athena's shield in greek mythology

In art, she is generally depicted wearing a helmet and holding a spear. [226] The Flemish sculptor Jean-Pierre-Antoine Tassaert (Jan Peter Anton Tassaert) later portrayed Catherine II of Russia as Athena in a marble bust in 1774. 13).[2]. [127] They agreed that each would give the Athenians one gift[127] and that Cecrops, the king of Athens, would determine which gift was better. [47][48] Athena was especially worshipped in this role during the festivals of the Panathenaea and Pamboeotia,[49] both of which prominently featured displays of athletic and military prowess. [207] Ajax later commits suicide as a result of his humiliation. Out of envy, the other athletes murdered her, but Athena took pity in her and transformed her dead body into a myrtle, a plant thereafter as favoured by her as the olive was. Someone requested that I make an article on this goddess so I hope you like it! Hurt by the girl's betrayal, Athena transformed her into the small insect bearing her name, the ant. Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War. However when Athena invented the plough, Myrmex went to the Atticans and told them that it was in fact her own invention. [63] It was designed by Pytheos of Priene,[64] the same architect who designed the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. She instructs Laertes to throw his spear and to kill Eupeithes, the father of Antinous. [99][100][98][101] In order to prevent this, Zeus tricked Metis into letting him swallow her, but it was too late because Metis had already conceived. Her Roman name is Minerva. [160][145] 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. [226] In the years following the Revolution, artistic representations of Athena proliferated. "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. Zeus The Twelve Olympians in Greek mythology are the most respected major deities of the Greek pantheon. [128] Athens at its height was a significant sea power, defeating the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis[128]but the water was salty and undrinkable. Athena. Identified in the Roman mythology as the goddess Minerva.She was always accompanied by her owl and the goddess of victory, Nike. Athena, enraged at the desecration of her temple, turned her into a mortal Gorgon. It was supposed by Euripides (Ion, 995) that the aegis borne by Athena was the skin of the slain Gorgon,[8] yet the usual understanding[9] is that the Gorgoneion was added to the aegis, a votive offering from a grateful Perseus. [134][179] Chariclo's son Tiresias happened to be hunting on the same mountain and came to the spring searching for water. Athena was often depicted with an owl, which was considered a symbol of wisdom in both cultures. [43] During the late fifth century BC, the role of goddess of philosophy became a major aspect of Athena's cult. The Goddess Athena represents wisdom, justice, and war. 1332x850 Wallpaper bird, God, helmet, spear, shield, goddess, Athena, greek mythology images for desktop, section - download Download 1920x1200 Free Norse Wallpaper Downloads, [100+] Norse Wallpapers for FREE | Wallpapers.com As an important religious site, the temple's designers decorated the Parthenon with various scenes from Greek mythology. [178] According to Pindar, Athena gave the aulos to mortals as a gift. [24] Proponents of this view argue that she dropped her prophylactic owl mask before she lost her wings. [219] 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. [234] Due to her status as one of the twelve Olympians, Athena is a major deity in Hellenismos,[235] a Neopagan religion which seeks to authentically revive and recreate the religion of ancient Greece in the modern world. Pallas Athena was the virgin goddess of war, wisdom, crafts, and the patron deity of the great city of Athens. It's been a long time since I wrote a Greek mythology article. [68][69] The word athyia () 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. [125] The statue had special talisman-like properties[125] and it was thought that, as long as it was in the city, Troy could never fall. [187] According to Ovid, Arachne (whose name means spider in ancient Greek[188]) was the daughter of a famous dyer in Tyrian purple in Hypaipa of Lydia, and a weaving student of Athena. [192] It represented the unjust and discrediting behavior of the gods towards mortals. [175] Sometimes she is shown wearing the aegis as a cloak. [46] Athena was frequently equated with Aphaea, a local goddess of the island of Aegina, originally from Crete and also associated with Artemis and the nymph Britomartis. [140], Athena gave her favour to an Attic girl named Myrsine, a chaste girl who outdid all her fellow athletes in both the palaestra and the race. [156] 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. From her origin as an Aegean palace goddess, Athena was closely associated with the city. [82] One myth relates the foster father relationship of this Triton towards the half-orphan Athena, whom he raised alongside his own daughter Pallas. 