Editing Aegis (section)

==In Greek mythology==
[[File:Douriscup 83d40m Athene aegisWingedLionessOwl pythonVomitsJason fleeceInTree Vatican.jpg|thumb|Athena's aegis, with Gorgon, here resembles the skin of the serpent who guards the golden fleece (regurgitating Jason); cup by Douris, early fifth century BC ([[Vatican Museums]])]]The aegis of Athena is referred to in several places in the ''Iliad''. "It produced a sound as from [[myriad]] roaring dragons (''Iliad'', 4.17) and was borne by Athena in battle ... and among them went bright-eyed Athene, holding the precious aegis which is ageless and immortal: a hundred tassels of pure gold hang fluttering from it, tight-woven each of them, and each the worth of a hundred oxen."<ref name=Hammond>{{cite book|translator=Martin Hammond |date=1987 |orig-year= 1st pub. c. 735 B.C. |author= Homer |title=The Iliad|title-link=The Iliad |volume=2 |pages=446–9|publisher= Penguin Classics |isbn= 978-0-14044-444-5}}</ref>

Virgil imagines the [[Cyclopes]] in [[Hephaestus]]'s forge, who "busily burnished the aegis Athena wears in her angry moods—a fearsome thing with a surface of gold like scaly snake-skin, and the linked serpents and the [[Gorgon]] herself upon the goddess's breast—a severed head rolling its eyes",<ref>''[[Aeneid]]'' 8.435–8, (Day-Lewie's translation).</ref> furnished with golden tassels and bearing the ''[[Gorgoneion]]'' ([[Medusa]]'s head) in the central boss. Some of the [[Attica|Attic]] vase-painters retained an archaic tradition that the tassels had originally been [[Serpent (symbolism)|serpents]] in their representations of the aegis. When the Olympian deities overtook the older deities of Greece and she was born of [[Metis (mythology)|Metis]] (inside Zeus who had swallowed the goddess) and "re-born" through the head of Zeus fully clothed, Athena already wore her typical garments.

When the Olympian shakes the aegis, [[Mount Ida]] is wrapped in clouds, the thunder rolls and men are struck down with fear.<ref name="EB1911"/>{{tone inline|date=January 2022}} "Aegis-bearing Zeus", as he is in the ''Iliad'', sometimes lends the fearsome aegis to [[Athena]]. In the ''Iliad'' when Zeus sends [[Apollo]] to revive the wounded [[Hector]], Apollo, holding the aegis, charges the Achaeans, pushing them back to their ships drawn up on the shore. According to [[Edith Hamilton]]'s ''Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes'',<ref>Part I, section I (Warner Books' United States Paperback Edition)</ref> the Aegis is the [[breastplate]] of Zeus, and was "awful to behold". However, Zeus is normally portrayed in classical sculpture holding a thunderbolt or lightning, bearing neither a shield nor a breastplate.

In some versions, Zeus watched Athena and [[Pallas (daughter of Triton)|Triton's daughter, Pallas]], compete in a friendly [[Sparring|mock battle]] involving spears. Not wanting his daughter to lose, Zeus flapped his aegis to distract Pallas, whom Athena accidentally impaled. Zeus apologized to Athena by giving her the aegis; Athena then named herself Pallas Athena in tribute to her late friend.