montrée à Athènes.Etude : Vinzenze Brinkmann. Restauration : Sylvia Kellner et Olaf Herzog. Peinture : Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann et Sylvia Kellner. Original : Glyptothèque de Munich.

Süddeutsch - Venus, Minerva und Juno - Schloss Caputh, Kabinett des Kurfürsten

User:Oursana e un altro autore - Opera propria

 The Mourning Athena relief (c. 470-460 BC)

Musée de l'Acropole. Athéna pensante. Photo prise par Harrieta171 le 21/01/06

Apotheose der Kriegsgöttin Minerva. Italienischer Meister des 18. Jahrhunderts. Öl auf Leinwand. 181 x 137,5 cm.

sconosciuto - Hampel Auctions

Attic red-figure kylix showing Athena slaying the Gigante Enkelados (c. 550–500 BC)

Oltos? (Louvre), circle of Psiax (Mertens) - Marie-Lan Nguyen (2007). Image renamed from Image:Pallas Enceladus LouvreCA3662.jpg

Athena and Enceladus fighting. Interior from an Attic red figure stemmed dish.

Artgate Fondazione Cariplo - (Scuola milanese - XVIII), Trionfo di Minerva come dea delle arti

Fondazione Cariplo

Relief of Athena and Nike slaying the Gigante Alkyoneus (?) from the Gigantomachy Frieze on the Pergamon Altar (early second century BC)

Ealdgyth - Own work

Pergamon Altar - Gigantomacy frieze - Athena

 Artgate Fondazione Cariplo - Funi Achille, Minerva (studio)
1940

 Mosaïque découverte en 1741 dans les fouilles d'une villa romaine de Tusculum. Restaurée, elle ouvre la salle du Museo Pio Clementino au Vatican.

Mosaique Athena Gorgone Museo Pio-Clementino

Perseus Armed by Mercury and Minerva - Paris Bordone

1545-1555 circa

 Mythological scene with Athena (left) and Herakles (right), on a stone palette of the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, India

PHGCOM - self-made, photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Indo-Greek stone palette.

 Casteleyn Mars and Minerva 1652

Creator:Casper Casteleyn - Danuta Rago, Maria Raczyńska (1988). Kolekcja imienia Jana Pawła II z fundacji Janiny i Zbigniewa Karola Porczyńskich. Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza

 Atena farnese, Roman copy of a Greek original from Phidias' circle, c. 430 AD, Museo Archeologico, Naples

Sailko - Own work

Ancient Roman statues in the Museo Archeologico (Naples)

 De mulieribus claris/ Minerva
1403 circa

Master of the Coronation of the Virgin

 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.

Gryffindor - No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims).

Austria, Vienna, Austrian Parliament Building

Dresden, Zwinger, Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon, Louis de Silvestre, Psyches Aufnahme in den Olymp, Figurengruppe Minerva (mit Helm und Speer), Ceres (auf Ährenbündel) und Herkules (mit Keule).jpg
Creato: XVIII sec.

 Pallas and the Centaur (c. 1482) by Sandro Botticelli

Fontainebleau School - Pallas Athena

sconosciuto (Scuola di Fontainebleau)

 Athena Scorning the Advances of Hephaestus (c. 1555-1560) by Paris Bordone

Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri

Félicien Rops - L'entr'acte de Minerve
tra il 1878 e il 1881

Félicien Rops - Hans Joachim Neyer (Hrsg.): Felicien Rops. 1833 – 1898. Katalog der Ausstellung im Wilhelm-Busch-Museum Hannover 17. Januar bis 21. März 1999. Hatje, Ostfildern 1999, ISBN 3-7757-0821-9, Abb. 91

 Minerva Victorious Over Ignorance (c. 1591) by Bartholomeus Spranger 

Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Bilddatenbank.

Giovanni Andrea Sirani - Minerva, Venus and Juno (The Judgement of Paris), 1638

Maria de Medici (1622) by Peter Paul Rubens, showing her as the incarnation of Athena 

Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini - Minerva with a Putto 

Minerva Protecting Peace from Mars (1629) by Peter Paul Rubens

 Hendrick Goltzius - Minerva 1596 circa

 Pallas Athena (c. 1655) by Rembrandt

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, 1664-1665

Hendrick van Balen - Minerva and the Muses.
Creato: XVII sec.

 Minerva Revealing Ithaca to Ulysses (fifteenth century) by Giuseppe Bottani

 The Bridgeman Art Library

Minerva and the Triumph of Jupiter (1706) by René-Antoine Houasse

 Hendrick van Balen and Jan Brueghel the Elder - Minerva Visits the Nine Muses

The Combat of Mars and Minerva (1771) by Joseph-Benoît Suvée

Houasse, René-Antoine - Minerva lehrt Bildhauen - 1688

  Minerva Fighting Mars (1771) by Jacques-Louis David

Louvre

The Combat of Ares and Athena

 René-Antoine Houasse - Minerva 1688

Jacopo Tintoretto - Minerva Sending Away Mars from Peace and Prosperity
 tra il 1576 e il 1577

Modern Neopagan Hellenist altar dedicated to Athena and Apollo

YSEE, Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes. Originally uploaded by Nyo as File:Dodekatheic altar (1).JPG. Re-uploaded under different name by Wyhiry. - The photo is available on the gallery section of YSEE website.

Hellen altar.

 Laurent Pécheux - Vénus et Minerve, 1794

Golden Apple of Discord by Jacob Jordaens 1633

Minerva slaying Discord oil on canvas on panel 62,8 x 48,7 cm 1632-1634

Pieter Paul Rubens

 

 Gustav Klimt 

 

Minerva, by Rembrandt (1635)

 

 Houbraken, Arnold - Pallas Athene Visiting Apollo on the Parnassus - 1703

Simon de Vos - Minerva and Mercury protecting Painting against Ignorance and Calumny
 tra il 1620 e il 1676