The goddess Athena, one of the main divinities of Olympus, reached her greatest splendor alongside the eponymous city she protected: Athens. One of the most visited monuments in the world today is dedicated to her, and it represents the pinnacle of classical Greek art: we are referring to the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis, named after its dedication to Athena Parthenos, or Athena the Virgin, whose statue erected by Phidias, sadly now lost, guarded the city from dangers and threats. Today, all that remains as witnesses of that time are the marbles of the Parthenon and the sculptural ensemble that adorned the two pediments or frontons of the temple: in the east, representing the birth of Athena, and in the west, depicting the dispute between Poseidon and the goddess for control of the city.
Numerous Roman copies have transported to our days a more or less faithful image of what Phidias’s great sculpture may have been, as well as her “sister,” Athena Promachos, located between the Propylaea and the Erechtheion, whose brilliance could be seen by sailors approaching the Piraeus. Thanks to the Romans’ appreciation for Greek art and the rediscovery of classical art by Renaissance artists after the Middle Ages, we can now enjoy numerous representations of the Goddess, a favorite of Renaissance Neoplatonists, appearing frequently in both sculpture and painting, spanning the Baroque and Neoclassicism, with which its values were also identified until contemporary times.
Through these lines, we will come to know her meaning and symbolism.
Athena: Meaning, Myths
Symbolism of Athena
The name of Athena refers to the city of Athens. One of her primary meanings is, therefore, that of the protective goddess of the city of Athens and, by extension, of Attica.
She is often referred to as Pallas Athena. According to one version of the myth, Pallas was the daughter of the god Triton and a playmate of Athena. One day, while Pallas and Athena were practicing combat, Zeus, to protect his daughter, appeared between them with the aegis; Pallas, frightened, could not avoid a blow from Athena, who killed her. In mourning, Athena adopted her name and carved a statue in her image, called the Palladion. From this, wooden images of Athena were also called Palladia.
The symbolism of Athena encompasses two seemingly contradictory aspects: War and Intelligence.
As the Goddess of war, or a warrior goddess, in all her representations, she appears as a young woman, armed with a helmet, spear, breastplate, and shield. In the Iliad, she actively participates in the war, as well as in the battle of the Olympian gods against the Titans and the Giants.
On the other hand, she is the Goddess of intelligence and, by extension, of the arts and techniques: that is, applied intelligence. This relates to the previous point, considering her as the goddess of strategy, that is, intelligence applied to war, contrasting with Ares, the god of warlike ardor and violence, dominated by the fury of war without intelligence.
Also, she appears in numerous heroic myths, helping and lending assistance to heroes who often fight against various enemies, especially monsters, as in the cases of Perseus, Theseus, Odysseus, or Hercules. Interpreting heroic myths from a psychological perspective, the hero represents our values, strengths, and qualities, while the monsters and enemies represent our weaknesses, vices, defects, and our dark side. In this case, Athena becomes the Goddess of the inner war, the internal battle that each one fights against themselves. She becomes that internal guide, Wisdom, which, if listened to and heeded, can be an important ally for victory, giving us strength in our moments of weakness, supporting us and sustaining us in our low moments.
Mythts
One of the most well-known myths about Athena is precisely her birth. It is also the one that holds the most clues. In this myth, she is the daughter of Zeus and Metis, the daughter of Oceanus, his first lover and wife. According to Hesiod, Gaia and Uranus prophesied the birth of a daughter and a son who would dethrone Zeus, just as he had done to his father, Cronus. Fearing this, when Zeus learned that Metis was pregnant, he swallowed her. Later versions added the intervention of Hephaestus, who, at Zeus’s command, appeared during his terrible headaches and split his father’s head open with a double-edged axe, from which Athena emerged fully grown and fully armed.
Beyond the adornment and fantasy of the myth, we can make a symbolic interpretation of it. Metis is the Mind, which, when swallowed or assimilated by Zeus, gives rise to Athena, who is born from his head. Therefore, Athena would be the divine Intelligence, the personification of Zeus’s Intelligence as the ruler of the universe. Plato himself refers to this meaning, deriving her etymology from “theonoa” (theónoa), the mind (nous) of divinity (theos).
Another myth, represented alongside the previous one on the Parthenon, is the dispute between Poseidon and Athena over the guardianship of the city of Athens, which was nameless at the time. To resolve this, it was agreed that each god would provide a gift to the city, and the city or its king, Cecrops, would choose the god who had given the best gift. Poseidon struck the earth with his trident, causing a spring to gush forth. However, this spring was salty and unsuitable for drinking. According to other versions, Poseidon created the first horse. Athena, on the other hand, gave them the first domesticated olive tree, along with olives and olive oil. The Athenians considered this the best gift and ultimately chose Athena as their patron, who had given them “liquid gold.”
In addition, Athena appears in numerous myths related to heroes, such as Odysseus, whom she helps to disguise in Ithaca to enter the palace incognito and reclaim his throne. She also plays a role in the story of Perseus, who rewarded Athena’s help by giving her the head of Medusa, which the goddess placed on her shield or chest on the aegis.
Representations of Athena
Athena from Mycenae to Classicism
The origin of Athena can be traced back to the conquest of the Peloponnese by Indo-European peoples, which led to the Mycenaean civilization. However, other authors trace her to earlier Minoan divinities, although due to the inability to decipher Linear A or, importantly, translate the Minoan language, we only have certain similarities in Cretan iconography and attributes of Athena.
