Pallas Athene

“ Pursued by the Furies, he takes refuge in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, and then, still Fury-haunted, goes to Athens, where Pallas Athené the warrior-maiden, the tutelary goddess of Athens, bids him refer his cause to the Areopagus, the highest court of Athens, Apollo acting as his advocate, and she sitting as umpire in the midst. The white and black balls are thrown into the urn, and are equal; and Orestes is only delivered by the decision of Athené—as the representative of the nearer race of gods, the Olympians, the friends of man, in whose likeness man is made. ”

“ The established derivation of Aphrodite dia ten tou athrou genesin may be accepted on the authority of Hesiod. Again, there is the name of Pallas, or Athene, which we, who are Athenians, must not forget. Pallas is derived from armed dances—apo tou pallein ta opla. For Athene we must turn to the allegorical interpreters of Homer, who make the name equivalent to theonoe, or possibly the word was originally ethonoe and signified moral intelligence (en ethei noesis) . Hephaestus, again, is the lord of light—o tou phaeos istor. This is a good notion ”

“ Nor, again, can we believe that a goddess could completely change her character and become civilised without leaving distinct traces of her past. The only conclusion is that Pallas Athene was an Achæan goddess who came rather late upon the Acropolis of Athens. It is true that the Athenians boasted themselves to be an aboriginal people of the old stock, and it is very{96} probable that the main bodies of Northern invaders did, as Thucydides alleges, pass by that stony promontory of Attica as beneath notice. ”

“ The scrutineers bring their results to Athena.
Athena.
This prisoner, since the stones for ill and good
Are equal, hath escaped the doom of blood.
Orestes.
O Pallas, O deliverer of my race,
Thou hast led back the wanderer to his place,
The homeless to his home; and men shall say
"Once more he is an Argive, and this day
Dwells in his father's riches, by the word
Of Pallas, Loxias, and Zeus the Third,
Who saveth all and all accomplisheth." ”

“ The face has the rigid smile and peculiar type of countenance which characterize the head of Pallas on the early coins of Athens; the corners of the eyes being turned up towards the ears. The hair, arranged in regular curls on the forehead, falls down the back in long tresses; the arms hang down at the sides in the Egyptian manner. The shoulders are broad, the waist pinched in, as if by stays; the line of the upper arm more varied and flowing than is at first sight reconcilable with the general archaic character of the face. ”

“ He is the most splendid and awful of Homer's Olympians.
[52]
The case of Pallas Athena is even simpler, though it leads to a somewhat surprising result. What Apollo is to Ionia that, and more, Athena is to Athens. There are doubtless foreign elements in Athena, some Cretan and Ionian, some Northern. [52:1] But her whole appearance in history and literature tells the same story as her name. Athens is her city and she is the goddess of Athens, the Athena or Athenaia Korê. In Athens she can be simply 'Parthenos', the Maiden; elsewhere she is the 'Attic' or 'Athenian Maiden'. ”

“ Two gods contending.—According to the fable, Neptune and Minerva disputed the honour of giving a name to the city of Athens. They agreed to determine the contest by a display of their wisdom and power, in conferring the most beneficial gift on mankind. Neptune struck the earth with his trident and produced the horse, whose bounding motions are emblematical of the agitation of the sea. Pallas commanded the olive-tree, the symbol of peace, and of riches, to spring forth. The victory was adjudged to the goddess, from whom the city was named Athens. ”

“ The Honor paid Womanhood in Athens.—Obviously from a young woman with a limited intellectual horizon the Athenian gentleman can expect no mental companionship; but it is impossible that he can live in the world as a keenly intelligent being, and not come to realize the enormous value of the “woman spirit” as it affects all things good. Hera, Artemis, Aphrodite, above all Pallas-Athena,—city-warder of Athens,—who are they all but idealizations of that peculiar genius which wife, mother, and daughter show forth every day in their homes? An Athenian never allows his wife to visit the Agora. ”

