APOLLO
One of the most important Olympian gods; son of Zeus and Leto, twin brother of Artemis. He was concerned with prophecy, medicine (he was the father of Asclepius), music and poetry (he was also the father of Orpheus and the patron of the Muses). He was associated with law, philosophy, and the arts. He sometimes gave the gift of prophecy to mortals whom he loved, such as the Trojan princess Cassandra. He was a master archer and a fleet-footed athlete, credited with having been the first victor in the Olympic games.
Son of Zeus and Leto. He was born with his twin sister Artemis on the island of Delos. According to the Homeric Hymn to Apollo Delos was the only place willing to accept to be birth-place of such a powerful god. It also tells how Hera's jealousy caused Leto to be in labor for nine days.
Apollo was also associated with Delphi, situated beneath Mount Parnassos, the site of the Pythian oracle. There were various stories telling how Apollo came to take over the site. The Homeric Hymn says that he had to kill the female serpent Python. The Hymn clearly associates Python with Typhaon (another name for Typhoeus, the monster killed by Zeus). Aeschylus, at the beginning of Eumenides has Apollo himself claim that Themis gave the sanctuary to him, having herself received it from Gaia.
In the Iliad Apollo supports the Trojans, despite having been cheated, along with Poseidon, by Priam's father Laomedon. The two gods had been sent by Zeus to build the walls of Troy which they did, but Laomedon refused to pay.
Among Apollo's titles are: Loxias ('oblique'), Phoibos, Smintheus ('of the mouse'). From the fifth century BC onwards he was associated with the sun-god (Helios).
ATHENA
Athena is the Greek virgin goddess of reason, intelligent activity, arts and literature. She sprang full grown from Zeus' head. She is Zeus' favorite and is allowed to use his weapons including his thunderbolt. She was usually shown wearing a helmet and carrying a spear and shield. Like her father, she also wore the magic aegis, a goatskin breastplate, fringed with snakes, that produced thunderbolts when shaken.
Athena was very different from the war god Ares; she represented the intellectual and civilized side of war. She was a wise and prudent adviser. Sacred to her are the olive, serpent, owl, lance, and crow. She invented the bridle, the trumpet, the flute, the pot, the rake, the plow, the yoke, the ship, and (in some myths) the chariot.Athena (Roman Minerva) is a virgin goddess. As Hesiod relates in the Theogony, she was born from the head of Zeus after he had swallowed her mother, Metis, who was otherwise destined to bear a son who would be greater than his father. She is patron goddess of the city of Athens, an honor for which she competed with Poseidon. She offered the citizens an olive tree while Poseidon offered a spring, the Athenians preferred her gift (Apollodoros, Bibliotheca, 3.14). She is also associated with crafts, particularly weaving, as the story of Arachne (Ovid, Metmorphoses, 6) shows.
She plays an important role in literature as the champion of many heroes such as Odysseus and Herakles. In Sophocles' Ajax she inflicts Ajax with madness in order to protect Odysseus from his wrath when Odysseus wins the shield of Achilles. In Aeschylus' Oresteia, she casts the deciding vote in favor of Orestes. She also takes vengeance on heroes who fail to show due respect and persecutes the Lesser Ajax for the offence of raping Kassandra at her statue at the Fall of Troy.
Although she was a virgin, Athena raised Erichthonios who was born from the earth after Hephaistos tried to rape her.
Kallimachos' literary hymn, The Bath of Pallas, she strikes the young Tiresias with blindness when he
accidentally sees her naked, a parallel to a version of the story of Actaeon.Athena is usually represented wearing a helmet, the snakey-fringed aegis with gorgoneion and carrying a shield or spear (even in depictions of her birth). Other attributes are the owl and the figure of Nike. Homer describes her as glaukopis, meaning (probably) "with gleaming eyes".
The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is the most famous temple of Athena. The east pediment showed her birth from the head of Zeus and the west pediment showed her contest with Poseidon (the surviving fragments are in the British Museum). The temple also contained Pheidias' huge chryselephantine statue of her, known as the Athena Parthenos.
ARTEMIS (Roman Diana)
She was goddess of chastity, virginity, the hunt, the moon, and the natural environment. She was chief hunter to the gods and goddess of hunting and of wild animals, especially bears. She is the daughter of Zeus and Leto. Even though she is a virgin goddess, she also presides over childbirth. Sacred to her are the laurel, fir tree, fish, stag, boar, bear, dog, goat, bee and other animals. Although traditionally the friend and protector of youth, especially young women, Artemis prevented the Greeks from sailing to Troy during the Trojan war until they sacrificed a maiden to her. According to some accounts, just before the sacrifice, she rescued the victim, Iphigenia.
Twin sister of Apollo, an eternally virgin huntress who haunts wild places. She is sometimes referred to as Potnia Theron (Mistress of the Beasts) indicating her concern for and power over wild animals. She is also concerned with women's transition from girlhood to adulthood (via marriage) and with childbirth, a concern she shares with Hera and Eileithyia. Women who die are said to be struck down by her arrows.
Euripides' Hippolytus shows her in opposition to Aphrodite. Actaeon and Hippolytos are two young men who, in different ways, are destroyed by their association with Artemis.
Artemis demands the sacrifice of the virgin Iphigeneia at Aulis before she will allow the Greek fleet to sail against Troy. The reasons given for her anger vary: Agamemnon kills a deer in her sacred grove (mentioned in Sophocles, Electra); or he boasts that he is a better shot than Artemis herself (Apollodorus). For the motif of Artemis' concern to protect her animals against marauding heroes see the story of Heracles and the Kerynitian hind; for the motif of mortals boasting of their superiority to the gods see the stories of Arachne, Actaeon, Marsyas, Niobe, the Lesser Ajax.
click on the flower
Argonauts
The ARGONAUTS fit in a speaking timber
from the oak of Dodona in the prow of the
"Argo"
