Who was Minerva?

Titles and roles

 The name "Minerva" may be derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *men-, from which "mental" and "mind" also come from. 

Minerva was the daughter of the Gods Jupiter (better known as Zeus) and Metis. She was considered to be the virgin goddess of warriors, wisdom, crafts, poetry, medicine, commerce, and the inventor of music.

A Goddess first known as Athena

 In Greek mythology, Athena (Greek: Ἀθηνᾶ, Athēnâ, or Ἀθήνη, Athénē; Doric: Ἀσάνα, Asána) was the goddess of wisdom, weaving, crafts, and war. Athena's wisdom encompasses the technical knowledge employed in weaving, metal-working, and war, but also includes the cunning intelligence of such ‘trickster’ figures as Odysseus.

She is attended by an owl, wears a goatskin breastplate called the Aegis given to her by her father, and is accompanied by the goddess of victory, who was known as Nike. She is often shown helmeted and with a shield bearing the Gorgon Medusa's head, a votive gift of Perseus. Athena is an armed warrior goddess, and appears in Greek mythology as a helper of many heroes, including Heracles, Jason, and Odysseus. She never had a consort or lover, and thus was often known as Athena Parthenos ("Athena the virgin"). In her role as a protector of the city, Athena was worshipped throughout the Greek world as Athena Polias ("Athena of the city"). She had a special relationship with Athens, as is shown by the etymological connection of the names of the goddess and the city. The Parthenon, on the Acropolis of Athens, is her most famous temple.

In Roman mythology, the goddess of wisdom was Minerva, who originated in the association of the Etruscan goddess Menerva with Hellenic iconography of Athena. Quite apart from Minerva, the Romans knew her as Athena as well.

Adapting Greek myths about Athena, Romans said that Minerva was not born in the conventional way, but rather sprang fully armed from the head of her father. It had been prophesied that Metis would bear a son more powerful than Zeus himself, so in order to forestall these dire consequences, Zeus tricked her into turning herself into a fly and promptly swallowed her.

However his efforts had come too late: Metis had already conceived a child. In time she began making a helmet and robe for her foetal daughter. The hammering as she made the helmet caused Zeus great pain and Prometheus, Hephaestus, Hermes or Palamaon (depending on the sources examined) either cleaved Zeus's head with an axe or hit it with a hammer at the river Triton, giving rise to Athena's epithet Tritogeneia. Athena leaped from Zeus's head, fully grown, armed, and armored, and Zeus was apparently none the worse for the experience. This image has captivated Western writers and artists through the ages.

Minerva was the goddess of arts and crafts. She was particularly good at weaving. Once a woman called Arachne wove a beautiful picture. Minerva tried to find something wrong with it. When she couldn't, she tore it up and turned Arachne into a spider. The spider still weaves beautiful webs.

Worship

Ovid called her the "goddess of a thousand works." Minerva was worshipped throughout Italy; though only in Rome did she take on a warlike character. Minerva is usually depicted wearing a coat of mail and a helmet, and carrying a spear.

 The Romans celebrated her festival from March 19 to 23 during the day which is called, in the feminine plural, Quinquatria, the fifth after the Ides of March, the nineteenth, and the artisans' holiday. A lesser version, the Minusculae Quinquatria, was held on the Ides of June, June 13, by the flute-players, who were particularly useful to religion. Minerva was worshipped on the Capitoline Hill as one of the Capitoline Triad along with Jupiter and Juno.

 In 207 BC, a guild of poets and actors was formed to meet and make votive offerings at the temple of Minerva on the Aventine hill. Among others, its members included Livius Andronicus. The Aventine sanctuary of Minerva continued to be an important centre of the arts for much of the middle Roman Republic.

Minerva and The Girls' Day School Trust

 Minerva symbolises what the GDST and the Minerva Network stand to achieve with the students who study at GDST schools; knowledge, wisdom and creativity.

 Known to the Greeks as Athene, the image of Minerva has long formed part of the Trust's badge or logo. The Trust's motto is taken from Lord Tennyson's poem "The Princess" and the line reads in full, 

"Girls,

Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal'd:

Drink deep, until the habits of the slave,

The sins of empiness, gossip and spite

And slander die."
 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Minerva".