Minerva
deity figure · 11 works · 13 mentions · 18 anchored passages
Attic Pallas · Pallas · a helmeted Minerva · our national goddess · swayer of the aegis · the Minervas · the virgin goddess
in the texts
On the Nature of the Gods
Traditional virgin goddess, subject of Diogenes of Babylon's allegorizing treatise On Minerva.
Following him, Diogenes of Babylon, in the book entitled On Minerva, by referring the birth of Jupiter and the origin of the virgin goddess to natural science, severs them from the fable.
for from childhood we have known Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Neptune, Vulcan, Apollo, and the rest of the gods by that face which painters and sculptors chose, and not only by face but by adornment, age, and dress.
For in that way it will be allowed to say that Jupiter is always bearded, Apollo always beardless, that Minerva's eyes are grey, Neptune's blue.
Clouds
Athena/Minerva, patron goddess of Athens, formally invoked in the choral parabasis.
and thou, our national goddess, swayer of the aegis, Minerva, guardian of the city!
Construction Construed and Constitutions Vindicated
Goddess invoked as the standard of quick-sightedness and skill, against whom the unnamed old god of 'construction' is favorably compared.
There was in old times a God, said by his worshippers to be blind and lame and foolish, but who seems to me to be more quick-sighted, active and acute in the arts of construction than Minerva herself.
Ad Nationes
Roman goddess of wisdom and war.
If they were able to bestow on the Romans, why did Minerva not defend Athens from Xerxes?
For even if Varro reports the most ancient gods to be Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, it ought not to have escaped us that every father is older than his sons, both Saturn older than Jupiter and Heaven than Saturn;
Apologeticum
Goddess of wisdom, cited in euhemerist, household-disregard, and idol-form arguments.
And yet how much is the Attic Pallas distinguished from the post of a cross, or the Pharian Ceres, which stand without effigy, a rude stake and a shapeless block of wood?
The household gods, whom you call Lares, you handle with a household power, pawning them, selling them, sometimes turning a Saturn into a stewpot, sometimes a Minerva into a ladle, as each grows worn and battered by long worship, as each master has felt the more sanctifying necessity of his household.
likewise that every fruit teemed forth from the earth before Liber and Ceres and Minerva — nay, before that first man — since nothing that was provided for the sustenance and preservation of man could be brought in after man.
De Corona
Goddess credited with inventing the ship and associated with the military olive crown.
When warfare too is crowned with olive, the idolatry is toward Minerva, equally the goddess of arms, but crowned from this tree also for the peace entered into with Neptune.
But even if Minerva first built a ship, I shall see Jonah and the apostles sailing.
De idolatria
Roman goddess honoured in schoolroom rites (Quinquatria, Minervalia) that Tertullian treats as idolatrous.
The very first contribution of a new pupil he consecrates to the honour and name of Minerva, so that, although he be not pronounced, in word, to be profaned to some idol, partaking of idol-meat, he is shunned as an idolater.
De Pallio
Deity credited by the audience's own tradition with inventing weaving and looms.
But you preferred to assign all the dispensing of wool-work and the construction of looms to Minerva, though with Arachne the workshop was more diligent.
De Spectaculis
Goddess associated with the birth of Erichthonius and patroness of scenic and gymnastic arts.
And there is plainly, in the scenic arts too, the patronage of Liber and Venus.
on behalf of the college of the Musical and Minervalian and Apollinarian arts, and the Martial too, by combat, by trumpet in the stadium, they rival the circus, which is surely itself the temple of that idol whose solemnities it celebrates.
" Erichthonius, the son of Minerva and Vulcan—and indeed of lust spilled to the earth—is a demonic portent, nay, the devil himself, not a serpent.
De Testimonio Animae
A Roman goddess named among the pagan gods and referenced again through the ritual dressing of her statue.
You stand beneath Aesculapius, you adorn Juno in bronze, you put black-formed helmets upon Minerva, and you call to witness none of the gods present.
History of the Peloponnesian War
Goddess whose temple in Amphipolis and statue at Athens serve as landmarks in the battle narrative and the alliance treaty.
That they shall each erect a pillar, that at Lacedaemon near the statue of Apollo in the Amyclaeum, and that at Athens in the citadel, near the statue of Minerva.
His descent from Cerdylium having been observed, as also his sacrificing, when he was in the city —of which a view is commanded from the outside—near the temple of Minerva, and his being occupied with these measures, tidings were carried to Cleon (for he had gone forward at the time to look about him) that the enemy's whole force was visible in the city;