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Athena, Women and War
Athena fights (probably) Ares: A c black-figure amphora. A ributed to the Swing Painter, 510 - 500 BCE. Beazley Archive no. 340572. Image source: h p:// Chris Mackie www.theoi.com/ Gallery/K8.7.html
Roles of Female figures in Troy myth
• Athena: warrior goddess on the ba lefield • Andromache and Hector- together but will be separated by war • Penelope and Odysseus in the Odyssey- separated by war, reunited Three women over whom men fight: • Helen:Greek of royal blood at Troy • Chryseis: cap ve • Briseis: cap ve
Chris Mackie Athena: attributes and associations
• Daughter of Zeus and Metis • Birth: fully armed from the head of Zeus • metis: cunning intelligence or ‘craftiness’
Kylix: Athena is born from the head of Zeus (det.) : c.550 BCE, Bri sh Museum, ARTstor Slide Gallery
Chris Mackie Athena: attributes and associations • She is a culture goddess associated with the bridle and the ship. • Cra s, including po ery, weaving, ship-building, war-cra • She represents a kind of ‘ideal’ of male and female virtue. In the female sphere, that is loyalty, beauty, intelligence, leadership of the female sphere. Athena fights (probably) Ares: A c black- • Ares = god of bloodthirsty war/ figure amphora. A ributed to the Swing Painter, 510 - 500 BCE. Beazley Archive no. Athena = goddess of strategic 340572. Image source: h p:// warfare www.theoi.com/Gallery/K8.7.html Chris Mackie
Athena • O en helps or ‘mentors’ young male heroes in their quests, inc. Perseus, Jason, Achilles, Odysseus’s son Telemachus • Associated with courage and victory. She is usually ‘there’ in some form when great victories are won (eg. when Jason comes out of the dragon’s belly, or when Achilles defeats Hector). It was said that she appeared on the ba lefield at Marathon when the Greeks had their Kylix: Jason Being Disgorged by the Dragon Guarding the Golden great victory over the Persians (in Fleece, and Athena: c.480-470 490BC). BCE, Attica (Greece); Artstor.
Chris Mackie
Athena in the Iliad • Loses out in the judgement of Paris. Strong supporter of the Greeks in the war. • Fights on the ba lefield at Troy, wounds Ares (Iliad 5.733-906 ). Two gods of war! • Dresses Achilles in the aegis when he has no armour (18.203-4). • Helps to kill Hector in Book 22 in the single combat with Achilles. How should we ‘read’ Athena wearing the aegis. Andokides Painter, her role in the death of Hector? ca. 530-515 BCE, A ca. Image source: ARTstor Chris Mackie
Athena and the wooden horse
“...sing us the wooden horse, which Epeios made with Athene helping, the strategem great Odysseus filled once with men and brought it to the upper city, and it was these me who sacked Ilion” (Odyssey 8.493-5). Why is the wooden horse not men oned in the Iliad? The tle of this slide is “ Kylix with Athena construc ng the Chris Mackie Trojan Horse” , 5th c. BCE, ARTstor Athena and the Ideal marriage • I can think of two ideal marriages in Homer, and both of them are individuals who are closely associated with Athena in one way or another • Hector and Andromache in the Iliad (especially in Books 6, 22 and 24). No ce the way that the rela onship and value system of Hector (and Andromache) in Book 6 is contrasted with Paris (and Helen) in the same book. Paris- bow-bedroom (with Helen)/Hector-spear- wall (with Andromache) • Odysseus and Penelope in the Odyssey are also in a kind of ideal marriage based on their mutual intelligence and their ‘oneness of heart’ (homophrosyne)
Chris Mackie
Hector and Andromache: Iliad 6 • Hector is a kind of heroic ideal in the Iliad. • He fights with the spear, not the bow and arrow. • He is the defender of the city and feels strongly about his heroic conduct in front of the Trojans. His death and crema on in Books 22 and 24 really symbolise the imminent fall of Troy. • He loves his wife and child, and an cipates the terrible fate that awaits them. The three of them are a close family, bound together by love and compassion. • Hector returns to Troy to see his “perfect wife” and son. He finds them at the temple of Athena, 6.359ff.
Chris Mackie Andromache and Hector: Iliad 6 • Andromache on the other hand is a kind of tragic ideal of feminine virtue. • She is regal figure who has lost her parents and all her brothers to Achilles when he came and sacked their city. • She now fears losing her husband too and possibly her son. • She is depicted spending her me with her son and direc ng the work of her female companions in the weaving at the loom. • Iliad Book 6 is a powerful expression of the doom that hangs over the city and the terrible human cost of war. • No ce that Hector comes inside the gates because of Diomedes’ dominance, but when he gets in, it’s all about Achilles Chris Mackie
Andromache and Hector: Iliad 6 Athene’s a ributes: Hector’s warcra / Andromache’s weaving Hector: “Go therefore back to the house, and take up your own work, the loom and the distaff...but the men must see to the figh ng, all men who are of the people of Ilion, but I beyond others.” (Iliad 6. 490-3)
•Hector speaks of his duty to the people of the city, but tells his pain at knowing she will be enslaved, “and in Argos you must work at the loom of another, and carry water from the spring...all unwilling, but strong necessity will be upon you” (6. 450-8)
Chris Mackie
Andromache and Hector: Iliad 6
• Andromache tells of how Achilles killed her father and brothers, and captured (and ransomed) her mother, who later died a natural death “Hektor, thus you are father to me, and my honoured mother, you are my brother, and it is you who is my young husband. Please take pity on me then, stay here on the rampart, that you may not leave your child an orphan, your wife a widow” (6.429-32)
Chris Mackie Athena, Hector, and Andromache • A ques on to think about: if Hector and Andromache are so like Athena, and if they honour and worship Athena, then why does she turn from them and cause them such grief? 1. Despite being worshipped at Troy she is devoted to the Greek cause because of the insult she received in not being chosen the most beau ful (in the Judgement of Paris) 2. Despite their Athena-like virtue, Hector and Andromache are just on the wrong side. 3. Individuals in Greek myth are o en persecuted by gods that they resemble (cf. Achilles and Apollo)
Chris Mackie
Penelope and Odysseus in the Odyssey • A perfectly compa ble couple, embodying the quali es of Athena. They have one son Telemachus. • Both are characterized by their cleverness, and by their special understanding of one another (homophrosyne). • Odysseus overcomes his enemies (and sacks Troy) by his cunning intelligence (cf. wooden horse). He returns home to his island to find 108 suitors in his house outrageously trying to force Penelope into marriage with one of them. • Penelope is steadfast, clever and courageous in the Athena mould. Their ac ons work in concert to defeat their enemies. Unequal conflict. Intelligence defeats force.
Chris Mackie
Helen
• Daughter of Zeus and Leda (in the Odyssey) • She is a kind of prize - a bribe from Aphrodite to Paris in the beauty compe on • Moves away from her home and husband Menelaus in Sparta to Paris’s home in Troy - takes her possessions • The Trojans do not send her back - cause of great social upheaval
Paris leads Helen away to Troy, Eros hovers above, by Makron, mid 5th c. BCE, Beazley Archive. Chris Mackie