Talk:Athena/Archive 2

More revisions
I just changed many things about the page. If other editors find the changes objectionable, I hope they'll discuss them here rather than just reverting them.

In the intro, I redid some sentences. One thing that the entire article should do is make it clear that Athena is not a specifically Athenian goddess, but one worshipped throughout Greece. Also, translating "Parthenon" as "temple of the virgin" is inaccurate (it sounds somewhat Christianizing, actually). The building is best known as the Parthenon, and no translation is necessary, in my opinion; but if you must translate, it really ought to be "temple of Athena Parthenos", and the meaning of parthenos can be explained in the section on Athena's epithets.

I reorded the sections, and changed the "Appellations" section back to "Epithets and cult titles". The reason for this is simple: classical scholarship refers often to epithets and cult titles, not very often to "appellations". The section could simply be titled "epithets", as that's what cult titles are, but I wanted to indicate that the section covered both poetry and religious worship. It would really be best, I think, to have a major section devoted to cults and festivals of Athena, which could handle religious epithets (ergane, parthenos, promachos, etc.) separately from the more poetic epithets (glaukopis, tritogeneia).

Among the tasks still to be done: better explanation of which authors versions of myths come from, and details of variant versions of myths where they exist. Clearing up some issues of sources. Finding more classical art that represents Athena (how about a Panathenaic vase)? Beefing up the "Athena in classical art" section.

--Akhilleus (talk) 08:24, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, the idea that the Parthenon is the "temple of the Virgin" keeps on creeping in. If you would put it in the article, could you please justify why? There's a discussion over at Talk:Parthenon that is relevant.

Also, whoever wrote that Athena's wisdom has no connection with mētis hasn't read the Odyssey, nor bothered to investigate the connections between cunning intelligence and craft knowledge. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


 * There's metis the verb and Metis the noun. Athena's mental virtues are not identical with those of her mother, otherwise there'd hardly be a reason for her existance, would there? Odysseus is a trickster, to be sure, but he's a techie kind of trickster, not your deep Aristotelian thinker. The Trojan horse is not a Metis kind of trick; it's first and formost a piece of craftsmanship,, very much in the tradition of Daedelus. That's why I think it's simply misleading to equate Athena with the English word "wisdom." What Athena stood for is NOT what WE mean in English by "wisdom." Not even close.
 * As for craft knowledge, I will admit that not all of what Athena admires Odysseus for, and gives him, is technology. But disguising oneself can be a craft, and seeing through disguises is rather low on the order of intellectual feats. A dog does it very well. In fact a dog does it in the Odyssey, which should make you think a bit of how Homer thought of it. Cunning, yes. My cat shows a lot of cunning at avoiding me when I want to give her medicine. But wisdom? No.

Sbharris 01:00, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Your personal views about wisdom, the nature of craft intelligence, and the value of disguise are not those of the ancient Greeks, nor of most anyone who's read much ancient Greek poetry. I also think Homer and the ancient Greeks had a much higher opinion of Odysseus' dog than you do, but we'll let that go for the moment.

Let's consult the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edition, entry on "Athena", p. 202):


 * It has in fact been suggested that Athena's characteristic mode of action, a mode
 * that unifies her apparently diverse functions while differentiating them from those
 * of other gods with which they might appear to overlap, is the application of mētis.
 * Her mētis appears obviously in her association with crafts and in her love (Hom. Od. passim)
 * for wily Odysseus; more obliquely, it is argued, it is for instance to be seen in her title Hippia,
 * 'of horses', which she acquires via a product of mētis, the bridle, whereas Poseidon Hippius
 * embodies the animal's brute strength. In warfae she would express rational force,
 * vis temperata, in contrast to the mindless violence of Ares."