“ Pallas, the ethereal goddess of the Athenians, and the Sun god whose oracles, delivered from the temple between the twin summits of Parnassus, did so much for the Greek nationality, aided in keeping up a lofty ideal of religion; but when the enlightened men of Greece learnt to apply their keen faculty of reasoning to the system of their inherited belief, they became quickly conscious that the conceptions of the gods corrupted the life and degraded the minds of the public. Popular morality could not be sustained by the popular religion. ”

“ Athens, indeed, was the common mother of them all, their glory, their strength, and their pride; for since the days of Theseus the scattered rural communities of Attica had been united under the Aegis of Athene, and acknowledged Athens as the head and centre of their civic life. But a large proportion of the Athenian citizens still continued to reside in the country, and all their dearest associations were connected with the little spot of earth where they and their fathers were born. ”

“ They break forth as they rouse themselves, “Seize—seize— seize.” They lament—they bemoan the departure of their victim, they expostulate with Apollo, who expels them from his temple. The scene changes; Orestes is at Athens,—he pleads his cause before the temple of Minerva. The contest is now shared by gods; Apollo and the Furies are the pleaders—Pallas is the umpire, the Areopagites are the judges. Pallas casts in her vote in favour of Orestes—the lots are equal—he is absolved; the Furies, at first enraged, are soothed by Minerva, and, invited to dwell in Athens, pour blessings on the land. ”

“ The founding of the city of Athens, apart from the mythological lore which ascribes its name to Athené, the goddess, is credited by the Greeks to Sais, a native of Egypt. The real founder of Athens, the one who made it a city and kingdom, was Theseus; an unacknowledged illegitimate child. The usual myth surrounds his birth and upbringing. King Ægeus, of Attica, his father, had an intrigue with Æthra. Before leaving, Ægeus informed her that he had hidden his sword and sandals beneath a great stone, hollowed out to receive them. ”

“ Many men had heard from father or grandfather, it was just possible that one or two tottering veterans may have seen with their own eyes, how on that [Pg 52] day a band of youths, the very flower of the Athenian aristocracy, headed by Cimon, the son of Miltiades, had marched with a gay alacrity through the weeping multitude, to hang up their bridles in the temple of Athene. For the time the goddess needed not horsemen but seamen, and they gave her the service that she asked for. ”

“ During the repast the conversation turned speedily on local matters, and was carried on (but not till after a courteous apology had been offered to the young Athenian) in the bastard Greek largely mixed with Thracian words, in which the chief was accustomed to express himself. The meal ended, a handsome silver cup was handed by the major-domo, a venerable looking man, who made the comfort of his master and his most honored guests his special care. Alcibiades took it and poured out a few drops upon the table, uttering as he did so, the words: “To Athene the Champion.” ”

“ He was going to demand that the ten men who had been his worst enemies among the statesmen and soldiers of Athens should be given up to him. I was at table with him when the envoys from the city came back with their answer. He had them brought into the room where we were. No one could have been more polite than was the king. ‘Be seated, gentlemen,’ he said; and he ordered the pages to carry round cups of wine. Then he poured a libation from his own goblet. ‘To Athené,’ he cried, ‘Athené the Counsellor, Athené the Champion,’ and took a deep draught at each title. ”

“ There was a brief pause, which Anaxagoras interrupted, by saying, "The wise can never reverence images merely as images. There is a mystical meaning in the Athenian manner of supplicating the gods with garlands on their heads, and bearing in their hands boughs of olive twined with wool. Pallas, at whose birth we are told gold rained upon the earth, was unquestionably a personification of wisdom. It is not to be supposed that the philosophers of our country consider the sun itself as anything more than a huge ball of fire ”

“ The scene changes to Athens. In the foreground, the Temple of Athena on the Acropolis; her statue stands in the centre; Orestes is seen clinging to it.
ORESTES
Look on me, queen Athena; lo, I come
By Loxias’ behest; thou of thy grace
Receive me, driven of avenging powers—
Not now a red-hand slayer unannealed,
But with guilt fading, half-effaced, outworn
On many homes and paths of mortal men.
For to the limit of each land, each sea,
I roamed, obedient to Apollo’s hest,
And come at last, O Goddess, to thy fane,
And clinging to thine image, bide my doom. ”

