The MAIN myths of ATHENA, the Greek goddess
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In the Greek mythology There are a large number of myths, which are usually carried out by gods and heroes, but not all deities appear in the same number of myths, there being some that due to their great importance stand out over the rest. To talk about some of the stories of one of the main Greek goddesses in this lesson from a PROFESSOR we are going to talk about the myths of athena.
Index
- Who is Athena in Greek mythology
- The birth of Athena, one of the myths of this goddess
- The founding of Athens, another myth of Athena
- The myth of Medusa
- The myth of Arachne
Who is Athena in Greek mythology.
The first thing we should talk about in this lesson is about Athena, to know who she was this greek goddess, the importance of her in Greek mythology and the reasons why she appears in so many myths.
Athena is the goddess of war, wisdom, justice and civilizations, being all these things vital to the Greeks, and therefore she is one of the main goddesses in Greek mythology. The great importance of her is demonstrated by being one of the twelve Olympians, that is, the gods who lived on Olympus, she being one of the few deities that remains an Olympian in all stories Greek.
The great importance of him in Greece made his values related to Greek thought, with wisdom and justice being very important, as well as care of arts and sciences throughout culture.
Her great counterpart was Ares, the Greek god of war, since Athena represented war, but in the sense of military strategy and honor in combat, while Ares was associated to a greater extent with brutality and blood in war and combat. Some Greek peoples worshiped Ares more, but most Greek peoples were more prone to Athena's style of warfare.
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The birth of Athena, one of the myths of this goddess.
To continue with this lesson on the myths of Athena we must comment on some of the main stories that surround the goddess of wisdom, there are some myths for all stages of her life and related to her greatest attributes.
The first myth in which Athena intervenes is that of her birth, being very special even within the great variety of origins of the Greek deities. There are many versions of how Athena was born, but the most common is that the Greek goddess was born from the forehead his father's Zeus, who had eaten Athena's mother, Metis.
Many myths speak that this birth is due to the fact that Athena was the goddess of wisdom and therefore she is born from the brain of the supreme god. The goddess of wisdom was born as an adult, and it is even said that she already wore the armor and weapons that she would wear all her life.
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The founding of Athens, another Athena myth.
When we talk about main Greek cities We tend to mention Athens as the first one, due to the great cultural and economic prosperity that it came to have. As we can see Athens gets its name from the goddess Athena, this being the consequence of one of the most famous myths of Greece.
When the Athenian city was founded, the citizens needed a main god, who would have the function of protect the city of all the evils that other cities or other deities could cause. Due to the characteristics of the city, the two gods with the best options were Poseidon and athena, who gave something to the city to be selected, Athena being chosen for her gift of an olive tree.
As a consequence of all this Poseidonsent a great flood to the Athenian city, which was stopped by a joint force of several gods, among which were Zeus or Athena.
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The myth of Medusa.
In Greece there were three sisters, two of them being monsters called gorgons, while the third was one of the most beautiful women in all of Greece, this woman being jellyfish. The beauty of Medusa did not go unnoticed by Poseidon who fell in love with her and raped her in a temple of Athena.
The goddess of wisdom, angered by the desecration of her temple decided to punish Medusaof her, turning her into a monster like hers, her sisters, making her hair become snakes and her gaze turning all the people who looked at her to stone.
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The myth of Arachne.
It is said that in Greece there was a great weaver named Arachne, her ability to weave hers was such that even nymphs came to see her work. The great praise received ended up making Arachne believe much better than she really was, saying of herself that she was a better weaver than Athena.
All this reached the ears of the goddess of wisdom, who decided to test the young Arachne, becoming an old woman and telling her to stop making fun of the gods but Arachne decided to challenge Athena to a duel of to knit.
In the contest Athena decided to make a tapestry about her victory against Poseidon in Athens, while Arachne made several scenes about infidelities between gods. Athena was very angered by the symbolism of the tapestry made by Arachne, and completely destroyed the work of the young woman. The young woman fled scared by the attack of the goddess of wisdom, and finally embarrassed she committed suicide by hanging herself.
In other sources the story changes its ending, saying that Athena in the end felt compassion for Arachne, of her turning her into a spider, and the rope with which she killed herself in a cobweb.
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