Essay on Ancient Greek Goddesses: Athena, Demeter, Hera and Aphrodite

Consider these creatures, these people who are not people, these inhabitants of heaven. The god has a headache, his son wields an axe, and the girl springs forth with a bow and shield. She is walking toward the world. Her own flies before her. It is twilight. Look at these clouds, this limitless and impenetrable sky. This is what remains. A crease runs through it like a bloodless vein. Everything is changed and yet the same.

According to Loraux, a goddess is simply a god in the feminine’, and nothing more than the feminine form of the word ‘god’, thus explaining why these women were treated differently to their mortal counterparts. Goddesses were the one group who differed in treatment from the rest of the female Greeks. Gender roles for gods and goddesses do not completely follow the traditional gender roles that Greek society established. In Greek myth, both male and female gods are able to give birth, thus showing the only instance where the male gods differ from their human counterparts, whereas the positions and functions of female goddesses differ considerably from those ordinarily assigned to human women. Human women would not have been able to make the decision to remain a virgin, but female gods could. Goddesses are placed between possible and impossible roles for women, for example, goddesses were still expected to be mothers for the most part, but if they were distant, neglectful, or committed infidelity they were not condemned for it like a mortal woman would have been. In addition, goddesses also have affinities both with male and female gods. For the most part, the lives of mortal women were controlled by domesticity, whereas goddesses, even those who were married were not constrained by familial obligations. Here, for example, defied her husband, and Aphrodite actively ignored hers, whilst many other major goddesses decided not to marry at all, a choice that mortal women would never have been given.

The women, both goddesses, and mortals, of ancient Greece, tend to be more closely defined than men by a particular sexual status, for example, the virgins Athena, Artemis, and Hestia, the promiscuous Aphrodite, the wife Hera and the mother Demeter. On the other hand, male deities are not defined by their sexual status, or even by their gender, with some mythology of Zeus or Apollo presenting them, like male mortals, with both men and women, as fathers, and in the case of Zeus, the god who birthed Dionysus and Athena. In addition, the roles attributed to female deities are mainly focused and defined within the sphere of what would have been respectable for women, mortal or immortal, with the exceptions of Athena and Artemis. This characterization of goddesses as virgins, sex symbols, wives, or mothers, in each case, necessitates a state of sexual maturity, for in order to assume these roles they must have passed beyond the childhood stage. That being said, whilst male deities are often depicted in their childhood, most goddesses whose ‘births’ we know about are born as full-grown adults, for example, Aphrodite emerging from the sea, and Athena from the head of Zeus. This is particularly interesting when examining virgin goddesses, as only mortal girls could be virgins, not grown women as they were expected to marry and have children as early as 14. The characterization of Greek goddesses is both genders specific and, as mentioned above, defined by a particular sexual status. In the case of Athena and Artemis, historians can identify many aspects of characterizations that they share with the gods, which transcend their identity as female and virgin, though this is only one part of them, and mythology presents them as dynamic figures who have a wide range of roles, many in the male sphere of influence. These goddesses not only display feminine attributes, but masculine ones too, for example, Athena, a warrior goddess, is a patroness of wisdom, a masculine trait, whilst also being the patroness of crafts, and Artemis is the goddess of the hunt but is also closely linked with the female life cycle from menstruation to death.

As mentioned earlier, many ancient Greek goddesses embodied gender-specific characteristics that were also attributed to a mortal women. Nevertheless, simultaneously, goddesses represented something that no mortal woman could aspire to, mainly independence and non-reliance on male figures. Adult goddesses both compromise feminine characteristics and yet transcend the limitations of the human female condition. Examples of this include: having multiple sexual partners, being powerful in their own right, and having no inclination to marry or have children, all things that mortal women had no choice in. Given the subordinate status of real women in ancient Greek society, it seems ironic that qualities deemed desirable by Greek men, such as wisdom, strategy, and intelligence, should be represented in female form.

