This statue of Parian marble, known as "Athena with the cross-banded aegis", is a rather masculine depiction of Athena, the patron goddess of Pergamon. The impression of masculinity in the face, body-shape and posture of the Pergamon statue is heightened in these photos by the stark top-lighting and red background used by the Pergamon Museum during its special exhibition "The return of the gods" in 2009.

It was made around 180-170 BC, during the reign of Eumenes II (ruled 197-159 BC), and is modelled on the Athena Parthenos of Pheidias, made around 450-430 BC (see next page).

The body of the statue was found during excavation in November 1880, in the ruins behind the north stoa of the Sanctuary of Athena Nikephoros (see gallery 2, pages 20-22) of the Pergamon Acropolis, without its head or lower right arm. The head, found in February 1881 further north of the find-spot of the body, was restored separately, and later added to the body in Berlin. [1]

The sculpture, now in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin, has been extensively reconstructed. The figure of Athena is 1.79 metres tall. She stands on sandals 3.3 cm high on a circular base 5 cm thick, giving the statue a total height of 1.87 metres.

When the body was first unearthed the ancient paint was still visible. Traces of colour can still be seen in the folds of the garments and on the sandals.

The aegis [2] in Greek myth refers to a goatskin prepared by the god Hephaistos which bore the head of the Gorgon Medusa. The Gorgon's head, known as the Gorgoneion, became an attribute of Athena in Greek art, and later mortal rulers, including Alexander the Great and Roman Emperor Hadrian are shown wearing this fearsome symbol on the breastplate of their armour.

The goddess wears a peplos, hanging loosely from the shoulders and breast, and overhanging a girdle of two entwined serpents which gathers the garment at the waist. (Compare the sculpting of the peplos with that of the Athena Parthenos statue on the next page.)

The aegis, worn over the peplos, comprises of two bands which cross at the back (photo, right), pass over the shoulders, cross again at the front between the breasts, where they are fastened together by the Gorgoneion, then continue under the opposite arms (detailed close-up below).

As in other statues of Athena of the Classical and Hellenistic periods, such as the "Piraeus Athena" (see photo below), the snakes which grew out of the gorgon's head have been redistributed aound the edges of the aegis. The Gorgoneion itself has here been reduced to an oval brooch; its face appears quite harmless, and only the potruding tongue reminds us of more awesome depictions of the creature.

Athena stands with her weight resting on her right leg. Her torso is arched back and turned to her right from the hips, so that her right shoulder and arm are lower and further forward of the left. Her left knee is raised and bent forward, so that she appears to be stepping foward. Her head is bent forward and to her right, but her gaze seems to be directed ahead. Her facial expression could be interpreted in several ways. At first it seems blank, but in conjunction with her aegis armour and her pose it suggests resolution and determination.

It is not certain what the figure was holding. Many statues and vase paintings show Athena carrying a shield or spear in her left hand, and in others with her right hand she is either holding or throwing a spear (as in the famous statue of Athena Promachos on the Athens Acropolis) or a small figure of Nike, the goddess of victory (in the Athena Parthenos statue, see next page). See more photos of Athena statues on Athens Acropolis gallery, page 13.

The position of the right shoulder and upper arm suggest that the rest of the arm extended forward. She would not, then, be throwing a spear or holding one at her side in the conventional way. If she held a Nike, then the arm would have been bent at the elbow, with the forearm raised, so that she could hold the victory goddess in the upturned palm of her outstretched hand, as in the Piraeus Athena (see photo below).

In this case, the pose and expression would suggest that she is stepping forward, silently and solemnly, to offer a gift: the promise of victory to the ruler and people of Pergamon by Athena Polias Nikephoros - Athena of the City, Bringer of Victory - to whom the temple on the Pergamon Acropolis was dedicated (see gallery 2, pages 20-22).

As in other masterpieces of Hellenistic Pergamese sculpture, this figure has taken the ideas of the Classical models several steps further: it is less idealized and more realistic, less static and more dynamic. The treatment of the human body, the exposed flesh and muscles as well as the draped forms, and the flowing contours and curving deep folds of the peplos create stronger rhythmic qualities. As a whole the statue is uncannily lifelike. Such works have been compared to those of the European Baroque of the 17th and 18th centuries.

