Athene’s surname of Pallas is derived by Plato from πάλλειν, to brandish, because of her brandished spear; but it is more likely to be from πάλλαξ (a virgin), which would answer to her other surname of παρθένος, likewise a virgin, familiar to us for the sake of the most beautiful of all heathen remains, the Parthenon, as well as the ancient name of Naples, Parthenope. This, however, was a female name in Greece, and numerous instances of persons called Parthenios and Palladios attest the general devotion to this goddess, perhaps the grandest of all the imaginings of the Indo-European.
There is something absolutely satisfactory in seeing how much more the loftier and purer deities, Athene, Apollo, Artemis, reigned over Greek nomenclature than the embodiments of brute force and sensual pleasure, Ares and Aphrodite, both probably introductions from the passionate Asiatics, and as we see in Homer, entirely on the Trojan side. An occasional Aretas and Arete are the chief recorded namesakes of Ares, presiding god of the Areopagus as he was; and thence may have come the Italian Aretino, and an Areta, who appears in Cornwall. Aphrodite seems to have hardly one derived from her name, which is explained as the Foam Sprung.[[26]]
[26]. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology; Le Beau, Bas Empire; Gladstone, Homer.
Section V.—Apollo and Artemis.
The brother and sister deities, twin children of Zeus and Leto, are, with the exception of Athene, the purest and brightest creations of Greek mythology.
The sister’s name, Artemis, certainly meant the sound, whole, or vigorous; that of the brother, Apollōn, is not so certainly explained; though Æschylus considered it to come from ἀπόλλυμι, to destroy.
They both of them had many votaries in Greece; such names as Apollodorus (gift of Apollo), Apollonius, and the like, arising in plenty, but none of them have continued into Christian times, though Apollos was a companion of St. Paul. The sole exception is Apollonia, an Alexandrian maiden, whose martyrdom began by the extraction of all her teeth, thus establishing St. Apolline, as the French call her, as the favourite subject of invocation in the toothache. Abellona, the Danish form of this name, is a great favourite in Jutland and the isles, probably from some relic of the toothless maiden. The Slovaks use it as Polonija or Polona.
The votaries of Artemis did not leave a saint to perpetuate them; but Artemisia, the brave queen of Halicarnassus, had a name of sufficient stateliness to delight the précieuses. Thus Artémise was almost as useful in French romances as the still more magnificent[magnificent] Artémidore, the French version of Artemidorus (gift of Artemis).
It was a late fancy of mythology, when all was becoming confused, that made Apollo and Artemis into the sun and moon deities, partly in consequence of their epithets Phœbus, Phœbe, from φάω (to shine). The original Phœbe seems to have belonged to some elder myth, for she is said to have been daughter of Heaven and Earth, and to have been the original owner of the Delphic oracle. Afterwards she was said to have been the mother of Leto (the obscure), and thus grandmother of Apollo and Artemis, who thence took their epithet. This was probably a myth of the alternation of light and darkness; but as we have received our notions of Greek mythology through the dull Roman medium, it is almost impossible to disentangle our idea of Phœbus from the sun, or of Phœbe from the crescent moon. In like manner the exclusively modern Greek φωτεινή (bright), Photinee, comes from φώς phos (light), as does Photius, used in Russia as Fotie.