Aegis

Aegis :: The Shield of Zeus, or Was It a Goatskin?

The aegis is the fringed, terrifying shield or cloak of Zeus, which he sometimes lent to Athena and Apollo. In Homer it is a divine object that spreads panic when shaken; later writers say it was made of goatskin and bore the head of the Gorgon. Zeus is regularly called aigiochos, “the aegis-bearer”, and in battle Athena wears it too.

The Aegis in Homer

In the Iliad the aegis is a tasseled (thysanoeis) piece of divine equipment. It is Zeus’ own: Agamemnon says that Zeus will shake his dark aegis over the Trojans in anger at their treachery (Iliad 4.166–168), and, when he gives victory to the Trojans, he takes up the shining aegis, covers Mount Ida in clouds, lightens, thunders and shakes it (Iliad 17.593–596).

Zeus lent it to others. He tells Apollo to take the tasseled aegis and shake it to terrify the Achaean heroes (Iliad 15.229–230), and Apollo goes before the Trojans holding it, the aegis that Hephaestus the smith had given to Zeus to carry for the terror of men (Iliad 15.307–311). When Apollo shakes it in the face of the Danaans, they forget their courage (Iliad 15.318–322). Apollo also uses a golden aegis to cover the body of Hector (Iliad 24.20–21).

Athena’s Aegis

Athena’s aegis is ageless and immortal, with a hundred tassels of pure gold, each worth a hundred oxen (Iliad 2.446–449). In battle she throws it across her shoulders. Around it Fear (Phobos) is set like a crown, and on it are Strife, Strength and chilling Pursuit, and the Gorgon’s head, a dreadful monster and a portent of aegis-bearing Zeus (Iliad 5.733–742). Before Achilles shows himself to the Trojans, Athena throws the tasseled aegis around his shoulders and crowns his head with a golden cloud (Iliad 18.203–206). When Ares strikes Athena on the aegis in the battle of the gods, Homer calls it the dreadful aegis that not even the thunderbolt of Zeus can overcome (Iliad 21.400–401). In the Odyssey she raises the aegis from the roof beam of the hall and the suitors are seized with panic (Odyssey 22.297–298).

Material and Origin

Homer does not say what the aegis was made of, and he gives Hephaestus as its maker (Iliad 15.309–310). Later accounts explain the goatskin. Herodotus thought the aegis of Athena’s statues was copied from Libyan women, who wore tasseled goatskin cloaks (aigeai), the tassels being thongs of hide instead of snakes, and that the Greeks changed the word into aigides (Herodotus 4.189). In Hyginus, the aegis belongs to the stories of the goat that nursed the infant Zeus, which some, following Musaeus, said belonged to the nymph Amalthea: an oracle told Zeus that to win the war against the Titans he must fight covered with a goatskin (aix) and the head of the Gorgon, which the Greeks called the aegis; after his victory he set the goat among the stars, and gave the aegis to Athena (Hyginus, Astronomica 2.13). In another tradition Athena flayed the Giant Pallas in the Gigantomachy and used his skin to protect her own body in the fight (Apollodorus, Library 1.6.2).

The Gorgon’s Head

In Homer the Gorgon head is already on Athena’s aegis (Iliad 5.741). Apollodorus explains how it got there: after Perseus killed Medusa and turned Polydectes and his friends to stone with her head, he gave the head to Athena, who set it in the middle of her shield (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.3).