Now, Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant (Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society, Humanities Press, 1978) connect mētis with the technē of the weaver, metalworker, etc. (p. 11):


 * In the first place, the intelligent ability referred to as mētis comes into play
 * on widely varying levels but in all of them the emphasis is always laid on practical
 * effectiveness, on the pursuit of success in a particular sphere of activity:
 * it may involve multiple skills useful in life, the mastery of the artisan in his craft,
 * magic tricks, the use of philtres and herbs, the cunning stratagems of war,
 * frauds, deceits, resourcefulness of every kind."

In other words, Daedulus uses mētis in his mastery of sculpture; Homer uses mētis in his mastery of poetry; Penelope uses mētis in her mastery of weaving.

Detienne and Vernant explicitly connect mētis with disguise (p. 21): "Mētis is itself a power of cunning and deceit. It operates through disguise."

We might also look at Gregory Nagy's The Best of the Achaeans (p. 47), who says "The word mētis 'artifice, strategem', on the other hand, characterizes Odysseus in particular: in the Iliad and the Odyssey, only he is desecribed with the epithets polumētis 'of many artifices' and poikilomētis 'of manifold artifices'. He is frequently called Diï mētin atalantos 'equal to Zeus in artifice'.

To remind yourself that Odysseus is a master of mētis, you may wish to read the Cyclops episode in Book 9 of the Odyssey.

Of Athena, Nagy says (p. 145) "In this respect, then, the function of the hero has a close affinity to Athena, the goddess of mētis incarnate."

Now, let's go back to the Trojan horse, which is unquestionably a supreme act of cunning intelligence. Let's remember what happened: the Greeks built a wooden horse that the Trojans thought was a dedication to Athena. (hmm....) The Trojans brought it into their walls, and then the true nature of the horse was revealed as the Greek leaders came out of its belly. That (the Greeks thought) was a brilliant trick, that the Trojans saw the instrument of their destruction as an object worthy to be dedicated to Athena. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:23, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I think you're making my argument for me. Artifice, craft, technology, strategem, trickery. Applied stuff. Not particularly Plato, Aristotle, or Euclid (who of course are all after Homer, but not after the traditions that produced how we see Athena). She doesn't represent wisdom in the sense of the most deep and subtle thought of which the Greeks knew. That, if anyone, was her mother. Athena's the action that accompanies thought.
 * Look, these guys like Odysseus are the action heros of their day, and Athena is THEIR patron. Athena equipping Perseus with flying shoes and an invisibility cap and a sickle and a reflecting shield, all of which he eventually needs later, is pretty much the same scene we see when Q gives James Bond the Aston Martin DB5 with all the gadgets. It's the same tale. And it's fun. And it's fun to see Bond get himself out of those scrapes by outwitting SMERSH or SPECTRE. But unless James Bond is your idea of intellect, and Q Branch is your idea of ultimate wisdom, or else you have such a low opinion of the ancient Greeks that you think it might have been THEIR idea, then Athena does not exactly represent what you think. She IS the goddess of action-heros. That's fair. Even the Bond-like ones with all the gadgets and the skills. So? Sbharris 03:41, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Sbharris, I don't think I understand what you're saying. Are you arguing that 1) Athena is a goddess of mētis, and therefore cannot be a goddess of wisdom? and does this entail 2) that the mētis of Athena and Odysseus is different than whatever virtue is personified by the goddess Mētis?


 * If that's a fair representation of your argument (and please say if it isn't), neither proposition makes sense (it's also a slide from your initial argument that mētis had nothing to do with craft knowledge). The second proposition, that the common noun mētis represents something sharply different than the goddess Mētis, is incomprehensible. Your assertion, in your first comment, that "There's metis the verb and Metis the noun" is grammatically incorrect: they're both nouns. If there's a distinction here, it's that mētis is a common noun and Mētis is a proper noun. (It's actually unclear how much of a difference this would have made to archaic Greeks--it seems that they slid much more easily than us between abstract ideas and the divine personifications of those ideas.)


 * To argue that there's a difference between the type of intelligence represented by the common noun and proper noun is ridiculous.