By the 6th century BCE, the Greeks distinguished 12 major gods, ruled by Zeus and living on Mount Olympus. Whilst all the male gods are sexually active, and it is never specified necessarily with men or women, of the six main female goddesses, three are dedicated virgins, and Hera is a semi-virgin through her ability to regain her virginity annually by bathing in a sacred spring. Although both Hera and Aphrodite are mothers, neither of them is known for their maternal abilities, with Hera especially shown as a neglectful mother. Of the six, Demeter is the only goddess who fulfills the role of mother with any degree of success. For mortal women it was of the utmost importance that they were virgins at the time of marriage, and was of equal importance that women should marry and give birth, therefore in this sense, most goddesses were not great role models. They renounce the most important function ascribed to women by Greek society, with Hera and Aphrodite notable for their lack of devotion to their children, and many activities outside of the home, again contradicting the ideal of a modest and domesticated lifestyle for mortal women. Since they were not role models, they functioned instead for men as a reminder of the negatives of female sexuality and power, and for women, as something a woman could be if she were not held back by the patriarchy.

The goddesses of the Greek pantheon include Hera the wife, Demeter the mother, and Artemis the woman who rejects both marriage and motherhood. The goddesses are archetypical images of human females, as envisioned by males, and thus, the distribution of desirable characteristics among several females rather than their concentration on one being is appropriate to a patriarchal society. That a woman should be compared to a goddess is both obvious and dangerous. The gods are always available as the highest standard of comparison for mortals, but they were also anthropomorphic and badly behaved, and such comparisons frequently occur in Homeric poems. In general, the distinctive features of the Olympian goddesses signal the ways in which mortals will meet them. For example, Athena is most often shown in contests of skill in crafts and martial arts, Hera’s rivals claim equal marital happiness, or Zeus himself, and although Aphrodite is the goddess of beauty, it is not hers alone. These goddesses though, and other less famous ones, were not just worshipped by women, both sexes would have prayed to them and offered them sacrifices, in the same way, they would with male gods. It is also interesting that some of the rituals associated with them were only open to women, for example, the Adonia, which was related to Aphrodite’s lover Adonis, and the Thesmophoria, whilst others such as the Panathenaia and the Eleusinian Mysteries were a celebration for the whole city to be involved in, no matter what gender, class or age.

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The less well-known goddesses are the ones that conform more to gender roles, whilst the ones that rebel is the famous ones. Athena and Aphrodite, who are linked to war and sex, respectively, are arguably the most well-known goddesses from Greek times, even today, whilst others such as Hestia and Demeter, whilst still famous, are not talked about as frequently. This could be for one of two reasons: because those that do not conform were shocking and therefore talked about more, meaning more evidence for contemporary historians, or it is nothing to do with conforming to feminine ideals, and the goddesses were just subject to a different set of rules than mortal women. Therefore, those that would have been most important to society at the time, such as the goddesses of war and sex, symbolized the two main things that would have made up the lives of citizen men. Why then were goddesses not relegated to those areas in the feminine sphere of influence, instead of taking ownership of ‘male’ attributes and activities, and still completely respected?

