Orationes 2

9. Let our dream, then, prove a waking truth; and do you, Lady Athena, grant me good fortune and grace in all else, and lay your hand upon the present discourse, and bring to fulfilment, according to its worth, the things that were shown — for vivid they were shown to me in the night — so that, as they were clearly and surely shown, they may also come to pass in deed. This shall be for you a discourse mingled now of both prayer and hymn. Now all the fairest things concern Athena and come from Athena, and among these the most worthy of mention is the birth of the goddess; to say it in sum, she is the child, she alone of one alone, of the Maker and King of all. For he had nothing from which, of equal honour, to make her, but, withdrawing into himself, of himself he begets and bears the goddess; so that she alone is firmly the true-born child of the Father, sprung from a stock equal to and in agreement with himself. And what is still greater than this, he sent her up from the fairest of his own parts, from his head — since neither was there anything finer to rise from than his head, nor a better place for Athena to rise from; but both came to pass according to worth. And having been born of Zeus, and of him alone, and from his head, she drew to herself a fourth thing no less wonderful than these: that which they say came to pass concerning the cleft of the god's head — that marvel; for she rose up at once in full armour, like the sun rising together with its rays, arrayed within by her 10. Father. Therefore it is never lawful for her to leave her Father, but she is ever present and dwells with him, as though grown together with him, and breathes toward him and is with him, alone with him alone, mindful of her birth, and rendering the fitting wage for his birth-pangs. And she seems to me to have been born the eldest of the gods, or among some very few that can be counted and were among the first in that time; for Zeus would not otherwise have ordered each thing, had he not set Athena beside him as assessor and counsellor. And indeed she alone wears the aegis through all time, and she alone is arrayed in her Father's arms for the Homeric war; and, as in a juggler's court, both Zeus and the goddess use the same things together. And she is so reverenced by her Father, and has shared in all things and alone seized the precedence, that even of the poets whom one might say above all attained to the goddess, Homer, when he makes mention of her aegis and of the divinity who attempted to wound her, says "terrible, which not even the thunderbolt of Zeus subdues" — speaking with assurance, since for Zeus too the gifts of Athena are worth more than his bolts and thunderbolts. And Pindar in turn says that she sits at the right hand of her Father and receives his commands for the gods. For she is greater than a messenger, she who is first to take from the Father, and assign to the other messengers their several errands, being a kind of expounder to the gods [and introducer, whenever there is need of this too]. And inasmuch as she came to be on the summit of Olympus and from the summit of Zeus, she holds the summits of all cities, having truly taken them by storm; and of men, those who are dear to the gods, Ate does not tread upon their heads, but Athena holds them up and sets foot upon them, keeping the token of her own birth. Such, then, is the goddess's power in heaven and on earth. But how much she is worth, and has been and will be, to gods and men, the children of the gods would tell better, all who are dancers of Athena; yet we too must try 11. somehow to speak, making use of the poets up to a moderate degree, and indulging our discourse only so far as not to depart much, or to make the whole commensurate with the dream. For it is said that, when the Giants drew up their line at Phlegra, the goddess slew Enceladus and their leaders, and for the other gods the work became slight, since the goddess slew whatever was strongest of the other Giants too, warding them off in pre-eminent measure as being also by nature her enemies; for they were of a stock opposite to hers. For they had sprung from the hollows of the earth and from the most irrational things, but she from the purest of the things in the upper air. Against, then, their inborn serpents and all the other things they drew from the earth, she brought to bear in turn the order inborn in herself and the fire that is her own, until she burned out and destroyed the race. This deed of hers, then, is sung as accomplished on behalf of the gods and of all the divine nature. But of the battle of the Titans and those called the Olympian gods I, at least, take no greater pleasure in speaking. But indeed, as to human affairs, how many benefactions she has laid up it is easier to conceive than to recount in speech. The greatest, then, of her benefactions, pervading all that happens and extending through all times and places, is that, with Athena leading, nothing was ever done amiss by men, nor again will they ever do anything good without Athena. And if we must mention also the particular things, and not dishonour the myths, let us add olive oil, shown by her as a medicine of health, and clothing, at once an adornment for the body and a medicine of that same health. But indeed she has become a help to both kinds of mankind, handing wool-working to women and assigning the use of arms to men; and again she took care for