Athena: Goddess of Wisdom
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2023
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode contains graphic references of a sexual nature.
Athena is the goddess of wisdom, tactical war and skilled craft in Greek mythology.
She is the favourite daughter of Zeus and Metis, and is actually born from Zeus himself. She is one of the most recognisable Greek divinities, often depicted with her signature peaked helmet, spear, breast plate and shield, often with Medusa’s head it. One of the most important myths of Athena is the contest between herself and her uncle, Poseidon, for the patronage of Athens. Spoiler alert: Athena wins. To continue our immersion into the deities of the Greek Gods, this week Tristan Hughes is joined by Rachel Kousser, Professor of Art History at the City University of New York. Together they discuss Athena’s most iconic representations in both art and literature, and how she has become one of the must enduring figures of antiquity.
The Senior Producer was Elena Guthrie
Script written by Andrew Hulse
Voice over performed by Nicola Woolley
The Assistant Producer was Annie Coloe
Edited by Aidan Lonergan
If you enjoyed this episode, you might also enjoy other episodes in the series: Zeus: King of the Gods, Hera: Queen of the Gods, Hephaestus: God of Fire, Aphrodite: Goddess of Love, and Ares: God of War.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Sing to me a story of Olympus and the death of the Scots who govern Earth, sea and sky. |
| 0:21.0 | That is what Zeus commands. |
| 0:24.4 | He will hear the details of this dispute. |
| 0:28.1 | At the plea of King Ketcrops, he and his fellow Olympians have come to act as a jury. |
| 0:35.6 | King Ketcrops himself, he bows his head in a reverent silence, but the sound of his anxiety, |
| 0:42.3 | the sound of his worry, still fills the palace. |
| 0:47.6 | It is not the drumming of fingers, the grinding of teeth or the tapping of feet. |
| 0:53.4 | It is the whisper of scales against stone. |
| 0:58.4 | The King Ketcrops is an autoxon. |
| 1:01.4 | He is born of the Earth itself near a mother or father, and so while he has the head and |
| 1:07.3 | body of a man, his legs are the coiled tail of a snake. |
| 1:13.2 | The sound is that tail nervously coiling and uncoiling about his throne. |
| 1:19.8 | What is it that fills his mind with worry? |
| 1:23.2 | Why has he called on this deathless jury? |
| 1:27.0 | King Ketcrops has been asked to make an impossible judgment, to choose between two gods for patron |
| 1:34.2 | of his city, Poseidon, Lord of the Deep and the Grey-Eid Athena, maiden of wisdom and war. |
| 1:43.2 | And as for the stakes, they are no more or less than his city's very survival. |
| 1:53.8 | It is the entrance on History Hit. |
| 1:58.1 | I am Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's episode, we will our Greek Godsend Goddesses |
| 2:03.1 | series, it goes storming on its relentless, we are on deity number six now, and we are |
| 2:09.0 | talking all about the Goddess of Wisdom, Athena. |
| 2:14.2 | In today's episode, naturally with all of our episodes in the Greek Godsend Goddesses |
... |
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