Athena was the air goddess of the Greeks, or, in Ruskin's phrase, "the queen of the air." She was known also by the name Pallas, and among the Romans as Minerva. As the air comes to us from out the great dome of the sky, so Athena was said to have sprung fully armed from the head of her father Zeus. The old Homeric hymn tells how
"Wonder strange possessed
The everlasting gods that shape to see,
Shaking a javelin keen, impetuously
Rush from the crest of ægis-bearing Jove." [5]
[5] In Shelley's translation.
Her eyes were blue, the color of the sky; her hair hung in ringlets over her shoulders. Her dress was
"A gorgeous robe
Of many hues, which her own hands had wrought." [6]
[6] Iliad, Book viii., lines 483, 484.
When arrayed for war she wore a golden helmet and carried a shield, or ægis. In the centre of this shield was fastened the gorgon's head which Perseus had cut off with her aid. In her hand she wielded a mighty spear.
The owl was her symbolic bird, and she was called glaukopis, or owl-eyed, because her wisdom gave her sight in darkness. The serpent was the emblem of her command over the beneficent and healing influences in the earth. Her favorite plant was the fruitful olive, valued by the Greeks both for the beauty of its foliage and for the usefulness of its oil.
In the fortunes of war, when it was for defensive aims, Athena took an intense interest and an active part. In the war between the Greeks and the Trojans, she was on the side of the Greeks, who sought to recover from their enemies their queen Helen, whom the Trojan prince had captured. When the Greek army assembled before the walls of Troy—