Sacred Virtues: Athena and the Defense of Civilization - Essay Example

Sacred Virtues: Athena and the Defense of Civilization I. Introduction Homer’s characterization of Athena is the prevailing view of the goddess that has come down to us from antiquity. In The Odyssey, Athena acts as guide, adviser and shield to Odysseus. Homer’s portrayal of Athena appears to accord with her place in ancient Mycenaean society, a role that evolved by degrees over the centuries yet remained rooted in the notion of Athena as a protector of civilization. She was omnipresent to Classical Greece, where she was famously established as patroness of Athens, the stewardess of Athenian wealth and power. It is perhaps symptomatic of the aggressive Mycenaean civilization that Athena, the worship of whom may have begun as a fertility rite, morphed into the Olympian warrior goddess. Yet hers is not the persona of the bloodthirsty and vengeful immortal. In this paper, I will characterize Athena as a goddess whose civilizing inclinations emphasized intellect and wisdom and, as such, established her as the archetypal Greek deity. II. Defender and preserver We see the representation of Athena as restorer of social order in The Odyssey, which culminates in the destruction of Penelope’s suitors. Athena plays a key role in this denouement, lending her wisdom to the proceedings and bringing equilibrium to Odysseus and his kingdom. Name 2 Through everything, her overriding concern is to ensure Odysseus’ restoration as king and to pacify the kingdom of Ithaca (Clarke, 81). To that end, she becomes profoundly involved in the overthrow of the suitors, aiding Odysseus with her cunning, changing his outward form to deceive his enemies and ordering events to his benefit. Balance and civilization are her concern; Athena is not only concerned with returning Odysseus to the throne but to ending the threat of vendetta from the suitors’ families and followers, to “replace anarchy with justice in Ithaca” (Ibid). In this sense, she is the most complete, and complex, of the Greek gods because while she is ever capable of exacting vengeance on the guilty, her punishments are aimed at achieving a desirable and redemptive purpose on behalf of civilization. It was during Greece’s Classical period that the virginal and morally virtuous Athena came to full flower. In this form, she stands aloof from the sensuous pursuits of her fellow Olympians, such as her father Zeus and Aphrodite, the very image of purity and civilized rectitude. Zeus personified male virility, recklessly engaging in sexual relations with mortal women, identifying him as the supremely powerful life force but flawed and given to temptation. Conversely, though she personally “inspired male heroes to deeds of valor and discovery,” Athena remains chaste, preferring to avoid subsuming her identity to some male partner through the act of sexual union (Kinsley, 139). This image of Athena stands in direct contrast to earlier iterations of her fertility goddess divinity, a change that likely reflects the evolution of early Greek culture and its affinity for learning, intelligence and civilization in a barbarous, warlike world. Name 3 III. Divine contrast – Athena and predilections of the Olympians Athena’s civilizing orientation sets her apart from her arrogant, controlling fellow Olympians. For a civilization that came to embody the virtues of culture and invention, Athena had a special meaning and purpose. Whereas the most powerful denizens of Olympus were elemental gods, Athena stood for something that the people of Athens and other city states could understand and appreciate, something other than fear of Olympian retribution. It is no accident that there are more sanctuaries devoted to the worship of Athena than to Poseidon in population centers. “Poseidon…was never closely associated with the high achievements of the polis-society, and dissociated from moral values, intellectual advance or technology” (Schumacher, in Marinato & Hagg, 65). As Schumacher explains, the contrast between the mighty sea god and Athena could not be more evident. Poseidon is creator of the horse, but it was Athena who devised the bit, the means by which the horse may be controlled and put to productive use; Poseidon rules the seas but Athena created the sailing vessel, an invention that gives man safe passage over the unruly waves and a measure of control over the natural, or supernatural, world (Ibid). Few of the Olympians are cast in the role of helper or defender of men as frequently as Athena. Hera and Aphrodite’s interventions in mortal affairs are often of jealous or vindictive nature. In The Odyssey, Poseidon is an actor in Odysseus’s great adventure but as a persecutor, seeking revenge over a slight. Athena champions his cause, as she does that of Heracles during his heroic feats, even fighting alongside Heracles at Pylus against her fellow immortals Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Ares (Kinsley, 152). Heracles and Athena join forces to preserve those Name 4 things which Athena values most, namely “rational social order, cultural refinement, and city life” (Ibid). IV. Archetype and ritual A key characteristic of Athena’s archetype is a dominance of “will and intellect over instinct and nature,” marking her as the archetypal “father’s daughter” (Bolen, 2003). Her virtue and purity imbue her with an androgynous quality in which she is intimately involved with male heroes, though not in an emotional or sexual manner. Athena shared archetypal tendencies with Artemis, another virgin goddess, though the goddess of the hunt avoided the company of men as a representation of Nature’s untamed and unpredictable forces. Athena’s masculine qualities inform her complex nature, as does the contradiction between the wise counselor of The Odyssey and the fearsome warrior of The Iliad. “Athena…shed her soft-embroidered robe, which she had made with her own hands…and equipped herself for the lamentable work of war with the arms of Zeus the cloud-compeller” (Homer, Bk. V, 115). The worship of Athena was famously centered on the Parthenon and it was there that the festival of the Panathenaea was celebrated every four years in honor, it is believed, of the goddess’s birthday (Mythology, 2008). The Arrephoria, another Athenian festival, connected the worship of Athena and Aphrodite as paragons of the intellectual and sensual poles of feminine divinity (Ibid). V. Conclusion It is intellect, wisdom and enlightenment that mark Athena as the divine ideal of the Greek polis, the city-state, one of ancient Greece’s greatest contribution to Western civilization. She was, in a sense, all things to the Greeks: the avenger who brings justice, the benevolent Name 5 guiding hand and, above all, the patroness of social order and culture. Her constancy (she rarely betrays these virtues) set her apart from the other immortals, deities who manifested human weaknesses such as jealousy, rage and duplicity. Thus, Athena may be said to embody the most cherished values of the Greek demos, distinguishing her as the archetypal Greek god. Name 6 References “Athena – Ancient Greek Goddess.” Mythology. University Press Inc., 2008. Web. http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/Athena. Bolen, Jean Shinoda. “Gods and Goddesses in Everyone.” Archetypes – Library of Halexandria, 2003. Web. http://www.halexandria.org/dward373.htm. Clarke, Howard W. The Art of The Odyssey. New York, NY: Prentice-Hall, 1967. Homer. The Iliad. Book V. Arlington, VA: Richer Resources Publications, 2006. Kinsley, David. The Goddesses’ Mirror: Visions of the Divine from East and West. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989. Schumacher, Rob W.M. “Three related sanctuaries of Poseidon: Geraistos, Kalaureia and Tainaron.” Greek Sanctuaries: New Approaches. N. Marinatos & R. Hagg, eds. New York and London: Routledge, 1993. Read More