Alessandra Abbattista and Fabio Lo Piparo - The two folds of Athena’s garment: military and maternal aegis in Euripides’ Ion

I'm pleased, now, to present the next abstract for the conference on 3 June - this time from two scholars: Alessandra Abbattista of the University of Roehampton, London and Fabio Lo Piparo of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

The two folds of Athena’s garment: military and maternal aegis in Euripides’ Ion

 

The paper aims to investigate the gendered meaning of the aegis of Athena in and around Euripides’ Ion. With particular attention to the passages related to the aegis, the analysis will focus on the contradictory treatment of this garment, between danger and protection, in the text. The Euripidean version of the origin of the aegis from the Gorgon, the monster that was killed by Athena during the Battle of the Giants, portrays the figure of the goddess as promachos, the androgynous mistress of war. This aspect is embodied by Creusa in her failed attempt to kill her son with the poisonous blood scattered from the Gorgon’s body, beheaded and deprived of its skin. Furthermore, the snaky border and the gorgoneion in Ion’s swaddling cloth woven by Creusa suggest an accurate reproduction of its model, the real aegis. The use of the woven aegis in the exposition of Ion merges the motifs of the birth and the delivery of Erichthonius to the daughters of Cecrops by his foster mother Athena, a moment carefully replicated and ritualised by Creusa. This adds nurturing and child-caring features to the aegis and therefore to the two figures who bear it. Just as Athena, the tragic heroine appears both male/promachos and female/kourotrophos. References from Homer to lexicographers, as well as iconographic depictions on Attic vases, will demonstrate the gender conflation beyond the aegis in the Euripidean tragedy.

 

 

 

 

 

Amanda Potter - Goddess of Wisdom, Warfare and Knitting: Athena in the Popular Imagination

And now for the next of our abstracts for Friday's conference - from Dr Amanda Potter of the Open University, UK.

Goddess of Wisdom, Warfare and Knitting: Athena in the Popular Imagination

My doctoral research on classical myth on television included an audience study focussed on the character of Athena in Xena: Warrior Princess episode ‘Amphipolis Under Siege’ (5.14).  My research was not only into viewers’ reactions to the character of Athena in the episode, where Athena is on the opposing side to the hero, Xena, but also on their knowledge of the goddess Athena before they watched the episode.  Viewers were ask to summarise all that they knew about the goddess, and where they obtained their information.  This allowed me to build up a picture of what fans of Xena and other members of the general public think about the goddess, when compared with the knowledge held by classicists, who also took part in my study.  What I found was that respondents are engaging with the goddess in different ways, including the pagan who prays to the goddess, and the viewers who think of Athena as a goddess who stands for women.  In this paper, drawing on both my doctoral research, and a shorter audience study conducted at the Petrie Museum in 2013, I will share my findings on what Athena can mean to us today.

Manon Champier - Athena in official images in the French 19th century

With the Athena event now just a few days away, I'm pleased to present the next abstract - from Manon Champier, doctoral student at Université Toulouse-2-Jean Jaures

Athena in official images in the French 19^th century

During the 19^th century, France went through many political changing. Monarchies, republics or empires succeeded each other, at the whim of revolutions, coups and wars. New governments needed to find some legitimacy and abundantly used images and symbols to affirm their power and identity, in reaction to or in agreement with what was done before. Antiquity was a prestigious reference and a model for art. Among the numerous Greek figures, Athena was very popular with both artists and public discourse. Why this goddess in particular? Why and how is she used in a period far from Antiquity, when polytheist cults do not exist anymore? What does her reinterpretation by the 19^th century artists say about their vision of Antiquity? We will try to go through these questions by analyzing the reception of the goddess in the different fields such as war, science and fine arts. We will compare how monarchies, empires or republics decided to use the goddess and enlighten differences or permanent features.

Bartłomiej Bednarek - Bringing stools to Athena?

Now for the next of the abstracts for the Athena event on 3 June - from Bartłomiej Bednarek of Jagiellonian University, Krakow
 
Bringing stools to Athena?