No goddess is as defined by her sexual status as Aphrodite, the goddess of sex. The association suggested between the act of love, symbolized by Aphrodite, and the act of castration points to a prevalent fear of female sexuality, something that was a large problem in ancient Greek society, with even mortal women feared for a multitude of reasons. Female hyperactive sexuality was feared because it brought into question the legitimacy of any children between a husband and wife. Not only that, but it also showed that a husband was not capable of controlling his wife, something that would have been viewed as shameful and would have affected his reputation. For these reasons, Greek men must surely have viewed Aphrodite’s links with marriage as disturbing, as she is one of the Olympian goddesses that is sexually promiscuous and adulterous, and it is the belief that female excessive sexuality can unhinge and destroy a man. Although Aphrodite was married to the blacksmith god Hephaestus, she has well-known affairs with Olympians Hermes and Ares, as well as with mortals Anchises and Adonis. She is known to inspire adulterous desires in others, but by the fifth century, attitudes were changing; and in the tragic drama of this period, the disruptive effects of Aphrodite’s power to shatter marriages were seen even more vividly. As a sexually active goddess, Aphrodite is inevitably a mother, though this receives little to no recognition in myth. Historians believe that to join her promiscuity with motherhood would be to give a woman a ‘frightening accumulation of powers which would place her beyond the orbit of male control’. Hence, she is good at sex, but a bad mother, whereas in comparison Demeter is not a sexual being, but the perfect mother. Clearly, mortal women would not have been able to be promiscuous lest she becomes improper, and thus, Aphrodite’s indiscretions were considered only mildly censurable in a love goddess who is sacred to prostitutes. Thus, the same categories of thought prevailed in goddesses as in mortal women, goddesses were either ‘good mothers’ or ‘promiscuous whores’, and the stereotypical categories did not change. Thus showing that female goddesses were still figments of male imagination and could only be ‘proper’, or ‘improper’.

Among ancient Greek gods and goddesses, none is as famous today as Athena, who has been a constant feature in the literature and art of the Western world. Athena, like all Greek deities, was a construct of the Greek minds and could be depicted as taste dictated. Therefore, she does not conform to Athenian societal norms, and if anything, is at the opposite end of the spectrum, and often depicted as masculine in art and pottery from the period. For Athens, the most important goddess was Athena, with the most important cult being that of the Athena Polias. Athena is often represented as a highly androgynous figure, who involves herself in both masculine and feminine activities, the warrior goddess, was the protector of cities and fortresses, yet at the same time the patroness of arts and crafts. Thus, although she is a female god, she rejects the roles of marriage and motherhood, which Greek society saw as fundamental to a woman’s existence. Instead as stated by Hesiod, she is a fearsome queen who brings the noise of war and tirelessly leads the hose, she loves shouts and battling and fights, and hence the dominant image of her links her too masculine activities, often being depicted as an armed warrior. In many of her activities, Athena is like her mortal worshippers, both male, and female, though she is also strikingly different, especially from the women, as she is a virgin, and from the males, as she is female. It is also worth noting that whilst there was also a male god of war in Ares, Athena is arguably the more famous, and the god with better attributes. Ares, the god of war, is the patron of violence, bloodlust, and slaughter, ‘the raw force of war’, whilst Athena is strategic and intelligent, relating to female cunning, again bringing in a question of why the female god is intelligent, whilst the male does not think, attributes that normally, would have been given to the opposite sexes. The fact that Athena is the happy medium between masculine and feminine, in her patronizing of both the crafts, but also wisdom and war is important. She does not just dominate the male sphere, but is feminine too, both in her personality and attributes, but also in how she is depicted in artwork and scholarship from the period as the overseer of justice. Whilst she is often shown in battle dress with a spear and shield, she is often also depicted, in the same places, with flowing white peplos, a feminine garment of clothing, though attention is rarely, if ever, drawn to her sex.

Like Aphrodite, Hera is not depicted as a good mother. She was primarily worshipped as the goddess of weddings and marriage, and thus figures most prominently in myth as a wife and a queen. As a mother, she is negligible and frequently is made to act out the role of the archetypal wicked stepmother. Of all the divinities mentioned in the Iliad, Hera is the goddess most remote from humans. Though Hera conforms in terms of marrying, and bearing children, she was still not viewed as the role model that Greek girls would have aimed to emulate, as much as some of the goddesses mentioned later. Instead, she was the ‘Queen of the Immortals’, the female counterpart of Zeus, with her maternal side almost a consequence, rather than something to be proud of.