 * Your first proposition makes more sense on its face, but it doesn't correspond to Greek thought at all. You seem to have a definition of "wisdom" that you're not spelling out. What Greek word do you think corresponds to "wisdom"? "Mētis" is certainly one possibility, and we've shown already that Athena is intimately involved with mētis. Another possibility is sophia. Here's beginning of the Oxford Classical Dictionary entry on the Seven Sages (3rd ed., p. 1397):


 * Sophia, which may cover the domains of wisdom, cleverness, and poetic skill,
 * had always been admired in Greek society, as the character of Odysseus demonstrates...


 * In other words, mētis is part of sophia. Furthermore, a derivative of sophia, sophrosune ("self-control", "prudent intelligence") is closely connected with Athena and with mētis.


 * Finally, if you're going to accuse me of having a "low opinion of the ancient Greeks", let me ask you to make arguments based on ancient sources, instead of using your cat or James Bond as examples. If we're going to give the proper respect to the ancient Greeks we should probably pay attention to what they actually wrote. What's more, I think Odysseus deserves a bit more of your consideration; the Greeks, at least, thought of him as a subtle thinker, wily tactician, brilliant speaker, and a great hero; otherwise the Odyssey would not have survived. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:07, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, yes, sophia is the word I would have chosen for wisdom, and you've given many reasons why. It's more inclusive. That's how we got phileo sophia (philosophy), instead of philometis or whatever. Metis by time of the Greek philosophers (who had slaves and horror of getting their hands dirty) is much more the Gr. for practical knowledge or craft-- what English called "science" before that term evolved to mean mainly natural science (a few other uses of the word survive-- polical science, etc). But a lot of it was MANUAL. Athena herself is tricked out with a lot of protective devices. A lady loaded with that much armor and crap (compare to Metis the mother) is not the sort who thinks her way to goals.


 * It complicated by the fact that meanings change over time. Homer was using "sophia" also for craft-knowledge in his time, no doubt about it. But by the time of Aristotle, sophia had clearly taken over the purely mental parts of intelligence and wisdom.


 * As for Metis the goddess, Hesiod clearly says she was the smartest/wisest Titan. What she had, there wasn't really a word for later, except sophia. Yes, I'm claiming Metis herself didn't personify what the Greeks later called metis, as well as Athena did. Counterintuitive and you may not like it, but too bad. By the time the Greeks started differentiating metis vs. sophia, they meant by metis, applied stuff ala Athena. Who sprang from the head of Zeus fully-armed and armored, remember, not with a quill pen and a lot of unpleasantly episemological Socratic questions about what we know and how we know it. Hence again philosophy. (And BTW there was a later gnostic goddess Sophia who asked more the questions that wise people ponder instead of buckling on their breastplates and helmets). [Snip here essay on how the U.S. right now is suffering from an overdose of metis and underdose of sophia].


 * As for the Odyssey: it survives because it's well written, a good adventure tale, but also a morality play. Half of it isn't even about Odysseus anyway, but variations on social situations (many where Odysseus isn't even present) meant to highlight the proper relationship of the guest and the host in the Greek social world. Otherwise, if you're interested in Odysseus the hero, a lot of the Odyssey is boring, and makes little sense.Sbharris 08:18, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * "Counterintuitive" is probably the kindest way to describe your argument. You've used a quote that clearly states sophia includes metis to argue that sophia excludes metis. Unless you're going to provide some citations to secondary literature or quotes from primary sources to support your rather eccentric picture of Greek intellectual history, I don't see a point in continuing this. --Akhilleus (talk) 17:26, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, I'll add three primary sources here. The first is Plato, Cratylus 407a-c:


 * The ancients seem to have had the same belief about Athena as the interpreters of Homer have now; [407b] for most of these, in commenting on the poet, say that he represents Athena as mind (νοῦς) and intellect (διάνοια); and the maker of her name seems to have had a similar conception of her, but he gives her the still grander title of “mind of God” ἡ θεοῦ νόησις, seeming to say that she is a ἁ θεονόα; ... he may have called her Theonoe because she has unequalled knowledge of divine things (τὰ θεῖα νοοῦσα). Perhaps, too, he may have wished to identify the goddess with wisdom of character (ἐν ἤθει νόησις)...


