Greek city of Klazomenai in Ionia
Bronze 9mm (1.03 grams)  Struck circa 400-380 B.C.
Reference: Sear 4322; B.M.C. 14.21,32-3; SNGCop 31cf
Head of Athena right, wearing crested helmet.
KΛA, Ram's head right.

Situated on the southern shores  of the Gulf of Smyrna, Klazomenai was the birthplace of the philosopher  Anaxagoras.

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In Greek religion and mythology, Athena or Athene, also  referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage,  inspiration, civilization, law and justice, just warfare, mathematics, strength,  strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill. Minerva is the Roman goddess identified with Athena.

Athena is also a shrewd companion of heroes and is the goddess of heroic endeavour. She is the virgin patroness of Athens. The Athenians founded the Parthenon on the Acropolis of her namesake  city, Athens (Athena Parthenos), in her honour.

Athena's veneration as the patron of Athens seems to have existed from the  earliest times, and was so persistent that archaic myths about her were recast  to adapt to cultural changes. In her role as a protector of the city (polis),  many people throughout the Greek world worshiped Athena as Athena Polias  (Ἀθηνᾶ Πολιάς "Athena of the city"). The city of Athens and the goddess Athena essentially bear  the same name,  "Athenai" meaning "[many] Athenas".

Patroness

Athenian tetradrachm representing the  goddess Athena

Athena as the goddess of philosophy became an aspect of the cult in Classical  Greece during the late 5th century B.C. She is the patroness of various crafts, especially of weaving, as Athena Ergane, and was  honored as such at festivals such as Chalceia. The metalwork of weapons also fell  under her patronage. She led battles (Athena  Promachos or the warrior maiden Athena Parthenos)  as the disciplined, strategic side of war, in contrast to her brother Ares, the patron of violence, bloodlust and slaughter-"the raw force  of war".  Athena's wisdom includes the cunning intelligence (metis) of such figures  as  Odysseus. Not only was this version of Athena  the opposite of Ares in combat, it was also the polar opposite of the serene  earth goddess version of the deity, Athena Polias.

Athena appears in Greek mythology as the patron and helper of many heroes,  including  Odysseus, Jason, and Heracles. In Classical Greek myths, she never consorts with  a lover, nor does she ever marry,earning the title Athena Parthenos. A remnant of archaic myth depicts her  as the adoptive mother of Erechtheus/Erichthonius  through the foiled rape by Hephaestus.  Other variants relate that Erichthonius, the serpent that accompanied Athena,  was born to Gaia: when the rape failed, the semen landed on  Gaia and impregnated her. After Erechthonius was born, Gaia gave him to Athena.

Though Athena is a goddess of war strategy, she disliked fighting  without  purpose and preferred to use wisdom to settle predicaments.The goddess  only encouraged fighting for a reasonable cause or to resolve  conflict. As patron of Athens she fought in the Trojan war on the side  of the  Achaeans.

Mythology

Lady of Athens

Athena competed with Poseidon to be the patron deity of Athens,  which was yet unnamed, in a version of one founding myth. They agreed that each would give  the Athenians one gift and that the Athenians would choose the gift they  preferred. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring sprang up; this  gave them a means of trade and water-Athens at its height was a significant sea  power, defeating the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis-but the water was salty and  not very good for drinking.

Athena, however, offered them the first domesticated olive tree. The Athenians (or their king, Cecrops) accepted the olive tree and with it  the patronage of Athena, for the olive tree brought wood, oil, and food. Robert Graves was of the opinion that  "Poseidon's attempts to take possession of certain cities are political myths"  which reflect the conflict between matriarchal and patriarchal religions.

Other sites of cult

Athena also was the patron goddess of several other Greek cities, notably  Sparta, where the archaic cult of Athena Alea had its sanctuaries in the  surrounding villages of Mantineia and, notably, Tegea. In Sparta itself, the temple of Athena Khalkíoikos (Athena "of the Brazen House", often latinized as Chalcioecus) was the  grandest and located on the Spartan acropolis; presumably it had a roof of  bronze. The forecourt of the Brazen House was the place where the most solemn  religious functions in Sparta took place.

Tegea was an important religious center of ancient Greece,  containing the Temple of Athena Alea. The temenos was founded by Aleus, Pausanias was informed.  Votive bronzes at the site from the Geometric and Archaic periods take the forms  of horses and deer; there are sealstone and fibulae. In the Archaic period the nine  villages that underlie Tegea banded together in a synoecism to form one city.  Tegea was listed in  Homer's Catalogue of Ships as one of the cities that  contributed ships and men for the Achaean assault on Troy.