A handful of passages from old comedy, along with scholia and lexica, mention a category of ritual acolytes called diphrophoroi. As the etymology suggests, the word must have referred to someone whose role involved (but was not necessarily was limited to) carrying stools (diphroi). Some nineteenth century scholars associated diphrophoroi with some of the figures represented on the east side of the Parthenon frieze, on which, among others, two girls with stools on their heads are approaching a bearded man. Since the publication of Ziehen's Panathenaea entry to RE, however, this identification has been rejected by most scholars on the basis, as I would like to argue, of some false assumptions. In most of the modern works in which the subject matter is addressed (e.g. in commentaries on the Aristophanic comedies), diphrophoroi are said to have been metic girls who accompanied the kanephoroi during the Panathenaea in order to serve them, not the goddess. Most scholars, therefore, claim that their ritual role was marginal and social status was low. Thus they maintain that the girls shown on the frieze must not be identified as diphrophoroi. In my paper I would like to address this problem, trying to explain why there seems to have been a very good reason for bringing stools to Athena. Seeing that the phenomenon lies at the intersection between the religion and public manifestations of ethnic and gender identity, I would like to touch upon also these matters, while arguing that there is no reason to believe that the status of diphrophoroi was necessarily lower than that of kanephoroi.
 

Ellie Mackin - Weaving Athena: An object-focused study of girls and women approaching Athena as a poliadic deity

I'm delighted to share the third of the abstracts for the Athena event on 3 June - by Dr Ellie Mackin of King’s College London

Weaving Athena: An object-focused study of girls and women approaching Athena as a poliadic deity

This paper will present an ethnographic study of the lives of the girls and women who were involved in the annual adornment of Athena Polias at the Panathenaia. This will include both those who wove the peplos and members of the wider Athenian community who participated in the festival. Therefore, this study will include the young arrhephoroi, the Ergastinai (‘weavers’) who were maidens of marriageable age, the Priestess of Athena Polias, and the Athenian and metic girls who participated in the procession – in other words, a representation of every female belonging to the Athenian population. Through this study, I will discuss what the physical act of worship (the production of a specific object and the act of processing) can tell us about how individuals approached Athena as the goddess of their city, and how this was expressed specifically for women and girls. This study will articulate the specific influence that Athena had, both as a ‘female god’ and a poliadic divinity, in the lives of the individual females who were involved in her worship. Thus, it will comment on Athena as a living goddess to her worshipers.

Maciej Paprocki - Trickster Athena as a granddaughter of Okeanos and Tethys

I'm please to share the second of the abstracts for Athena: Sharing New Research on 3 June, by Dr Maciej Paprocki of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München:

Trickster Athena as a granddaughter of Okeanos and Tethys.

Athena, the sovereign mistress of cunning intelligence, has many an opposite number among Greek deities: for example, Vernant and Detienne in their Cunning intelligence in Greek culture and society observe and discuss functional similarities and contiguities between Athena, Metis, Thetis, Hephaistos and Hermes—archetypal trickster deities, deft at binding magic (1991/1974: 140-144, 181-183, 300-305). In this presentation, I build on Detienne and Vernant’s observations and postulate that such deities form a fuzzy ‘trickster’ class in the Greek pantheon, linked by their shared matrilineal genealogy in Hesiod’s Theogony, descending them from Okeanos and Tethys.

Shadowy, sly shapeshifters learned in magical arts, (great-)grandchildren of Okeanos comprise some of the craftiest and grandest trickster gods of Greece: into their group one may include descendants by birth (Kalypso, Maia, Hermes, Athena, Prometheus, Kirke, Medea, Metis, Thetis) and descendants by adoption (Hera through Tethys and Hephaistos through Thetis and Eurynome). In the Theogony, Hesiod’s obliquely expresses his theological convictions through carefully planned divine marriages and resultant offspring. I argue that the poet instinctively understood functional similarities between trickster-type deities and thus traced their descent from Okeanos and Tethys, primordial gods of transformation and change: transcending Hesiod, the Okeanos trickster genealogy lingers in later Greek works, with authors conceptually juxtaposing these deities in their works.

Selected bibliography:

BRACKE, E. (2009), “Of Metis and Magic. The Conceptual Transformations of Circe and Medea in Ancient Greek Poetry”, PhD, Department of Ancient Classics, National University of Ireland, Maynooth.

CATALIN, A. (2009), “On the Mythology of Okeanos”, Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 143–150.

DELCOURT, M. (1957), Héphaistos ou, la légende du magicien, Bibliothèque de la Faculté de philosophie et lettres de l'Université de Liège, Vol. 146, Paris.