 * And then Plato, Critias 109c-d:


 * Now in other regions others of the gods had their allotments and ordered the affairs, but inasmuch as Hephaestus and Athena were of a like nature, being born of the same father, and agreeing, moreover, in their love of wisdom (philosophiai) and of craftsmanship (philotechniai), they both took for their joint portion this land of ours as being naturally congenial and adapted for virtue (arētēi) [109d] and for wisdom (phronesēi), and therein they planted as native to the soil men of virtue and ordained to their mind the mode of government.


 * Finally, Plato, Timaeus 24d:


 * [24d] So it was that the Goddess, being herself both a lover of war (philopolemos) and a lover of wisdom (philosophos), chose the spot which was likely to bring forth men most like unto herself, and this first she established.


 * In our first quote, Plato says that many think Athena is a representation of mind (nous) or intellect (dianoia), and interprets her name as meaning "mind of god" (hē theou noēsis). These are words that denote high-level mental activity; Plato gives us a portrait of a philosophical goddess. In fact, in the next two quotes Plato calls her a philosopher. Looks like a goddess of wisdom to me. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:00, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Now, I never said sophia excludes metis, did I? Merely that it's inclusive of it, while representing a great deal more. And that it's historically a bad fit (as Plato is here doing, I admit) to make a goddess who historically was primarily associated with trickery, crafts, war technology and action, to represent "sophia," also. It's sort of like arguing for the philosophical genius of today's Pentagon, on the basis of their new invisible bomber program, blasting neolithics out of the Iraqi sand, live on satellite. As for Plato's stuff, to me it sounds awfully like theological propaganda for his new  Department of Philosophy. Which is to say, methinks he protests a lot and he's arguing stuff he wouldn't even HAVE to argue IF everybody already in his world already took it for granted. Right? LOL-- primary source indeed. And now you use his propaganda on ME. Well, I'm not buying it. As for the guys PLATO was trying to sell it to, who knows. I'd have to look at his grant review scores. Sbharris 22:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Sbharris, you're truly astonishing. I provide you with three quotes from Plato, perhaps the most important philosopher in history, saying that Athena is a goddess of wisdom, and you dismiss it as "propaganda". Meanwhile, you provide nothing to support your position except unsourced innuendo. Like Stephen Colbert, you know what wisdom is in your gut--you don't have to bother with looking up "facts" in "books".


 * By the way, when you write "By the time the Greeks started differentiating metis vs. sophia, they meant by metis, applied stuff ala Athena" it sure looks like you're saying sophia excludes metis. Perhaps I misunderstand what you mean by "differentiating metis vs. sophia".


 * You did. Applied thought is still a narrow kind of thought, but since one is a subset of the other, it's well to differentiate them.


 * I look forward to hearing more about why Plato is a bad source for Greek philosophy. --Akhilleus (talk) 22:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Plato's a bad source for Greek THEOLOGY. Not trustworthy, since at all times he's pushing a, well, Platonic agenda, in all senses of that word. Read with slack. For Plato, ALL the Greek gods are the way he portrays Athena: more or less without human passions or animalistic tendencies of any kind. These are NOT the traditional Greek gods (if you would like a chart see ) and these views of them would in Plato's time probably have been a bit heretical. They work best for Plato's computer-like Athena, but Plato, just as with Plato's Socrates, is not particularly concerned with the finer points of what God does what, or stands for what. And when he is, they ALL tend to sound like his version of Athena. So no, I'm not buying, as I said. As for quoting me Plato's views on Athena, you might as well quote Plato's views on Zeus, and say therefore that Zeus didn't turn himself into a swan and have sex with Leda. Well, I'm sorry, but Plato is not the authority, or an AN authority, on what the Greeks believed, in these matters. He's not a Greek theologian. He's just a Greek guy pushing his own particular philosophy for his own particular (and may I say rather idiosyncratic) ends. Okay? Sbharris 03:54, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


 * No. Plato isn't unique in bowlderizing myth; look at Pindar, Olympian 1, where he rewrites the Pelops myth, or Stesichorus' Palinode, where he denies that Helen ever went to Troy.
 * It's not "bowdlerizing" myth to suggest the gods don't eat and don't change form, or even have human form. Unless perhaps you find something suggestive and sexual about these things per se?


