The Olympian Aegis

The Olympian Aegis.
According to the Iliad, both Zeus and Athena carried an aegis thought to be either a shield or animal skin adorned with the head of Medusa. The aegis was thought to have magical properies and when shook by an Olympian, would wrap clouds around Mount Ida, create claps of thunder and strike men down with fear. 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. Roman poet Virgil described the aegis as a fearsome thing with a surface of gold like scaly snakeskin, edged with golden tassels and bearing the Gorgoneion in the central boss. But Augustus' freedman, Gaius Julius Hyginus, who became superintendent of the Palatine library, claimed it was the skin of a pet goat owned by Zeus' nurse, Amalthea, that he used as a shield when he went forth to do battle against the Titans.



Images: Early Roman Imperial Zeus with Aegis and Gorgoneion, 1st century BCE - 1st century CE, probably an emblema (centerpiece) of a bowl at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Plaster cast of Athena Lemnia wearing a scaly aegis sculpted by Phidias around 450 BCE at the Gallery of Classical Art in Hostinné, Czech Republic courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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