Listed 9 sub titles with search on: Mythology for wider area of: "ATTICA Ancient area GREECE" .
ATTICA (Ancient area) GREECE
Athena literally only had one parent, her father Zeus, from whose
head she was born. Zeus suffered a terrible headache when Hephaistos hit him over
the head with a sledgehammer and opened his scull. Out came the full-grown Athena
in full armour with a cry of war.
She was usually called Pallas Athena or Parthenos, virgin, being a
virgin goddess. Greece's capital Athens
and the temple Parthenon were both dedicated to and named after her. Interestingly,
when Greece became Christian
the Parthenon was instead converted into the church of another Virgin: Mary, mother
of Jesus.
The most important celebration of Athens
was the Panathenea, dedicated to the goddess and held every four years. According
to myth, Athena had earned the title of patron goddess of Athens
after a competition against Poseidon, who also wanted the city. Poseidon gave
the Athenians a well, but it was useless since its water was from the sea. Athena
then gave the people the first olivetree, a much more useful gift. This made her
the winner. On the Acropolis there was originally a wooden statue of Athena, a
xoanon, that was dressed by the women of the city. According to legend, there
was also an olive tree there, as well as a salty well. When the Persians burned
down the tree in 480BC it had grown a foot the very next day.
She was the goddess of war, but not in the same way as Ares. Also
being the goddess of wisdom, she was the patron of tactics and strategic war.
She also protected the cities, industries, agriculture, spinning and weaving as
well as the arts and the crafts. Athena had also given much to humanity: the plough,
the flute, the wagon, shipbuilding, animaltaming and shoemaking. In a way, she
can be credited with having provided Man with all the knowledge needed for the
foundation of a civilization.
She was always depicted in military armour, and on her breast plate
was the face of the Gorgon Medusa since Perseus had offered her head after killing
the monster. The owl was the animal that symbolised her and the Acropolis was
said to be full of owls in ancient Athens.
The Roman equivalent to Athena was Minerva.
Athena also had many epithets: Aeantis, Aethyia, Agoraea, Alalcomeneis,
Alcidemos, Alcis, Alea, Ambulia, Anemotis, Apaturia, Archegetis, Areia, Aristobula,
Asia, Axiopoenos, Boulaea, Celeutheia, Chalcioecos, Chalintis, Chryse, Cissaea,
Colocasia, Coria, Coryphasia, Cranaea, Cydonia, Cynthia, Cyparissia, Ergane, Hellotia,
Hippia, Hippolaitis, Hygieia, Ilias, Ismenia, Itonia, Larissaea, Lindia, Longatis,
Narcaea, Nedusia, Nike, Oleria, Onca, Oxyderces, Paeonia, Pallenius, Panachaea,
Poseia, Parthenos, Phratria, Polias, Poliatis, Poliouchos, Promachorma, Promachos,
Pronaea, Saitis, Salpinx, Scilluntia, Sciras, Soteira, Sthenias, Telchinia, Tihrone,
Tritogeneia, Tritonia, Zosteria.
This text is cited Sept 2003 from the In2Greece URL below.
According to the Attic story, the son of Apollo and Creusa, daughter of the Athenian king Erechtheus. He was exposed at his birth by his mother in a grotto on the cliff of the Acropolis, whence he was taken by Hermes to Delphi and brought up by the Pythian priestess to be an attendant in his father's temple. Creusa afterwards married Xuthus, who had migrated from Thessaly, and was son of Hellen and brother of Aeolus and Dorus. As this marriage was childless, the pair went to Delphi to consult the god as to the cause. Xuthus received the command to consider as his son the first person he should meet in front of the temple. This happened to be Ion, who had meanwhile grown up, and was at once accepted by Xuthus as his son. But Creusa, fancying he was her husband's son by a former union, resolved to poison him. Ion detected her design in time and would have killed Creusa, who, however, took refuge at the altar of the god. Then the Pythian priestess produced the cradle in which he had been exposed as an infant, and thus brought about recognition and reconciliation between mother and son. Ion married Helice, the daughter of Selinus, king of the Aegialeans on the north coast of the Peloponnesus. At the death of this king he became monarch of the land, and the inhabitants assumed the name of Ionians after him. Afterwards being called upon by the Athenians to help them against Eumolpus and the Eleusinians, he conquered the enemy and was made king of Athens. From the four sons who are attributed to him, Geleon, Aegicores, Argades, and Hoples, were descended the four Ionic tribes.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Dec 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Editor’s Information:
About Ion, Euripides wrote the homonymous tragedy, of which the e-text(s) is (are) found in Greece (ancient country) under the category Ancient Greek Writings.
Daughter of Cranaus, mother of Erichthonius, according to some, Attica named Atthis after her
name, poem by Hegesinus.
Actaeus : The first king of Attica. The poets use the word Actaeus as an adjective,
in the sense of "Attic."
When he died, Cecrops, the son-in-law of Actaeus, received the kingdom, and there were born to him daughters, Herse, Aglaurus and Pandrosus, and a son Erysichthon. (Paus 1.2.6)
Agraulos. Daughter of Cecrops and Agraulos, of whom various stories are told. Athene is said to have given Erichthonius in a chest to Agraulos and her sister Herse, with strict injunctions not to open it; but they disobeyed the command. Agraulos was subsequently punished by being changed into a stone by Hermes, because she attempted to prevent the god from entering the house of Herse, with whom he had fallen in love. Another legend relates that Agraulos threw herself down from the Acropolis because an oracle had declared that the Athenians would conquer if some one would sacrifice himself for his country. The Athenians in gratitude built her a temple on the Acropolis, in which the young Athenians, on receiving their first suit of armour, took an oath that they would always defend their country to the last.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Dec 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Pandrosus, (Pandrosos). "All bedewing." A daughter of Cecrops
of Athens, first priestess of Athene, honoured together with her in a sanctuary
of her own, the Pandroseion, on the Acropolis of Athens.
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