A variation on the theme of Athena: The Palladium, as viewed by Pausanias on the Acropolis of Athens

Abstract

This excursus is a commentary on a passage in Pausanias, 1.28.9, where our traveler, while visiting the Acropolis of Athens, refers to a statue of the goddess Athena there. He is referring in this case not to Athena Parthénos, that is, to Athena the ‘Virgin’, who was housed in the Parthenon. Nor is he referring here to Athena Poliás, that is, to Athena as the Lady of the Citadel, who was housed in the old temple of the goddess. Rather, the referent here is an ancient wooden statue known as the Palládion, conventionally latinized as Palladium. There were many divergent myths about the Palladium, but there was general agreement on at least one convergent detail: originally, myth has it, the Palladium was housed in the temple of Athena, situated on top of the acropolis of ancient Troy. In the lead illustration for my comments, I show a picturing of a familiar scene involving what I think is this very same Palladium. In this picture—and I could show many other such pictures, some of which are considerably more ancient than the one I have chosen—we see the lesser Ajax, son of Oileus, in the act of violating Cassandra after the capture of Troy by the Achaeans. Seizing her by the arm, he is about to drag her away from a statue of Athena to which she is clinging as a suppliant. The goddess, fully armed, with spear in the right hand and with shield in the left hand, is just standing there, statue that she is. Now, it goes without saying here that the goddess will have her vengeance, since she will ultimately punish the sacrilegious violator. But that is another story. My concern here is different: the question for now is, how did the Palladium find its way from the citadel of Troy to the citadel of Athens? And the answer has to do with the power of the Palladium in the scene that we see pictured in the illustration that we are considering. The Palladium is so much more than a static statue—if I am right in thinking that the statue that we see in this and other such pictures is in fact the Palladium. I have to say “if” for now, since I cannot simply assume that this statue, as represented in such pictures, can actually be identified with the Palladium. As I will argue, however, such an identification becomes most likely when we consider an Athenian myth, as reported by Pausanias, 1.28.9, about the appropriation of the Palladium by the Athenians.