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Theaegis (/ˈiːdʒɪs/EE-jis;[1]Ancient Greek:αἰγίςaigís), as stated in theIliad, is a device carried byAthena andZeus, variously interpreted as an animal skin or ashield and sometimes featuring the head of aGorgon. There may be a connection with a deity named Aex, a daughter ofHelios and a nurse of Zeus or alternatively a mistress of Zeus (Hyginus,Astronomica 2. 13).[2]
The modern concept of doing something "under someone'saegis" means doing something under the protection of a powerful, knowledgeable, or benevolent source. The wordaegis is identified with protection by a strong force with its roots inGreek mythology and adopted by theRomans; there areparallels inNorse mythology and inEgyptian mythology as well,[3] where the Greek wordaegis is applied by extension.
TheGreekαἰγίςaigis has many meanings, including:[4]
The original meaning may have been the first, andΖεὺς ΑἰγίοχοςZeus Aigiokhos = "Zeus who holds the aegis" may have originally meant "Sky/Heaven, who holds the thunderstorm". The transition to the meaning "shield" or "goatskin" may have come byfolk etymology among a people familiar with draping an animal skin over the left arm as a shield.[6]
The aegis of Athena is referred to in several places in theIliad. "It produced a sound as frommyriad 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."[2]
Virgil imagines theCyclopes inHephaestus'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 theGorgon herself upon the goddess's breast—a severed head rolling its eyes",[7] furnished with golden tassels and bearing theGorgoneion (Medusa's head) in the central boss. Some of theAttic vase-painters retained an archaic tradition that the tassels had originally beenserpents in their representations of the aegis. When the Olympian deities overtook the older deities of Greece and she was born ofMetis (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.[8][tone] "Aegis-bearing Zeus", as he is in theIliad, sometimes lends the fearsome aegis toAthena. In theIliad when Zeus sendsApollo to revive the woundedHector, Apollo, holding the aegis, charges the Achaeans, pushing them back to their ships drawn up on the shore. According toEdith Hamilton'sMythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes,[9] the Aegis is thebreastplate 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.
Classical Greece interpreted the Homeric aegis usually as a cover of some kind borne by Athena. It was supposed byEuripides (Ion, 995) that the aegis borne by Athena was the skin of the slainGorgon,[10] yet the usual understanding[11] is that theGorgoneion wasadded to the aegis, avotive offering from a gratefulPerseus.
In a similar interpretation, Aex, a daughter ofHelios, represented as a great fire-breathingchthonic serpent similar to theChimera, was slain and flayed byAthena, who afterwards wore its skin, the aegis, as acuirass (Diodorus Siculus iii. 70),[8] or as achlamys. TheDouris cup shows that the aegis was represented exactly as the skin of the great serpent, with its scales clearly delineated.
John Tzetzes says[12] that aegis was the skin of the monstrous giantPallas whom Athena overcame and whose name she attached to her own.
In a late rendering byGaius Julius Hyginus (Poetical Astronomy ii. 13), Zeus is said to have used the skin of a petgoat owned by his nurseAmalthea (aigis "goat-skin") which suckled him inCrete, as a shield when he went forth to do battle against theTitans.[8]
The aegis appears in works of art sometimes as an animal's skin thrown over Athena's shoulders and arms, occasionally with a border of snakes, usually also bearing the Gorgon head, thegorgoneion. In some pottery it appears as a tasselled cover over Athena's dress. It is sometimes represented on the statues ofRoman emperors, heroes, and warriors, and on coins, cameos and vases.[8] A vestige of that appears in a portrait ofAlexander the Great in a fresco from Pompeii dated to the first century BC, which shows the image of the head of a woman on his armor that resembles the Gorgon.
Herodotus thought he had identified the source of the aegis inancient Libya, which was always a distant territory of ancient magic for the Greeks. "Athene's garments and aegis were borrowed by the Greeks from the Libyan women, who are dressed in exactly the same way, except that their leather garments are fringed with thongs, not serpents."[14]
Robert Graves inThe Greek Myths (1955) asserts that the aegis in its Libyan sense had been a shamanic pouch containing various ritual objects, bearing the device of a monstrous serpent-haired visage with tusk-like teeth and a protruding tongue which was meant to frighten away the uninitiated. In this context, Graves identifies the aegis as clearly belonging first to Athena.
One current interpretation is that theHittite sacral hieratic hunting bag (kursas), a rough and shaggy goatskin that has been firmly established in literary texts and iconography by H. G. Güterbock,[15] was a source of the aegis.[16]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Aegis".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 254.