 * For the general idea that gods do not experience "negative" emotions, look at the poetry of Xenophanes. The idea that the gods are completely good and cannot commit adultery, feel anger, etc. are at least as old as the 6th century, if not older. Plato is innovative in many respects, but not in this dimension of his philosophy.


 * Oh, that's a ridiculous argument. We don't even have any original Xenophanes, and what we have is just broad skepticism. He doesn't think gods are anthropomorphic. This is not Greek mainstream thought--- even Plato didn't go that far.


 * In the quotes I gave above, Plato relies on common opinions; in the Cratylus, he says "the interpreters of Homer" say that Athena is nous and dianoia. The dramatic context of the speakers in the Critias and the Timaeus make it clear that Plato relates popular opinions about Athena's role in the foundation of Athens.


 * No, it makes it clear he SAYS he relies on popular opinions. What we're lacking is newspapers with the popular opinions, and the Gallop polls.


 * Furthermore, sarcasm seems not to have worked, so I'll state it plainly: you're opposing mētis and sophia.


 * Since reasonably plain but polysyllabic statement hasn't worked, maybe short simple words will do: No, I'm not.


 * You're saying that they're opposite things: in your view, sophia is subtle, philosphical thought (which you find praiseworthy), mētis is brute technical competence (for which you seem to have a lot of contempt).


 * No. I have repect for engineering, but recognize that it is applied theory. A subset of theory. Just as physics uses a subset of mathemetics, and engineering uses a subset of physics. There is no "opposition" here, except to recognize that math, physics, and engineering aren't the same things.


 * I can't see why you're trying to deny that you're opposing these qualities. After all, you're basically claiming that the goddess Metis represents sophia, and that her daughter Athena, as a figure of mētis, has an intelligence that is different than her mother's; that's what you meant when you wrote above that a "lady loaded with that much armor and crap (compare to Metis the mother) is not the sort who thinks her way to goals"; that's what you claimed in the edit you made to the introduction of the article that kicked off this whole discussion, that's the plain meaning of "differentiating metis vs. sophia", and that's the only way you can claim that Metis is different from mētis.


 * Correct. Wisdom may come without armor, machines, and technology. But the view of Athena as representing these things is not the classical one. Perhaps it was becoming so by the time of Plato, but Plato is classic only for us. He's a latecomer when it comes to Greek mythology.


 * And you still have not supplied a single primary or secondary source for your arguments, which is absolutely necessary, because your arguments are a bit eccentric. For instance, your opposition between mētis and sophia is flatly contradicted by the quote I supplied from the Oxford Classical Dictionary, a standard reference work which presents the consensus view of the topics it covers. Your view of mētis is also unorthodox: it's much narrower than the Greeks' idea of mētis, and the contempt you feel for mētis as a skill of warfare is not found in any Greek source that I know of. So, let me ask you to either bring forward some sources to support your views, or let's break off this unproductive conversation. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:31, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, here's what the Columbia Encyclopedia (6th edition, 2006) says about the issue, in part:

'' Her most conspicuous role was perhaps that of a goddess of war, the female counterpart of Ares. However, she was also a goddess of peace, noted for her compassion and generosity. Like Minerva, with whom the Romans identified her, she was a patron of the arts and crafts, especially spinning and weaving. In later times she was important as a goddess of wisdom.''