DETIENNE, M., VERNANT, J.-P. (1991), Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society, J. LLOYD (trans.), University of Chicago Press, Chicago [first published as Les Ruses de l’intelligence: La Mètis des Grecs in 1974].

KONSTAN, D. (1977), “The Ocean Episode in the "Prometheus Bound"”, History of Religions, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 61–72.

KORENJAK, M. (2000), “Die Hesperiden als Okeanos-Enkelinnen: eine unnötige Crux bei Apollonios Rhodios”, Hermes, Vol. 128 No. 2, pp. 240–242.

VERNANT, J.-P. (1970), “Thétis et le poème cosmogonique d'Alcman”, [in:] Crahay, R., Derwa, M. and Joly, R. (Eds.), Hommages à Marie Delcourt, Latomus Collection, Bruxelles, pp. 38–69.

Marion Meyer - Athena and her foster child

In the run-up to the Athena event on 3 June, I'm going to be releasing the abstracts gradually starting, today, with that from Professor Marion Meyer of the Institute for Classical Archaeology, University of Vienna.

Athena and her foster child

The tale of a boy born of the Earth and raised by Athena is the Ur-Mythos of Athens.

In early times its focus was the correlation of nature and civilization - Gaia (the Earth) comprising everything which occurred naturely (procreation, birth, growth), Athena comprising everything which needed techne (knowledge, training, education).

A later version included Hephaistos and thus broke the balance of Gaia and Athena. Erechtheus obtained a father, Gaia was reduced to the role of mortal women (giving birth after having conceived), and Athena was highlighted (as the trigger of every move).

Still later, the myth was told for a figure named Erichthonios (derived from Erechtheus). This is the version shown in images. As the new name is not attested before the second half of the 5th century, this innovation was dated to the Classical period (but actually occurred a little earlier).

In the course of time the role of Athena´s foster child changed: Erechtheus was (and remained) Athena´s prime cult associate on the Acropolis. Erichthonios, however, was the prototype of an Athenian and conveyed the notion that all Athenians were children of Athena. It is the purpose of the paper to present the varying views of Athena and her foster child as the result of a continuous process of “making” the city goddess.

Speakers and topics - Athena: Sharing Current Research

I'm delighted to announce our speakers and topics. I look forward to welcoming to Roehampton current researchers from seven (a good Athena-related number...) European countries: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and the UK. This running order is provisional. I'm aiming to finalise the programme by 20th May.

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Marion Meyer, University of Vienna, “Athena and her foster child”     

Maciej Paprocki, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, “Trickster Athena as a granddaughter of Okeanos and Tethys"

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Ellie Mackin, King’s College London, “Weaving Athena: An object-focused study of girls and women approaching Athena as a poliadic deity”

Bartłomiej Bednarek, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, “Bringing stools to Athena?”

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Manon Champier, Université Toulouse-2-Jean Jaurès, “Athena in official images in the French 19th century"
Amanda Potter, Open University, UK, “Goddess of Wisdom, Warfare and Knitting: Athena in the Popular Imagination"

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Alessandra Abbattista, University of Roehampton, London and Fabio Lo Piparo Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, “The two folds of Athena’s garment: military and maternal aegis in Euripides’ Ion"

Owen Rees, Manchester Metropolitan University, “The disappearance of Athena from classical warrior-departure scenes"

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Sandya Sistac, Université Toulouse-2-Jean Jaurès, “‘Her do thou smite’ (Il. 5.132): a preliminary study of the relationships between Athena and Aphrodite in Homeric epic”

Christopher Lillington-Martin, University of Reading and Summer Fields, Oxford “Symbolism of Athena, and her metamorphoses, by means of the olive, in Homer’s Odyssey and Procopius’ Wars"

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Marianne Kleibrink and Elizabeth Weistra, University of Groningen, “Cult in context: an early Athena in Calabria?”

Ingo Schaaf, University of Konstanz, “Kyria Athenais: Transformations of Pallas and Parthenon in Late Antique Athens”

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Chairs: Susan Deacy, Tony Keen, José Magalhaes, University of Roehampton, London

 

 

*Athena: Sharing New Research* - booking now open

Registration is now open for the conference - which takes place a month today! Click here to sign up.

Updates on twitter @AthenaSharing
#AthenaUR

Information on speakers and topics to follow asap.