Aegis

This article is about the shield used by Zeus in Greek mythology. For other uses, see Aegis (disambiguation).

The aegis or egis (/ˈiːdʒɪs/ EE-jis; Ancient Greek: αἰγίς aigís), as stated in the Iliad, is a device carried by Zeus, Apollo and Athena. It is described in different ways, as an animal skin or a shield. Sometimes it shows the head of a Gorgon. There may be a connection with a goddess named Aex, who was a daughter of Helios and a nurse of Zeus. Some stories say she was a companion of Zeus instead (Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 13).

Today, people say something is done "under someone's aegis" when it is done with the protection of a powerful, wise, or kind helper. The word aegis is linked with being kept safe by a strong force. It comes from Greek mythology, and the Romans also used it.

There are parallels in Norse mythology and in Egyptian mythology as well, where the Greek word aegis is used in a wider sense.

Etymology

The Greek word aigis has several meanings. It can mean a "violent windstorm," which comes from a verb meaning "I rush or move violently" and the word stem aig-. It is related to a word meaning "thunderstorm." It can also mean the shield of a god, or a "goatskin coat." The Greek word for goat is part of this meaning.

The first meaning may have been the original one. The name Zeus Aigiokhos, meaning "Zeus who holds the aegis," may have first meant "Sky/Heaven, who holds the thunderstorm." Over time, the meaning may have changed to "shield" or "goatskin." This could have happened through folk etymology, when people who knew how to drape an animal skin over the left arm as a shield used the word that way.

In Greek mythology

The aegis of Athena appears in several places in the Iliad. In one passage, Athena holds the precious aegis. It never grows old and cannot die, and it has a hundred gold tassels, each worth a hundred oxen. The poet Virgil imagines the Cyclopes working in the forge of Hephaestus, polishing the aegis that Athena wears when she is angry. It has a gold surface that looks like scaly snake skin, linked snakes, and the Gorgon's head on the goddess's chest. This head is the Gorgoneion, which is the head of Medusa. Some Attic vase-painters kept an old belief that the tassels had once been serpents. When the Olympian gods took over from the older gods of Greece, Athena was born from Metis. Metis was inside Zeus after he had swallowed her. Athena came out of Zeus's head, already fully dressed. When the Olympian shakes the aegis, Mount Ida is covered in clouds, thunder rolls, and people are filled with fear. In the Iliad, "Aegis-bearing Zeus" sometimes lends the aegis to Athena. He also sends Apollo to heal the wounded Hector. Apollo, holding the aegis, pushes the Achaeans back to their ships on the shore. According to Edith Hamilton's Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, the aegis is the breastplate of Zeus and was "awful to behold". However, Zeus is usually shown in classical sculpture holding a thunderbolt or lightning, not a shield or a breastplate.

Classical Greece usually thought of the aegis as a kind of cover carried by Athena. Euripides suggested that it was the skin of a slain Gorgon. Most people thought the Gorgon head was added later as a votive offering from a thankful Perseus. In another story, Aex, a daughter of Helios, was a huge fire-breathing chthonic serpent, similar to the Chimera. Athena defeated it, took its skin, and wore it as a cuirass or a chlamys. The Douris cup shows the aegis as the skin of this great serpent, with its scales clearly drawn. Other writers said the aegis was the skin of the giant Pallas. Some said Zeus used the skin of a pet goat belonging to his nurse Amalthea, which had fed him on Crete, as a shield when he fought the Titans.

In works of art, the aegis is often shown as an animal skin thrown over Athena's shoulders and arms. Sometimes it has a border of snakes, and it usually has the Gorgon head. It also appears on statues of Roman emperors, heroes, and warriors, and on coins, cameos, and vases. A fresco from Pompeii, dated to the first century BC, shows a portrait of Alexander the Great with a woman's head on his armor that looks like the Gorgon.

Interpretations

Herodotus thought he had found the source of the aegis in ancient Libya, a faraway land that the Greeks often linked with magic. He wrote that the Greeks borrowed Athene's clothing and aegis from Libyan women. The Libyan women dressed in the same way, but their leather clothes had fringes made of thongs instead of serpents.

Robert Graves in The Greek Myths (1955) says that the Libyan aegis was a pouch carried by a healer. It held different ritual objects. It had a scary face with snakes for hair, tusk-like teeth, and a tongue sticking out. Its purpose was to frighten away people who had not been initiated. Graves says the aegis clearly belonged first to Athena. One current idea is that the sacred Hittite hunting bag (kursas), a rough, shaggy goatskin, may have been a source of the aegis.