Do you understand the meaning of "in later times?" Perhaps you'd like to write the Columbia Encyclopedia and suggest that whoever they got to write their section on Athena didn't actually know anything about Athena, and offer your own services. Or else you can fix the Wiki here to reflect the idea that the sort of wisdom I'm talking about, wasn't attributed to Athena until the time of Plato, when the Greeks were starting to think of what we now call "philosophy." But before that, the closest that a Greeks had to the idea of wisdom was how to make a rug, or throw sand in your opponents' eye when fighting. Beating out breastplates. Yes, they had lots of respect for that. But it's not all THAT subtle, is it? I mean, the Trojan Horse story reads today as a cartoon-- something like Larry, Curley, and Mo do Troy. You have to suspend your disbelief, as with Noah's Ark, to appreciate it. Unless you really are a moron. Sbharris 07:11, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Aha, finally a source! And now that you've cited it, you say that "in later times" Athena was identified with what you've been calling sophia. Now you acknowledge that Plato's association of Athena with philosophy reflects a common Greek opinion. It's quite entertaining watching your argument shift with each comment you make. And notice, in your last response you've undercut your distinction between Athena's mētis and Metis' (alleged) sophia.


 * If you read the Trojan War as a realist drama, then I suppose the Trojan Horse does seem like a silly stunt. But it's a myth, not a novel, and in the language of myth the Trojan Horse expresses a lot about the nature of disguise, how appearances deceive, and the clouding of human rationality by divine anger--the subject matter of later tragedy, and to some extent philosophy. And I really wish you'd stop denigrating mētis--one of its areas of competence is persuasive/deceptive speech, including the composition of poetry. If you think that the Greeks believed that poetry was simple and straightforward, you haven't read Homer very carefully, nor the opening of the Theogony, or Parmenides, or Pindar... --Akhilleus (talk) 07:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh yeah, we haven't got much Xenophanes, but it's wrong to say that "We don't even have any original Xenophanes." Plain wrong. Here's some:


 * ...singing and mirth fill the house. Men making merry should first hymn the god with propitious stanzas and pure words; and when they have poured out libations and prayed for power to do the right (since this lies nearest at hand), then it is no unfitting thing to drink as much as will not prevent your walking home without a slave, if you are not very old. And one ought to praise that man who, when he has drunk, unfolds noble things as his memory and his toil for virtue suggest ; but there is nothing praiseworthy in discussing battles of Titans or of Giants or Centaurs, fictions of former ages, nor in plotting violent revolutions. But it is good always to pay careful respect to the gods.


 * Xenophanes is a precursor of some of the things that Plato says: men should not sing poems about conflicts among the gods, because it is disrespectful to say that there could be disharmony among them. (You might want to look at the entry in the Oxford Classical Dictionary on this point.) --Akhilleus (talk) 07:58, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Consellor Section: Epic Mode?
The following quotes the Counsellor heading of this article: "In The Odyssey, Odysseus' cunning and shrewd nature quickly won Athena's favour. In the realistic epic mode, however, she largely is confined to aiding him only from afar, as by implanting thoughts in his head during his journey home from Troy." Does the phrase "the realistic epic mode" have some meaning that I don't know about (as may likely be the case) or is this vandalism in the form of a God of War reference? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.troughton (talk • contribs) 14:55, 10 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Not only that. The whole subsection appears to be written by a 7-year-old! Example: "She also plays a role in ending the resultant feud against the suitors' relatives, although she seems strange to readers. She instructs Laertes to throw his spear and to kill the father of Antinous, Eupeithes. But she must have forgotten her task of bringing peace to Ithaca and wiping the thought of slaughter from the suitors' families, because she suddenly told them to stop fighting."
 * "she seems strange to readers" ?!
 * "she must have forgotten" ?!
 * Also it's a subsection of the "Other sites of cult" section, which is wrong.
 * I'm tempted to _delete_ the whole "Counselor" subsection, but clearly it would be better if it was edited (and moved) by someone with some knowledge of Odyssey (I don't have the time to re-read it). Athena acting as a counselor to many important mythological heroes is certainly very noteworthy (_including_ Heracles/Hercules, who shouldn't be missing!). 79.103.124.68 (talk) 19:35, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Also, Mr.troughton, to answer you question: I'm pretty sure that the phrase "the realistic epic mode" is completely nonsensical. It's pointless to discuss "realism" (a literature term/movement of the previous century, most relevant in prose) when referring to 2900 year old poetry (although epic poetry sometimes tends to be pretty realistic in its descriptions of action/characters).
 * PS. I'm a Greek with medium knowledge of greek mythology, but I'm not a scholar. Please forgive my mistakes in English! 79.103.124.68 (talk) 19:51, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Ateina
In Lithuanian language Ateina means the women who arrived or who came from somewhere.