This Athena is no conventional beauty (see another more feminine Athena in the photo below), but neither is she quite "the terrible warlike", "the destroyer of cities", the ferocious warrior in other depictions of her (see a statue of Athena battling the Giants in the photo below).

Head of Athena of the
"Velletri type", named after
a similar statue found in
Velletri, Italy, and now in
the Louvre, Paris.

Marble, Roman copy of
a Greek original, circa
390-380 BC, or perhaps
of a bronze by Kresilas,
circa 430 BC.

The bust of this restored
head is a modern addition.

Detail of the "Piraeus Athena", a bronze statue
of Athena wearing a single banded aegis.

A much gentler image of Athena, one of whose epithets was
Glaukopi (translated as "shining-eyed", "bright-eyed" or "owl-faced").
The stone inlays of the eyes really do shine against the dark bronze.
It is thought that in her left hand she held a spear or a shield, and
in her right a statuette of Nike, an owl or a libation bowl.

The goddess wears a Doric peplos with a large overfold raised
at the back to cover her shoulders. The cheek coverings of her
Corinthian helmet are decorated with owls. Not visible in this
photo are the two flying griffins decorating the back of her helmet,
and the snake coiled around the base of the crest. Unusually, she
does not wear a girdle. The single band passing diagonally from
around her right shoulder down to below her left breast is the
aegis with a gorgoneion and snakes.

See the statue in full-length below.

It is not certain whether this statue, made circa 340-330 BC
(Hellenistic period), is an original or a classicistic work modelled
on an earlier sculpture. Some scholars have nevertheless
attributed it to either Kephisodotos or Euphranor.

1. "Athena with the cross-banded aegis" in Berlin

Pergamon Museum, Berlin, Inv. No. 1111.

2. The aegis

The aegis (Greek, αἰγίς)

Excerpts from the entry on the aegis in A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities by William Smith:

"According to the mythologers, the aegis worn by Zeus was the hide of the goat Amaltheia, which had suckled him in his infancy. Hyginus relates (Poeticon astronomicon, 13) that, when he was preparing to resist the Titans, he was directed, if he wished to conquer, to wear a goat-skin with the head of the Gorgon. To this particular goatskin the term aegis was afterwards confined. Homer always represents it as part of the armour of Zeus, whom on this account he distinguishes by the epithet aegis-bearing (αἰγίοχος, aigiochos). He, however, asserts that it was borrowed on different occasions both by Apollo (Iliad, 15.229, 307-318, 360, 24.20), and by Athena (Iliad, 2.447-449, 18.204, 21.400)."

"It must also be borne in mind that the heavy shields of the ancient Greeks were in part supported by a belt or strap (τελαμών, telamon, balteus) passing over the right shoulder, and, when not elevated with the shield, descending transversely to the left hip."

"Other statues of Athena represent her in a state of repose, and with the goat-skin falling obliquely from its loose fastening over her right shoulder, so as to pass round the body under the left arm."

"In the middle of it was fixed the appalling Gorgon's head (Iliad, 5.741), and its border was surrounded with golden tassels (θύσανοι, thisanoi), each of which was worth a hecatomb [a hundred oxen] (Iliad, 2.446-449)."

Athena puts on the aegis in Homer's Iliad:

"But Athene, daughter of Zeus that beareth the aegis, let fall upon her father's floor her soft robe, richly broidered, that herself had wrought and her hands had fashioned, and put on her the tunic of Zeus, the cloud-gatherer, and arrayed her in armour for tearful war.

About her shoulders she flung the tasselled aegis, fraught with terror, all about which Rout is set as a crown, and therein is Strife, therein Valour, and therein Onset, that maketh the blood run cold, and therein is the head of the dread monster, the Gorgon, dread and awful, a portent of Zeus that beareth the aegis.

And upon her head she set the helmet with two horns and with bosses four, wrought of gold, and fitted with the men-at-arms of an hundred cities."