both seasons, war and peace, through arms and through laws. And in two ways again she dealt with each of these. For first, that men should be quit of the mountain life and the separate existence, and, coming together, dwell in the same place, throwing round themselves one common dwelling — 12. she it is who persuaded them, and cities are the gifts of Athena; whence indeed she is called by all the Guardian of the City. And men set apart for her the acropolises justly, at once as a token of her birth, and at the same time, just as for kings and leaders they set apart precincts and lands, so for the goddess who led the whole they set apart the most commanding places. This, then, I call one common benefaction of the goddess, with respect to daily life — civic order and laws; and another, the arts of fire and the arts without fire, which she has distributed and distributes among men severally; for she alone is the leader of all wisdom. And indeed, of the formations for war, she discovered and established the two foremost; for hoplites and cavalry are among the inventions of Athena. And of each there are two witnesses: of the hoplite formation, the Egyptians among the peoples of Asia, and those named after the goddess among the peoples of Europe, who first held out the shield; for there is in Egypt too a sacred nome of Athena, to whom these things are ascribed. And much the same concerning horsemanship. For it is said that Erichthonius, the nursling of the goddess, first of men yoked a chariot of horses; and that to Bellerophon there came the bridle for his steed from Athena. And Triptolemus was younger than Erichthonius; and for him too the seeds would be from Demeter, but the chariot from Athena. So that one must consider that all the gifts of Athena to men are of such a kind as are useful for wars — the phalanx of hoplites and the array of cavalry. And I think I should add what just now escaped me, that naval matters too belonged to Athena. And let this hold a double place in the discourse. For with respect to wars, if one should thus divide them in two, into those by land and those at sea, it will show the goddess's forethought; and if again one divides those by land in two, the one same thing, the naval, extends to both; the peaceful being the merchant-ships 13. and the commerce conducted through them, the warlike being the triremes — like a chariot for racing and for war; for the goddess is ambidextrous, both she herself and her gifts. And I think I am rousing a swarm, and the goddess sends them upon me two by two. For looking into commerce and sea-battle, both being Athena's, I looked into farming and commerce, both being Athena's, and a certain Buzyges, one of those from the acropolis, came over me — and how the farmer had neither the plough nor, once he had the plough, the means to yoke the oxen, had not "grey-eyed Athena given understanding," through which both plough and ship were fashioned, and horses and oxen were yoked.

And the same goddess is both most benevolent and most powerful. Of her power, then, what greater sign need one tell than that she conquers everywhere? For Victory is not mistress of Athena, but Athena is ever mistress of Victory; and her benevolence the stories about Orestes attest. Him, when he had fled from Argos to Athens, and was on trial at Athens before the Eumenides, when the votes were equal, she saved by adding her own vote. And so even now she saves all men, if the votes come out equal; for it was decided from that time to add to the equal votes the one that Athena casts. And since Athena must be a virgin through all time, and none of gods or men touch her under the law of the common goddess, here too wonderful things are found for her from her Father; for she takes the prerogatives of the goddess of fair offspring. For to Leto, wandering through all land and sea, she leads the way to the place where it was fated for her to bear; and when she gave birth, she acts as midwife and receives the children, and crowns Apollo according to the paean of the Greeks; so that, while Artemis is the goddess of childbirth to the rest, Athena became the goddess of childbirth to Artemis herself for her own birth. And she seems to have been established the teacher of both — of the art and of the deliberate choice. For she is a virgin 14. alone, next to Athena. If, then, Apollo and Artemis are wondrous beauties, one might lay the cause upon the forethought of Athena. And yet if it is reasonable that even gods should be grateful on their own behalf, how is it not reasonable that we too should be grateful on behalf of the gods, because she procured for us more benefactors? Hunts, then, and the chase are a sport of Apollo and Artemis, but it comes to belong to the goddess, for one reason because it is a part of the art of war, or rather its image — and these things they say are Athena's care — and for another because she discovered for the very gods named after them how they should come to be. And there would belong to her also a great part of the whole work of Asclepius. And the eldest of the Athenians founded an altar of Athena Hygieia too. And if their vote is right, what greater thing need one find for the concord of Asclepius and Athena? And she shares also in the works of Poseidon, both the Equestrian and the Marine, having first discovered the bridle and built the first ship. But indeed the goddess's partnership with Hermes is plain to everyone who calls Hermes god of eloquence and of the market and of trade; and she is established as goddess of contests and in place of chorus-leader. For Homer even outright declares her goddess of contests; for she judges the prizes through herself. Having discovered, then, song to the flute and song to the lyre and song to the cithara, she gives one to one of the Muses, one to Hermes, and one to Apollo. And so everywhere she holds her place, so that Ares is a child compared with her in his very own affairs, and Apollo set her over his own oracles and ordered her to receive the preliminary sacrifice. And Hephaestus is compelled by his love to ply his craft, while nature fails. And the Graces stand about her hands. And the Dioscuri dance the pyrrhic dance under her. And Iacchus and the Eleusinian goddesses follow the choirs of the goddess, and Poseidon yielded, being defeated. And the 15. excess of her power is that the plant too was shown to be a token of victory, since it is lawful for her not only to conquer, but also to crown the conquerors. And indeed the poets attribute all the most hopeless things to her, whenever they wish to show them feasible and possible — Odysseus swimming in the midst of the desert seas, and men becoming young from old and beautiful from not beautiful, and men destroying the suitors of the nations, starting from a worthless and ridiculous auxiliary stripling and two herdsmen, and other things stranger than these. For they say that Bellerophon was carried on winged Pegasus, holding to the gift of Athena, and accomplished other things and overcame the Chimaera, being out of reach of her own fire; and that Perseus, himself winged, was conveyed to the regions of the Gorgons with Athena escorting him, and was neither caught by the sight, and how, cutting off the head and bringing it back, he turned to stone those who had insolently laid these commands on him, and the greater part of the people, while he himself escaped wholly unharmed to the end, having the presence of Athena as a protection against all harm. And consistent with these, and still greater, are the things concerning Heracles. For she plainly enrolled him, a god, among the gods, if indeed even when he was among men she led him through all his labours. And on the one hand she brought him living into Hades and led him out living, when he had mastered Cerberus, and he came out so beyond likelihood that he even freed another of his friends who was lodged there before his time and led him out together with himself; and on the other, wherever it was needful to lift the bow against the divinities who opposed him, with Athena present he took courage. So that to me she seems from these things to have done nothing else than to deliver an opinion to the gods, to vote that Heracles be a god; and they, as though Zeus himself proposed it, accepted it. She plainly, then, took forethought for Apollo and Artemis, how they should be, 16. and for Heracles, how he should be a god; and Apollo too, conscious of these things, while to others he is himself the guardian of the gate, has made Athena the guardian of his own.

But indeed, to whom of all is the goddess not profitable? Or who is a safer partner? Or what fire is inescapable when she does not follow but lead? She who alone of all the gods, and alike of all the goddesses, is not named after Victory, but bears the same name as it. And she alone is called Worker and Forethought, having taken up all the titles of preserving everything. And prophets and priests invoke her as the Purifier and the Averter of evil and the overseer of the most perfect purifications; and with reason. For if, dissolving the myths, one must bring into the open what concerns the goddess, she it is who keeps off our truly common enemies, and orders well each man's own private war, ridding us of the continual and inborn foes by whom both households and cities are made desolate before they hear the trumpet, one might say — and who gives to each the true and sovereign victory, far removed from the Cadmean and truly Olympic. Through her, folly and licentiousness and cowardice and disorder and faction and insolence and arrogance toward the gods, and all such things as one might name, depart; and prudence and temperance and courage and concord and good order and good fortune and honour both of the gods and from the gods come in their stead. And, to say it in sum, the province of Athena is the whole assembly of the gods, all affairs. This, then, is why she is nearest to Zeus, and why concerning everything the same opinion always seems good in both. And for me too it is well to cease somewhere here. For the discourse has gone back to its beginning, or rather has come to the very utmost point. For one who said that she is well-nigh the power of Zeus would not, from these things, be in error. So that why need one deal pettily, recounting her actions one by one, when it is possible to say that the works of Zeus are common to Zeus and 17. to Athena? But, O forerunner of the royal halls — as the chorus sang to Aeschylus — of the heavenly and ancestral things, and of the greatest things in our own land, which you showed me by night, grant me honours from both kings, and grant that I be supreme in thought and in speech. And whoever should say the contrary to me, let him repent of it. And may I conquer as much as I wish; and in this above all, may the better cause conquer in me first.