Pallas Athena
I often encounter the combination of Athena Pallada, when refering to this goddess. What does Pallada mean?
 * It's a form of Pallas Athena. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:14, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

"Great Goddess of the earlier culture"?
Regarding her springing from Zeus' head being "the culmination of his Olympian ascendancy over the matriarchal Great Goddess of the earlier culture"... No offense, but this sounds like neopagan wishful thinking. Is it backed up by any actual evidence of there being some matriarchal "Great Goddess" of some earlier culture (and what earlier culture)?


 * "but this sounds like neopagan wishful thinking"; compared to the xian wishful thinking presented as 'fact' in the other religious write ups? -Strauss


 * Sounds like something Robert Graves would have said...there's a lot of that in the mythology articles. Adam Bishop 16:55, 3 May 2004 (UTC)
 * (Whew! glad it wasn't me this time). --Wetman 18:36, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There is actually quite extensive proof that a Goddess culture existed in eastern europe before the indo-european migration. This is supported by the work of a number of influential archaeologists, especially Marija Gimbutas. There is, however, no definite proof that Athena is connected to this culture, although it is certainly possible, even likely.Celsiana 01:39, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


 * "Definite proof"? It would be nice to have some evidence -- and no, not Marija Gimbutas.  Sorry.  The evidence she offered has been thoroughly debunked.  Goldfritha 21:41, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree, Marija Gimbutas is a crank who tries to force the evidence to fit her theories. DreamGuy 03:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I've posted a link to this really interesting article about this topic- it's the 'women in antiquity' thing by Alice Le Van.--Boa05zs 23:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I've removed the link, because it leads to a paper by a college student. The link is An Essay on Athene, Medusa and Metis. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

An answer about Athena and the owl
If the Athena`s symbol is an owl, what does it mean that angel like guy wich is located right over her forearm in http://fury.com/galleries/road_trip_2003/index-Pages/Image6.html?


 * That's Nike. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 21:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Interesting to note that three out of six goddesses were virgin. Athena, Artemis and Hestia. Consequently, their favourite animal could not be tamed. For Athena it was the owl for Artemis the deer. I am not sure if Hestia had a favourite animal. --Odysses (&#9756;) 10:49, 16 March 2006 (UTC

I read somewhere that Hestia her favorite animal was a calf, but than somebody else told me it was the crane, so I'm not really sure :) Hermes13 (talk) 15:43, 11 April 2010 (UTC) Hermes13

Image
This is somewhat arbitrary, but Wikicommons has some images which I prefer to the current one at the top of the page. (There's something about it that strikes me as a little creepy). I thought I'd check to see if the current one had some special significance before changing it, but if not either of the two above seem more "welcoming" to the page. (This is obviously very subjective. :) ) --Starwed 03:45, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
 * One
 * and Two
 * Those images are out of focus, so I don't think they're suitable. It would be nice to have an ancient image at the top of the page rather than a modern one. --Akhilleus (talk) 03:14, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

yea but the second one even looks like shes welcoming you to the page 65.33.196.220 23:29, 30 August 2007 (UTC)deathdealer
 * why would she be welcoming?