10
votes
Accepted
What is that on Athena's chest?
It's not clear from your picture, but the face is most probably a Gorgoneion, a recurring element of Athena's iconography:
In Ancient Greece, the Gorgoneion (Greek: Γοργόνειον) was a special ...
- 17k
10
votes
Accepted
Why is Athena "gray eyed"?
The word γλαυκῶπις shares its root with γλαύξ, the word for owl.
Owls are known for their large and distinctive eyes, which are adapted for low light hunting. Thus, I believe the epithet is a ...
- 17k
8
votes
Accepted
Why would Athena fear Poseidon?
As yannis pointed out in the comments, Athena cannot be considered stronger than Poseidon, and you're assuming too much here. Poseidon is one of the most powerful gods, along with his brothers Zeus ...
- 1,265
8
votes
Accepted
Why was the Greek deity of warfare and wisdom (Athena) female, and how did the Greeks rationalize this?
Athena was more or less the counterpart of Ares in all things (also in gender). For one, Ares was hated to the point where Zeus called Ares a whining double faced liar who is most hateful of all gods ...
- 4,051
7
votes
Accepted
If Athena was born from Zeus' brain, does this mean Athena is a manifestation of Zeus' intelligence?
The Metis story is interesting because according to the prophecy Metis would have two children - Athena and then a son who would ovethrow Zeus. This would have represented a triumph for the Titans, ...
- 5,878
7
votes
If Athena was born from Zeus' brain, does this mean Athena is a manifestation of Zeus' intelligence?
Yes and no. It depends on how you look at it.
Athena is Zeus' favorite. She is a "daddy's girl" for sure, siding with the father over the mother in the trial of Orestes. He gives her the aegis to ...
- 14.1k
5
votes
Why is Athena "gray eyed"?
The currently preferred view of Greek etymologists is that γλαύξ "owl" and the colour-adjective γλαυκός (in Homer the colour of the sea, later generally “grey”) are not etymologically connected. If ...
- 472
5
votes
Accepted
Was King Polydectes the last petrified by Medusa?
Ariadne and the Battle of the Brothers
In one source, Perseus is supposed to have used Medusa's power at least once after Seriphos.
In the last third of the second-last book of his epic, the ...
- 9,772
5
votes
Accepted
Does the cap of Hades keep one's accessories hidden?
In Homer's Illiad, in the conflict between Athena and Ares, Athena puts on the cap and becomes completely invisible to Ares.
Then Pallas Athene grasped the lash and the reins, and against Ares first ...
- 4,051
5
votes
Accepted
What bird species is associated with Pallas Athēnē?
The animal that is commonly associated with Athena is the γλαῦξ (glaux), which is often translated simply as 'owl', but actually refers specifically to the Athene noctua. See for example the γλαῦξ ...
- 1,689
4
votes
What is special about children of Athena?
In Greek mythology, Athena swore herself to virginity, she had no children born from her. According to some localized myths, she adopted a single child, born from Gaia called Erichthonius.
Rick ...
- 5,354
4
votes
Does the cap of Hades keep one's accessories hidden?
One can perhaps approach it from a perspective of the history of science and think about how the people at the time would have understood the physics of seeing and light.
You ask the very good ...
4
votes
Accepted
When did Zeus get the aegis?
The nature of the aegis depends on what source you're looking at.
Euripides suggests that the aegis was the skin of the slain Gorgon, but the Gorgon is commonly held to be a later addition.
...
- 14.1k
4
votes
What is the nature of Athena's relationship to the Furies?
Athena has similarities to the Furies, and they both go back to pre-Classical, Mycenean religion. I'm not sure there's a direct connection between them.
Athena is also a virgin deity, born of a ...
- 5,878
4
votes
How did Athena keep from being turned into stone by her shield?
Athena probably wouldn't have been turned to stone from Medusa's head since Athena was the one who cursed Medusa to look like that in the first place using her own power. Like if someone tried to use ...
- 49
4
votes
Why is Athena "gray eyed"?
It depends, as Yannis said, on the translation. Wikipedia says:
In Homer's epic works, Athena's most common epithet is Glaukopis
(γλαυκῶπις), which usually is translated as, "bright-eyed" or "...
- 5,878
3
votes
Why did Athena breathe life into the man Prometheus created?
Athena never did.
There was also an account, stating that Prometheus had created men out of earth and water, at the very beginning of the human race, or after the flood of Deucalion, when Zeus is ...
- 6,719
3
votes
Accepted
What did Odysseus and his men do to err Athena?
Before the sack of Troy, Diomedes and Odysseus sneak into Troy and steal the Palladium , a wooden statue of Athena, from her temple. A prophecy stated that Troy could not fall as long as the statue ...
- 1,613
2
votes
Accepted
Are there any myths that prove Athena was the favorite daughter of Zeus?
In the Iliad (Book V) Ares complains to Zeus that he lets Athena - the pestilent maiden - get away with anything:
Speedily he came to the abode of the gods, to steep Olympus, and sate him down by the ...
- 2,960
2
votes
Accepted
What was Athena's punishment for her involvement in a plot against Zeus?
There was none
It is specifically noted in this passage from wikipedia that there is doubt as to whether the event is canonical mythology or simply a creation of Homer to add literary weight to ...
- 256
2
votes
If Athena was born from Zeus' brain, does this mean Athena is a manifestation of Zeus' intelligence?
Antithetical to Ares, Athena (equally patron deity of warfare) is slow to anger. She is not impulsive, brash, impudent. She is prudent, indeed wisdom incarnate. She's not born of the carnal impulse. ...
2
votes
What happened to Metis after the birth of Athena?
I know she escaped. There is a Greek tablet (the tablet was marble, and it's in a museum in Crete) that says when she hammered her essence into Athena's things, she hammered the last bit into a rock. ...
- 21
2
votes
Was King Polydectes the last petrified by Medusa?
I've found at least one case while reading Petrifaction in mythology and fiction in Wikipedia.
Iodame, a priestess at the temple of Athena Itonia, daughter of Itonus and granddaughter of Amphictyon, ...
- 2,277
2
votes
Has Athena, Greek goddess of Wisdom, ever lost?
Yes.
Athena (and Hera) lost the Judgment of Paris to Aphrodite:
[E.3.2] For one of these reasons Strife threw an apple as a prize of beauty to be contended for by Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite; and ...
- 17k
2
votes
Why is Athena "gray eyed"?
If the word for "grey-eyed" and "owl" share a linguistic history, then the correct translation would be "bright-eyed" since literally it would read, "with the eyes of an owl" which generally fall in ...
- 21
1
vote
Why is Athena "gray eyed"?
Mythic authors didn't just use etymology, but used paronomasia, parallel naming employing names that are parallel by meaning, or by visual, or, phonetic structure.
Athena is Grey-eyed because olives ...
1
vote
Why is Athena "gray eyed"?
Lately I have been reading terence McKenna. He thinks there is a connection between glaucous (meaning blue gray) and rituals. He suggests that there is a connection between the blue gray color of the ...
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible