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{{short description|Shield, buckler, or breastplate of Athena and Zeus bearing the head of Medusa}}
{{About|the shield used by Zeus in Greek mythology}}
[[File:Athena Lemnia (SK Dresden 49) 04.jpg|thumb|The aegis on the so-called [[Athena Lemnia]], a Roman statue type often identified as a copy of a work by the Classical Greek sculptor [[Pheidias]] (Dresden Skulpturensammlung)]]

The '''aegis''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|i:|dʒ|ɪ|s}} {{respell|EE|jis}};<ref>{{cite web |title=aegis |url=https://www.lexico.com/definition/aegis |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200323141618/https://www.lexico.com/definition/aegis |url-status=dead |archive-date=March 23, 2020 |work=Oxford Dictionary |publisher=Lexico
|access-date=23 June 2014}}</ref> {{langx|grc|αἰγίς}} ''aigís''), as stated in the ''[[Iliad]]'', is a device carried by [[Athena]] and [[Zeus]], variously interpreted as an animal skin or a [[shield]] and sometimes featuring the head of a [[Gorgon]]. There may be a connection with a deity named Aex, a daughter of [[Helios]] and a nurse of Zeus or alternatively a mistress of Zeus ([[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], ''Astronomica'' 2. 13).<ref name=Hammond/>

The modern concept of doing something "under someone's ''aegis''{{-"}} means doing something under the protection of a powerful, knowledgeable, or benevolent source.  The word ''aegis'' is identified with protection by a strong force with its roots in [[Greek mythology]] and adopted by the [[Roman mythology|Romans]]; there are [[Comparative mythology|parallels]] in [[Norse mythology]] and in [[Egyptian mythology]] as well,<ref>{{Cite web |last=www.kaloa.net |first=Studio de design Kaloa- |title=Ægis |url=https://www.jacquesrougeriedatabase.com/project/aegis |access-date=2025-09-07 |website=Jacques Rougerie Database |language=en}}</ref> where the Greek word ''aegis'' is applied by extension.

==Etymology==
The [[Greek language|Greek]] {{lang|grc|αἰγίς}} ''aigis'' has many meanings, including:<ref>{{LSJ|ai)gi/s|αἰγίς|ref}}.</ref>
# "violent windstorm", from the verb {{lang|grc|ἀίσσω}} ''aïssō''<ref>"to quickly move, to shoot, dart, to put in motion": {{LSJ|a)i/ssw|ἀίσσω|ref|mLSJ}}.</ref> ([[word stem]] {{lang|grc|ἀιγ-}} ''aïg-'') = "I rush or move violently". Akin to {{lang|grc|καταιγίς}} ''kataigis'', "thunderstorm".
# The shield of a deity as described above.
# "goatskin coat", from treating the word as meaning "something grammatically feminine pertaining to [[goat]]": Greek {{lang|grc|αἴξ}} ''aix'' ([[stem (linguistics)|stem]] {{lang|grc|αἰγ-}} ''aig-'') = "goat" + suffix {{lang|grc|-ίς}} ''-is'' (stem {{lang|grc|-ίδ-}} ''-id-'').

The original meaning may have been the first, and {{lang|grc|Ζεὺς Αἰγίοχος}} ''Zeus 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 by [[folk etymology]] among a people familiar with draping an animal skin over the left arm as a shield.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), AEGIS |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0063:entry=aegis-cn |access-date=2024-03-02 |website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref>

==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 classical poetry and art==
[[Image:Napoli BW 2013-05-16 16-24-01.jpg|thumb|left| First century BC depiction of Alexander wearing the aegis on the [[Alexander Mosaic]], [[Pompeii]] ([[Naples National Archaeological Museum]])]]

[[Classical Greece]] interpreted the Homeric aegis usually as a cover of some kind borne by Athena. It was supposed by [[Euripides]] (''Ion'', 995) that the aegis borne by Athena was the skin of the slain [[Gorgon]],<ref>Noted by Graves 1960, 9.a; [[Károly Kerényi]], ''The Gods of the Greeks'' 1951, p 50.</ref> yet the usual understanding<ref>As in Kerenyi 1951:50</ref>  is that the ''Gorgoneion'' was ''added'' to the aegis, a [[votive offering]] from a grateful [[Perseus]].

In a similar interpretation, Aex, a daughter of [[Helios]], represented as a great fire-breathing [[chthonic]] serpent similar to the [[Chimera (mythology)|Chimera]], was slain and flayed by [[Athena]], who afterwards wore its skin, the aegis, as a [[cuirass]] ([[Diodorus Siculus]] iii. 70),<ref name="EB1911"/> or as a [[chlamys]]. The [[Douris (vase painter)|Douris cup]] shows that the aegis was represented exactly as the skin of the great serpent, with its scales clearly delineated.

[[John Tzetzes]] says<ref>[[John Tzetzes]], ''On Lycophron'', 355.</ref> that aegis was the skin of the monstrous giant [[Pallas (Giant)|Pallas]] whom Athena overcame and whose name she attached to her own.

In a late rendering by [[Gaius Julius Hyginus]] (''Poetical Astronomy'' ii. 13), Zeus is said to have used the skin of a pet [[goat]] owned by his nurse [[Amalthea (mythology)|Amalthea]] (''aigis'' "goat-skin") which suckled him in [[Crete]], as a shield when he went forth to do battle against the [[Titan (mythology)|Titan]]s.<ref name="EB1911"/>

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, the ''gorgoneion''. In some pottery it appears as a tasselled cover over Athena's dress. It is sometimes represented on the statues of [[Roman Empire|Roman]] emperors, heroes, and warriors, and on coins, cameos and vases.<ref name="EB1911"/> A vestige of that appears in a portrait of [[Alexander 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.

==Interpretations==
[[File:Cameo August BM Gem3577.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Augustus]] shown with an ''aegis'' thrown over his shoulder as a divine attribute in the [[Blacas Cameo]]; the hole for the head appears at the point of his shoulder.<ref>Williams, Dyfri. ''Masterpieces of Classical Art'', p. 296, 2009, British Museum Press, {{ISBN|9780714122540}}</ref>]]
[[Herodotus]] thought he had identified the source of the aegis in [[ancient 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."<ref>(''Histories'' iv.189)</ref>

[[Robert Graves]] in ''[[The 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 the [[Hittites|Hittite]] sacral hieratic hunting bag (''kursas''), a rough and shaggy goatskin that has been firmly established in literary texts and iconography by H. G. Güterbock,<ref>Güterbock, ''Perspectives on Hittite Civilization: Selected Writings'' (Chicago 1997).</ref> was a source of the aegis.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Watkins|first1=Calvert|title=A Distant Anatolian Echo in Pindar: The Origin of the Aegis Again|journal=[[Harvard Studies in Classical Philology]]|date=2000|volume=100|pages=1–14|doi=10.2307/3185205|jstor=3185205}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist|30em|refs=
<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=1|wstitle=Aegis|volume=1|page=254}}</ref>
}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
{{Wiktionary}}

*[http://www.theoi.com Theoi Project: "Aigis"]
*[http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/volltexte/2003/3757/pdf/athena.pdf ''Die Aigis: Zu Typologie und Ikonographie eines Mythischen Gegenstandes'']: a Doctoral dissertation on the Ægis (Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität, [[Münster]] 1991) by [[Hayo Vierck|Sigrid Vierck]].

[[Category:Comparative mythology]]
[[Category:Greek shields]]
[[Category:Interpersonal relationships]]
[[Category:Medusa]]
[[Category:Mythography]]
[[Category:Mythological clothing]]
[[Category:Mythological shields]]
[[Category:Objects in Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Symbols of Athena]]