Lastly, Artemis, another virgin goddess, the twin sister of Apollo, and a child of Zeus by a minor deity named Leto. In myth, Artemis is destructive towards young women and inflicts awful punishments on women such as Niobe for boasting she has more children than the goddess Leto. For many Artemis is a paradoxical goddess, a virgin who aids women in childbirth, a fierce huntress who fosters wild beasts, and a bloodthirsty deity who both nurtures the young and demands their sacrifice. Artemis also oversees the transition of girls to adult status but is also a patron of warriors, and both Artemis and Athena were considered virgins because they had never submitted to a monogamous marriage. That being said, their failure to marry was misinterpreted as virginity, specifically by succeeding generations of men who connected loss of virginity only with conventional marriage.

The four goddesses mentioned above are those who are the most famous of the Greek goddesses, arguably more so than some male gods are. However, there are other lesser-known female gods, and surprisingly often conform more to Athenian societal norms. Whilst some of those mentioned above are virgins or mothers, they are also promiscuous, and depicted as being neglectful, suggesting that a woman, divine or not, could not be powerful and a good mother, otherwise she would be too dangerous. Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, is one such goddess. She is the goddess who stays at home and represents permanence and security not only within the family but also within the community of which the family forms the foundation. Of all the virgin goddesses she comes the closest to providing a role model for young Greek women, for she is the only one who exhibits anything like the required degree of passivity. She was the archetypal old maid, preferring the quiet of the hearth and home to the ‘boisterous banquets and emotional entanglements of the other Olympians’, and is rarely depicted in the visual arts, instead being commonly envisioned as the living flame. Hestia resides in the home, both in the ‘guise of virgin and old woman’, thus, she more than Athena satisfied the quest for a goddess who was ‘free’ from most aspects of female sexuality. According to Xenophon, ‘without hearth and wife, there is no family’, showing just how important Hestia was, and how the female hearth and the citizen wife are tantamount to the continuation of the family. Lastly, the goddess of motherhood Demeter, whose name means mother in Greek. In the classical age, a woman’s chief value was her ability to bear children, and thus there were massively damaging effects of female celibacy. Demeter was also the goddess of the harvest and fertility of the earth. As fertility was mostly associated with women, and most of the female rituals were female-oriented, women were incredibly important because of their power to reproduce, and thus Demeter was an important goddess for the Greeks, men and women alike.

To conclude, goddesses were treated differently from mortal women for various reasons. They are gods and therefore exist as something unattainable in reality, but something that should be aimed for nevertheless. They were still conceived and existed in the collective male imagination, but their powers may have had a different impact on men and women. They existed in a place where myths and stories, no matter how outlandish, could be attributed to them, no matter their sex, and therefore they could be incredibly powerful. This power, therefore, meant that they had a certain level of capability and intelligence that humans, both men, and women, could only dream of, explaining why goddesses were respected, whilst mortal women were not. In addition, goddesses just did not have the same restrictions placed on them that mortal women did, and therefore the two groups would never have been seen as equal or treated similarly. However, even goddesses were viewed as being lesser than the male gods, just as in the mortal world, and therefore are not that different. As Padel has stated, as historians living thousands of years later, we use ancient Greek gods as a way to see into their society. By looking at them, we are able to see a sense of their world and relationships, and therefore get a more rounded view of why ancient Greek society was structured as it was. Whilst mortal women were ‘walking wombs’, forced to marry, goddesses were allowed a lot more freedom to be promiscuous, virgins, wives, spinsters, and many other labels, all whilst still retaining the respect and power given to them no matter who they were. The fact that they were goddesses, not real women, gave men the freedom to imagine them in this way, thus they still reflected male fears and secret wishes. Goddesses are divine and therefore shun human suffering, restrictions, and lifestyles, thus, to say that a mortal woman resembles a goddess is to ascribe to the mortal some of the radiance inherent in the bodies of the gods, of both sexes, as well as some of the goddess in epiphany. A goddess then is not a woman, but something else entirely. This is the difference between mortal women and divine beings.