According to the remains from the enigmatic Minoan civilization that have come down to us, there are numerous indications to affirm the existence of an eminently matriarchal religion, meaning that its main deities were female. Traditionally, two fundamental cults are attributed: the Mother Goddess and the cult of the bull, with the latter possibly being the son-husband of the former. Various figurines and representations of priestesses or goddesses exist, with the most well-known being the Snake Goddess, as well as other figurines related to birds. This has given rise to various interpretations suggesting that the origin of Athena could be in an ancient Mediterranean goddess, Hannahanna, or Anna, related to Anahita, Inanna, and other Mesopotamian goddesses, like the so-called Goddess of the Night, a Babylonian bas-relief depicting a winged goddess flanked by two owls. Herodotus also mentioned the Egyptian goddess Neith as an equivalent to Athena, being a warrior goddess represented with a spear or bow and arrows, and sometimes with an owl.
The oldest reference to Athena appears in Mycenaean records, where a “Atana potinaia” is mentioned. Potinaia, or Potnia, (Potnia) means “powerful” in Greek, accompanying the names of the Achaean goddesses. It is, therefore, considered that Potnia was a single Great Mother Goddess with various attributions and consecrations, similar to the Christian Virgin and the multitude of patron virgins with their various names.
Except for these inscriptions, clear representations of Athena from this period have not been found. It is only after the Dark Ages that Athena appears with her known attributes in Homeric and Hesiodic texts and in various sculptural and ceramic representations.
Archaic Period
Starting from the 7th century BC, images of Athena with her defined attributes can be found: a young woman dressed in a long pleated peplos, a helmet, a spear, and a shield, breastplate or aegis with the Gorgon and surrounded by snakes. In sculpture, she exhibits the typical archaic features: geometric hair, rigidly braided hairstyles, almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, and an archaic smile. The most representative sculptures are the Athena of Aegina, with a helmet featuring high crests, and the Athena of Olympia, part of a group of sculptures representing the Gigantomachy that stood in the Temple of Zeus in Olympia. Notable features of this sculpture are its forward motion and the snakes bordering the aegis.
From the mid-6th century BC, there are black-figure ceramic representations of Athena’s birth, sometimes with several gods assisting in the “birth,” including Ilithyia, the goddess of childbirth, Hermes, and Hephaestus with his double-edged axe. There are also early images of the Judgment of Paris and the Trojan War, as well as various heroic myths, from Theseus and Perseus to Jason and Heracles.
Classical Period: Phidias’ Athena Parthenos
It is during this period that we see the most classical iconography of Athena, thanks to the contributions of Phidias and his monumental work. After the Persian Wars, Athens devoted significant efforts to the reconstruction of its Acropolis and representative buildings, under the leadership of Pericles and the artistic direction of the great sculptor Phidias, who, along with his school, created the sculptures of the friezes and metopes, as well as the colossal chryselephantine statue located inside the Parthenon, which disappeared after centuries of looting.
Of this Athena Parthenos, only descriptions remain, in addition to numerous marble copies that are presumed to be more or less faithful to the original. She was made of ivory and gold (chryso = gold, elephantine = ivory), with a helmet crowned with horses and a Nike (the goddess of Victory) in one hand. The other hand would hold the shield and perhaps the spear, with a snake by the side of the shield. She wore the aegis, a goat-skin breastplate, with the Gorgon’s head, over her chiton (short tunic over the dress or peplos).
The Athena Promachos (Promacos) stood between 23 and 49 feet tall. Her name means “she who fights in the front line.” According to descriptions, she stood with a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. There are also archaic versions and Roman copies of Athena Promachos in a marching posture, brandishing a spear about to throw it.
In the Roman period, the tradition of Phidias continued, thanks to the Romans’ fondness for Greek art, in depicting the Roman Minerva.
Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassicism
During the Middle Ages, the dominance of Christianity led to the banishment of all representations of pagan gods, and the parameters of classical art were abandoned until the 15th century. With the recovery of classical culture during the Renaissance, mythical themes and “pagan” gods were also revived, and these themes persisted in later art, especially in the Baroque and Neoclassicism. The most representative works include Botticelli’s Pallas Athena and the Centaur, Rubens’s Judgment of Paris, and Velázquez’s magnificent painting, The Spinners, which tells the story of Ovid’s Arachne and Athena. In this painting, two spinners, a young one and an old one, are in the foreground. In the background, Athena is seen with her helmet and spear, and Arachne is in front of the tapestry, trying to protect it from the destruction by the goddess.
In Neoclassicism, Athena becomes a preferred figure to represent the Arts, Science, and Reason, and her image is used in libraries, universities, and other places as a symbol of the Enlightenment.
Even today, there are examples of images of the goddess. The most spectacular one can be found in Nashville, Tennessee, a 42-foot-tall replica of Athena Parthenos, covered in gold, located inside a reconstruction of the Athenian Parthenon. The statue, made of concrete and gypsum, was created in 1990 with the advice of experts in ancient art to be as faithful as possible to the original. In 2002, it was gilded. Visitors to this site experience a similar sense of awe to what the Athenians must have felt in the presence of the image of their protective goddess. Despite the magic of its original location, which still captivates tourists visiting the Acropolis, it is worth traveling to this American city and imagining what the Parthenon must have been like in all its splendor. Without detracting from the magic of its real location, which, despite its condition, still attracts tourists who visit the Acropolis today.
You can consult reproductions of sculptures of Athena in our catalogue:
Athena Promakhos. 28 cm. See