“ All else within the bounds of Cecropia and the bosom of the divine Cithaeron shall fall and fail you. The wooden wall alone Jupiter grants to Pallas, a refuge to your children and yourselves. Wait not for horse and foot—tarry not the march of the mighty army—retreat, even though they close upon you. Oh Salamis the divine, thou shalt lose the sons of women, whether Ceres scatter or hoard her harvest!”
III. Writing down this reply, the messengers returned to Athens. ”

“ The whole history of Athens, from the rude beginnings of her civilisation till the age of her imperial glory, may be seen reflected, after a symbolic fashion, in the gradual transition of her worship from the wooden image of Athena Polias, which was said to have fallen from heaven, to the magnificent statue of gold and ivory which Pheidias made for the Parthenon; and one of the most interesting studies in art is to be found in tracing the successive stages through which the majestic virgin-goddess was evolved. ”

“ Originating, advancing nearly all which the imagination or the reason can produce, while yet in that social youth which promised a long and a yet more glorious existence—while even their great parent herself had scarcely emerged from the long pupilage of nations, they fell into the feebleness of age! Amid the vital struggles, followed by the palsied and prostrate exhaustion of her Ionian children, the majestic Athens suddenly arose from the obscurity of the past to an empire that can never perish, until heroism shall cease to warm, poetry to delight, and wisdom to instruct the future. ”

“ The history of Athens includes in itself the history of the human mind. Science and art—erudition and genius—all conspired—no less than the trophies of Miltiades, the ambition of Alcibiades—the jealousy of Sparta—to the causes of the rise and fall of Athens. ”

“ This is the gift of Athens to man. Her freedom and her power have been annihilated for more than twenty centuries; her people have degenerated into timid slaves; [Footnote: But this is not the character of the Athenians of the present day.] her language into a barbarous jargon; her temples have been given up to the successive depredations of Romans, Turks, and Scotchmen; but her intellectual empire is imperishable. And, when those who have rivaled her greatness shall have shared her fate; when civilization and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant continents ”

“ Men of Athens, I honour and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting any one whom I meet and saying to him after my manner: You, my friend,—a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens,—are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? ”

“ In the solemn procession all classes of Athenians were represented: noble maidens, bearing baskets with offerings for the sacrifice; youths with offerings, and youths on horseback; chariots; grave elders and priests; and cattle for the sacrifice. Aliens, too, were there, for it was not only Athens that was symbolized, but the Athenian Empire; symbol of what Athens hoped would be a united Greece. It is very difficult to distinguish between Athenian patriotism and religion. To the Athenian, the city was Athena, and Athena the city, and the Parthenon was the crown of both. ”

“ In seven out of the nine plays in which the deus ex machinâ appears, the speech of the deity has special reference to Athens and her future. [14] In the Ion, Athena proclaims the divine origin of the Ionian race, and foretells the greatness of her colonial empire. In the Suppliants, the foreign policy of Athens is vindicated, and Athena puts her for ever in the right as against Argos. In the Iphigeneia in Taurica, the Orestes, and the Electra, the origin of some of her religious institutions, particularly of the sacred court of the Areopagus, is stamped with divine sanction. ”

“ Every Athenian is born into accepting the fact that Athena Polias is the divine warder of the city, as much as he is born into accepting the fact that it is his duty to obey the strategi in battle. To repudiate the gods of Athens, e.g. in favor of those of Egypt, is as much iniquity as to join forces against the Athenians if they are at war with Egypt;—the thing is sheer treason, and almost unthinkable. For countless generations the Athenians have worshipped the “Ancestral Gods.” They are proud of them, familiar with them; the gods have participated in all the prosperity of the city. ”