Hyginus on the aegis and the Gorgoneion:

"Some have called Aex [Aix, Aιξ] the daughter of Sol [Helios], who surpassed many in beauty of body, but in contrast to this beauty, had a most horrible face. Terrified by it, the Titans begged Terra [Gaia] to hide her body, and Terra is said to have hidden her in a cave in the island of Crete.

Later she became nurse of Jove [Zeus], as we have said before. But when Jupiter [Zeus], confident in his youth, was preparing for war against the Titans, oracular reply was given to him that if he wished to win, he should carry on the war protected with the skin of a goat, aigos, and the head of the Gorgon. The Greeks call this the aegis.

When this was done, as we have shown above, Jupiter, overcoming the Titans, gained possession of the kingdom. Covering the remaining bones of the goat with a skin, he gave life to them and memorialised them, picturing them with stars. Afterwards he gave to Minerva [Athena] the aegis with which he had been protected when he won."

Hyginus, Poeticon astronomicon, 2.13, The Charioteer. At the Theoi Project.

The Greek Historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Ἡρόδοτος, circa 484 - circa 425 BC), always keen to find foreign antecedents to Greek myths and customs, believed the aegis originated in Africa:

"It would seem that the robe and aegis of the images of Athena were copied by the Greeks from the Libyan women; for except that Libyan women dress in leather, and that the tassels of their goatskin cloaks are not snakes but thongs of hide, in everything else their equipment is the same.

And in fact, the very name betrays that the attire of the statues of Pallas has come from Libya; for Libyan women wear the hairless tasselled 'aegea' over their dress, colored with madder, and the Greeks have changed the name of these aegeae into their 'aegides'.

Furthermore, in my opinion the ceremonial chant first originated in Libya: for the women of that country chant very tunefully. And it is from the Libyans that the Greeks have learned to drive four-horse chariots."

A cast bronze roundel of Athena Promachos, wearing a
sleeveless peplos, fastened at the right shoulder with
a round fibula, a helmet in the form of Medusa's head
and the aegis with a snake on the border over her left
shoulder. Her right arm is raised as if about to throw
a spear, as in statues of Athena Promachos.

A decoration from a formal chariot used for
parades, perhaps belonging to a wealthy hetairos
(royal officer) or a member of the Macedonian royal
family. Possibly from a workshop in Delos. Hellenistic,
first half of the 2nd century BC. Diameter 27 cm.

Excavated on Kyprion Agoniston Square, Thessaloniki,
during a rescue dig in a Hellenistic public building,
possibly the palace of the Macedonian kings.

Marble statue of Athena from
Leptis Magna, Tripolitania (Lybia).
Roman, "copy of an original from
the end of the 5th century BC."

Greek work influenced by
Near Eastern (Syrian) art.
From one of the Dipylon
graves in Kerameikos,
Athens, 730-720 BC.
Height 24 cm.

Detail of the "Beautiful Artemis",
a marble statue of Artemis Ephesia
depicting the goddess wearing
a coiled headdress.

Roman Imperial period,
125-175 AD.

Ephesus Museum, Selçuk.
Inv. No. 718.

Detail of a modern copy of a
statue of Artemis from Ephesus
in a fountain in Selçuk, Turkey.
The original is in the
Ephesus Museum, Selçuk.

The so-called "Kalathiskos Dancer", a Neo-Attic
marble relief depicting a young dancing woman
wearing a basket-like headdress (kalathiskos)
and a swirling, transparent chiton.

Thought to have been made in a Neo-Attic workshop in
Athens for the Roman market in the 1st century BC, as
a copy of a Classical original, perhaps by Kallimachos.

Height 95 cm; width 54 cm; depth 10 cm;
relief height 3.5 cm.

Altes Museum, Berlin. Inv. No. SK 1456.
Acquired in Florence, Italy, in 1892.

Detail of the so-called "Zeus Ammon"
(see gallery 2, page 19) now in
Naples. A large marble high relief
of the 2nd century AD, thought to
represent a river deity or a nymph,
to which a head from another statue
has been added. The head wears
what appears to be a polos.

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