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. Athena became the goddess of crafts and skilled peacetime pursuits in general. In some versions of the story, Athena has no mother and is born from Zeus' forehead by parthenogenesis. Full of contradictions, Athena was a female deity overseeing traditionally male domains. Those pebbles were called thriai, which was also the collective name of a group of nymphs with prophetic powers. [114] 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. The aegis is a shield carried primarily by Zeus in Greek mythology, which he sometimes lent to Athena. The qualities that led to victory were found on the aegis, or breastplate, that Athena wore when she went to war: fear, strife, defense, and assault. [172] He hears stories about some of Odysseus's journey. There was an alternative story that Zeus swallowed Metis, the goddess of counsel, while she was pregnant with Athena, so that Athena finally emerged from Zeus. Rank. Gterbock,[12] was a source of the aegis.[13]. Herse, Aglaulus, and Pandrosus go to the temple to offer sacrifices to Athena. [21][22] In the "Procession Fresco" at Knossos, which was reconstructed by the Mycenaeans, two rows of figures carrying vessels seem to meet in front of a central figure, which is probably the Minoan precursor to Athena. Athena, like the other characters in Homer's epic, comes from a rich and vivid cultural tapestry of ancient Greek myth. Her head appears on the $50 1915-S Panama-Pacific commemorative coin. Athena, also spelled Athene, in Greek religion, the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva. [11][12], Nilsson and others have claimed that, in early times, Athena was either an owl herself or a bird goddess in general. Athena's origin story in Greek mythology is one of particular interest. Medusa and Perseus In the principle myth, Medusa is killed by the Greek hero Perseus, the son of Danae and Zeus. [146][147][148] 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. [90], She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, and emerged full-grown from his forehead. [62] Bells made of terracotta and bronze were used in Sparta as part of Athena's cult. [222][221][223] Athena is also used as the personification of wisdom in Bartholomeus Spranger's 1591 painting The Triumph of Wisdom or Minerva Victorious over Ignorance. [173] She also plays a role in ending the resultant feud against the suitors' relatives. The Gorgon's face is not limited to divine armor, however, but also decorated the martial accoutrements of Greek soldiers, such as helmets, shields, and greaves (41.162.74 . No, Athena did not have any known romantic partners or consorts. The answer could be as simple as a descriptive title, but Greek mythology offered other stories for how and why Athena changed her name. [158] When half the jury votes to acquit and the other half votes to convict, Athena casts the deciding vote to acquit Orestes[158] and declares that, from then on, whenever a jury is tied, the defendant shall always be acquitted.[159]. [20] Best translates the initial a-ta-n-t, which is recurrent in line beginnings, as "I have given". [133][134] The Roman mythographer Hyginus[113] 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. In Homers Iliad, Athena, as a war goddess, inspires and fights alongside the Greek heroes; her aid is synonymous with military prowess. In the Iliad she fought alongside the Greek heroes, and she represented the virtues of justice and skill in warfare as opposed to the blood lust of Ares. When the Olympian shakes the aegis, Mount Ida is wrapped in clouds, the thunder rolls and men are struck down with fear. [10][17] However, any connection to the city of Athens in the Knossos inscription is uncertain. [45][46] Athena represented the disciplined, strategic side of war, in contrast to her brother Ares, the patron of violence, bloodlust, and slaughter"the raw force of war". [199][134] This woman was Helen, who was already married to King Menelaus of Sparta. She inspired three of Phidiass sculptural masterpieces, including the massive chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue of Athena Parthenos once housed in the Parthenon; and in Aeschyluss dramatic tragedy Eumenides she founded the Areopagus (Athenss aristocratic council), and, by breaking a deadlock of the judges in favour of Orestes, the defendant, she set the precedent that a tied vote signified acquittal. Athena is customarily portrayed wearing an aegis, body armor, and a helmet and carrying a shield and a lance. Proto-Indo-European transfunctional goddess, Minerva Expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue, "Detail of a cup in the Faina collection", "Marinus of Samaria, The Life of Proclus or Concerning Happiness", "Pausanias, Description of Greece, 2.34.8", "Pausanias, Description of Greece, 2.34.9", "Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, BOOK IX, Chapter 7. [f] Based on these similarities, the Sinologist Martin Bernal created the "Black Athena" hypothesis, which claimed that Neith was brought to Greece from Egypt, along with "an enormous number of features of civilization and culture in the third and second millennia". [37][38], In her aspect of Athena Polias, Athena was venerated as the goddess of the city and the protectress of the citadel. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. A virgin, she had no children of her own but occasionally befriended or adopted others. Athena gave him a gleaming shield of bronze; his father Zeus gave him a sword; Hades provided a helmet of invisibility; and Hermes granted him winged sandals . [208], The Mourning Athena or Athena Meditating is a famous relief sculpture dating to around 470-460 BC[211][208] that has been interpreted to represent Athena Polias. [5] After serving as the judge at the trial of Orestes in which he was acquitted of having murdered his mother Clytemnestra, Athena won the epithet Areia (). [211] The Roman goddess Minerva adopted most of Athena's Greek iconographical associations,[213] but was also integrated into the Capitoline Triad. One of Athena's epithets is related to the Greek glaux, "little owl," and the bird was prominently featured on Athenian coins. Since the Renaissance, Athena has become an international symbol of wisdom, the arts, and classical learning. Shield, buckler, or breastplate of Athena and Zeus bearing the head of Medusa, This article is about the shield used by Zeus in Greek mythology. The Greek aigis, has many meanings including:[3], The original meaning may have been the first, and Zeus Aigiokhos = "Zeus who holds the aegis" may have originally meant "Sky/Heaven, who holds the thunderstorm". [74], At Athens there is the temple of Athena Phratria, as patron of a phratry, in the Ancient Agora of Athens. For other uses, see. Symbology. [198], All three goddesses were ideally beautiful and Paris could not decide between them, so they resorted to bribes. Athena (Ancient Greek: ) (sometimes she is called Pallas Athena) was the goddess of wisdom, mathematics, civilization, the arts, reason, skill, and war. Her major symbols include owls, olive trees, snakes, and the Gorgoneion. [189] She became so conceited of her skill as a weaver that she began claiming that her skill was greater than that of Athena herself. Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War . Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. She is not considered a goddess or Olympian, but some variations on her legend say she consorted with one. [167][166] Impressed by his resolve and shrewdness, she reveals herself and tells him what he needs to know to win back his kingdom. [99][102][98][101] A later account of the story from the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, written in the second century AD, makes Metis Zeus's unwilling sexual partner, rather than his wife. [41] The festival lasted for five days. Medusa is a great representation of a tragic character and she's the most tragic Greek Mythology character of them all. [5] The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. from the Gigantomachy Frieze on the Pergamon Altar (early second century BC), Classical mosaic from a villa at Tusculum, 3rd century AD, now at Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican, Athena portrait by Eukleidas on a tetradrachm from Syracuse, Sicily c. 400 BC, Mythological scene with Athena (left) and Herakles (right), on a stone palette of the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara, India, Atena farnese, Roman copy of a Greek original from Phidias' circle, c. 430 AD, Museo Archeologico, Naples, Athena (2nd century BC) in the art of Gandhara, displayed at the Lahore Museum, Pakistan, Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria and Firmicus, denigrated Athena as representative of all the things that were detestable about paganism;[215] they condemned her as "immodest and immoral". [46] The various cults of Athena were all branches of her panhellenic cult[46] and often proctored various initiation rites of Grecian youth, such as the passage into citizenship by young men or the passage of young women into marriage. [120] Distraught over what she had done, Athena took the name Pallas for herself as a sign of her grief. In the classical Olympian pantheon, Athena was regarded as the favorite child of Zeus, born fully armed from his forehead. How was Athena usually pictured? As the guardian of the welfare of kings, Athena became the goddess of good counsel, of prudent restraint and practical insight, as well as of war. [11][12][13][14] A single Mycenaean Greek inscription .mw-parser-output .script-Cprt{font-size:1.25em;font-family:"Segoe UI Historic","Noto Sans Cypriot",Code2001}.mw-parser-output .script-Hano{font-size:125%;font-family:"Noto Sans Hanunoo",FreeSerif,Quivira}.mw-parser-output .script-Latf,.mw-parser-output .script-de-Latf{font-size:1.25em;font-family:"Breitkopf Fraktur",UnifrakturCook,UniFrakturMaguntia,MarsFraktur,"MarsFraktur OT",KochFraktur,"KochFraktur OT",OffenbacherSchwabOT,"LOB.AlteSchwabacher","LOV.AlteSchwabacher","LOB.AtlantisFraktur","LOV.AtlantisFraktur","LOB.BreitkopfFraktur","LOV.BreitkopfFraktur","LOB.FetteFraktur","LOV.FetteFraktur","LOB.Fraktur3","LOV.Fraktur3","LOB.RochFraktur","LOV.RochFraktur","LOB.PostFraktur","LOV.PostFraktur","LOB.RuelhscheFraktur","LOV.RuelhscheFraktur","LOB.RungholtFraktur","LOV.RungholtFraktur","LOB.TheuerbankFraktur","LOV.TheuerbankFraktur","LOB.VinetaFraktur","LOV.VinetaFraktur","LOB.WalbaumFraktur","LOV.WalbaumFraktur","LOB.WeberMainzerFraktur","LOV.WeberMainzerFraktur","LOB.WieynckFraktur","LOV.WieynckFraktur","LOB.ZentenarFraktur","LOV.ZentenarFraktur"}.mw-parser-output .script-en-Latf{font-size:1.25em;font-family:Cankama,"Old English Text MT","Textura Libera","Textura Libera Tenuis",London}.mw-parser-output .script-it-Latf{font-size:1.25em;font-family:"Rotunda Pommerania",Rotunda,"Typographer Rotunda"}.mw-parser-output .script-Lina{font-size:1.25em;font-family:"Noto Sans Linear A"}.mw-parser-output .script-Linb{font-size:1.25em;font-family:"Noto Sans Linear B"}.mw-parser-output .script-Ugar{font-size:1.25em;font-family:"Segoe UI Historic","Noto Sans Ugaritic",Aegean}.mw-parser-output .script-Xpeo{font-size:1.25em;font-family:"Segoe UI Historic","Noto Sans Old Persian",Artaxerxes,Xerxes,Aegean} a-ta-na po-ti-ni-ja appears at Knossos in the Linear B tablets from the Late Minoan II-era "Room of the Chariot Tablets";[15][16][10] these comprise the earliest Linear B archive anywhere. [229] The Great Seal of California bears the image of Athena kneeling next to a brown grizzly bear. [176] 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. [97][98] [18] A sign series a-ta-no-dju-wa-ja appears in the still undeciphered corpus of Linear A tablets, written in the unclassified Minoan language. [191][190][192] Athena then struck Arachne across the face with her staff four times. "[233] In contemporary Wicca, Athena is venerated as an aspect of the Goddess[234] and some Wiccans believe that she may bestow the "Owl Gift" ("the ability to write and communicate clearly") upon her worshippers. [195] Only Eris, goddess of discord, was not invited. Athena is associated with birds, particularly the owl, which became famous as the symbol of the city of Athens. 13), Zeus is said to have used the skin of a pet goat owned by his nurse Amalthea (aigis "goat-skin") which suckled him in Crete, as a shield when he went forth to do battle against the Titans.[6]. Athena placed on her aegis a symbolic representation of the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa. [19] This could be connected with the Linear B Mycenaean expressions a-ta-na po-ti-ni-ja and di-u-ja or di-wi-ja (Diwia, "of Zeus" or, possibly, related to a homonymous goddess),[15] resulting in a translation "Athena of Zeus" or "divine Athena". [206] Even after Odysseus himself expresses pity for Ajax,[207] Athena declares, "To laugh at your enemies - what sweeter laughter can there be than that?" We found 20 possible solutions for this clue. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. [238] Her owl is also a symbol of the fraternity.[238]. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. 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. In a similar interpretation, Aex, a daughter of Helios, represented as a great fire-breathing chthonic serpent similar to the Chimera, was slain and flayed by Athena, who afterwards wore its skin, the aegis, as a cuirass (Diodorus Siculus iii. [134][179] He inadvertently saw Athena naked, so she struck him blind to ensure he would never again see what man was not intended to see. She was also a warrior goddess, and was believed to lead soldiers into battle as Athena Promachos. Also in the Iliad, Zeus, the chief god, specifically assigned the sphere of war to Ares, the god of war, and Athena. As the guardian of the welfare of kings, Athena became the goddess of good counsel, prudent restraint and practical insight, and war. [125] Athena was said to have carved the statue herself in the likeness of her dead friend Pallas. To the Romans an owl feather placed near sleeping people would prompt them to speak in their sleep and reveal their secrets. [184], The fable of Arachne appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses (8 AD) (vi.554 and 129145),[185][186][187] which is nearly the only extant source for the legend. [106][98][93][108] The "First Homeric Hymn to Athena" states in lines 916 that the gods were awestruck by Athena's appearance[109] and even Helios, the god of the sun, stopped his chariot in the sky. The shield of a deity as described above. [15] Although Athana potnia is often translated as "Mistress Athena", it could also mean "the Potnia of Athana", or the Lady of Athens. You can easily improve your search by specifying the number of letters in the answer. [148][150] According to Pindar's Thirteenth Olympian Ode, Athena helped the hero Bellerophon tame the winged horse Pegasus by giving him a bit. Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. "[110][109], Hesiod states that Hera was so annoyed at Zeus for having given birth to a child on his own that she conceived and bore Hephaestus by herself,[101] but in Imagines 2. [193] Athena admitted that Arachne's work was flawless,[191][190][192] but was outraged at Arachne's offensive choice of subject, which displayed the failings and transgressions of the deities. In the later writings of the Roman poet Ovid, Athena was said to have competed against the mortal Arachne in a weaving competition, afterward transforming Arachne into the first spider; Ovid also describes how she transformed Medusa into a Gorgon after witnessing her being raped by Poseidon in her temple. Dyeus). Being the favourite child of Zeus, she had great power. [56] According to Karl Kernyi, a scholar of Greek mythology, the name Parthenos is not merely an observation of Athena's virginity, but also a recognition of her role as enforcer of rules of sexual modesty and ritual mystery. [46] The epithet Ergane ( "the Industrious") pointed her out as the patron of craftsmen and artisans. [24] In the third book of the Odyssey, she takes the form of a sea-eagle. The most renowned sculpture of Athena, the gold and ivory Athena Parthenos that once stood in the Parthenon, included two gorgoneia: one on her aegis and one on her shield. 27 (trans. Born from Zeus's head, she was his favorite daughter and possessed great wisdom, bravery, and resourcefulness. But as he swung his axe, he missed his aim and it fell in himself, killing him. Athena, also known as Pallas Athena or the Virgin Athena, is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, strategic warfare, mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill in ancient Greek mythology. [225] A series of paintings by Peter Paul Rubens depict Athena as Marie de' Medici's patron and mentor;[226] 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. [133], The geographer Pausanias[113] records that Athena placed the infant Erichthonius into a small chest[135] (cista), which she entrusted to the care of the three daughters of Cecrops: Herse, Pandrosos, and Aglauros of Athens. Representing the intellectual and civilized side of war, she is the divine form of the heroic, martial ideal and personifies excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. In a founding myth reported by Pseudo-Apollodorus,[113] Athena competed with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens. [171] Her actions lead him to travel around to Odysseus's comrades and ask about his father. [232] Freud once described Athena as "a woman who is unapproachable and repels all sexual desires - since she displays the terrifying genitals of the Mother. She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. [211] The most famous classical depiction of Athena was the Athena Parthenos, a now-lost 11.5m (38ft)[212] gold and ivory statue of her in the Parthenon created by the Athenian sculptor Phidias. In the founding myth of Athens, Athena bested Poseidon in a competition over patronage of the city by creating the first olive tree. In this article, I will explain 9 symbols of Athena and their meanings. Two Athenians, the sculptor Phidias and the playwright Aeschylus, contributed significantly to the cultural dissemination of Athenas image. This was supposedly the origin of calling Athena's sacred olive tree moria, for Halirrhotius's attempt at revenge proved fatal (moros in Greek). [101] Then Zeus experienced an enormous headache. Athena, goddess of wisdom Though Hercules had an enemy, Hera, on Mount Olympus, he also had a friend. The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is dedicated to her, along with numerous other temples and monuments. "[5] In later times, after the original meaning of the name had been forgotten, the Greeks invented myths to explain its origins, such as those reported by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus and the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, which claim that Pallas was originally a separate entity, whom Athena had slain in combat. The temple of Athena Alea in Tegea was an important religious center of ancient Greece. According to other sources, it was not a shield but rather an animal skin worn over the garments of the gods as extra protection. Athena is a goddess in Greek mythology and one of the Twelve Olympians. [168][166][160] She disguises him as an elderly beggar so that he will not be recognized by the suitors or Penelope,[169][166] and helps him to defeat the suitors. Being the favorite child of Zeus, she had great power. [216] Some even viewed the Virgin Mary as a warrior maiden, much like Athena Parthenos;[216] 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. [199][134] The other two goddesses were enraged and, as a direct result, sided with the Greeks in the Trojan War. Aside from Athena, the Twelve Olympians include Greek gods and goddesses Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes, and Hestia. [208] In classical depictions, Athena is usually portrayed standing upright, wearing a full-length chiton. He turns her to stone. In Ancient Greece, the Gorgoneion (Greek: ) was a special apotropaic amulet showing the Gorgon head, used by the Olympian deities Athena and Zeus: both are said to have worn the gorgoneion as a protective pendant, and often are depicted wearing it. 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. [178] Later, the comic playwright Melanippides of Melos (c. 480-430 BC) embellished the story in his comedy Marsyas,[178] 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.

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