Judgment of Paris

Aphrodite is being surveyed by Paris, while Athena (the leftmost  figure) and Hera stand nearby. El Juicio de Paris by Enrique Simonet, ca. 1904

All the gods and goddesses as well as various mortals were invited to the  marriage of  Peleus and Thetis (the eventual parents of Achilles). Only Eris, goddess of discord, was not invited. She  was annoyed at this, so she arrived with a golden apple inscribed with the word  καλλίστῃ (kallistēi, "for the fairest"), which she threw among the goddesses.  Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena all claimed to be the fairest, and thus the rightful  owner of the apple.

The goddesses chose to place the matter before Zeus, who, not wanting to  favor one of the goddesses, put the choice into the hands of Paris, a Trojan prince. After bathing in the spring of Mount Ida (where Troy was situated), the  goddesses appeared before Paris. The goddesses undressed and presented  themselves to Paris naked, either at his request or for the sake of winning.

Paris is awarding the apple to Aphrodite, while Athena makes a face. Urteil des Paris by Anton Raphael Mengs, ca. 1757

Still, Paris could not decide, as all three were ideally beautiful, so they  resorted to bribes. Hera tried to bribe Paris with control over all Asia and  Europe, while Athena offered wisdom, fame and  glory in battle, but Aphrodite came forth and whispered to Paris that if he were  to choose her as the fairest he would have the most beautiful mortal woman in  the world as a wife, and he accordingly chose her. This woman was Helen, who was, unfortunately for Paris,  already married to King Menelaus of Sparta. The other two goddesses were enraged by  this and through Helen's abduction by Paris they brought about the Trojan War.

The Parthenon, Temple of Athena  Parthenos

Masculinity and  feminism

Athena had an "androgynous compromise" that allowed her traits and what she  stood for to be attributed to male and female rulers alike over the course of  history (such as Marie de' Medici, Anne of Austria, Christina of Sweden, and  Catherine the Great)

J.J. Bachofen advocated that Athena was originally a maternal figure stable  in her security and poise but was caught up and perverted by a patriarchal  society; this was especially the case in Athens. The goddess adapted but could  very easily be seen as a god. He viewed it as "motherless paternity in the place  of fatherless maternity" where once altered, Athena's character was to be  crystallized as that of a patriarch.

Whereas Bachofen saw the switch to paternity on Athena's behalf as an  increase of power, Freud on the contrary perceived Athena as an "original mother  goddess divested of her power". In this interpretation, Athena was demoted to be  only Zeus's daughter, never allowed the expression of motherhood. Still more  different from Bachofen's perspective is the lack of role permanency in Freud's  view: Freud held that time and differing cultures would mold Athena to stand for  what was necessary to them.

Klazomenai (also spelled Clazomenae, Greek: Κλαζομεναί, modern-day Kilizman in Urla  near  İzmir in Turkey) was an  ancient Greek city of  Ionia and a member of the Ionian Dodecapolis (Confederation of Twelve Cities), it was one of the first  cities to issue silver coinage.

Klazomenai is located in modern Urla (Vourla in Greek) on the western  coast of  Anatolia, on the southern coast of the Gulf  of İzmir, at about 20 miles west of İzmir. The city was originally located  on the mainland, but probably during the early fifth-century Ionian Revolt from the Persians, it was moved to an island just off the coast, which Alexander the Great eventually connected to the mainland with a causeway.  The location of the city-around a harbour, backed by a coastal plain and low  hills to the south provided a number of locations for settlement, and as such,  settlements did shift from location to location over time. This can be shown by  the island of Karantina, located to the north of the settlement area-which  became settled at certain points in the history of Klazomenai.

 Mythology

The principal god of the city was Apollo.  According to myth, swans drew the chariot in which Apollo every year flew south  from his winter home in the land of the Hyperboreans. But Klazomenai was also home to large numbers of swans, and it  is thought that the verb klazo was used to describe the call of the wild  birds. The swan on the obverse is both an attribute of Apollo and a  pun on the name Klazomenai.

 Ancient  times

Though not in existence before the arrival of the Ionians in  Asia, its original founders were largely settlers from Phlius and Cleonae. It  stood originally on the isthmus  connecting the mainland with the peninsula on which Erythrae  stood; but the inhabitants, alarmed by the encroachments of the Persians, removed to one of the small islands of the bay, and there  established their city. This island was connected with the mainland by Alexander the Great by means of a pier, the remains of which are still  visible.

During the 5th century it was for some time subject to the Athenians, but  about the middle of the Peloponnesian War (412 BC) it revolted. After a brief resistance, however,  it again acknowledged the Athenian supremacy, and repelled a Lacedaemonian attack. In 387 BC Klazomenai and other cities in Asia were  taken over by Persia, but the city continued to issue its own coins.

Under the Romans Clazomenae was included in the province of Asia, and enjoyed  an immunity from taxation.

Klazomenai is today perhaps best-known as the birthplace of the philosopher Anaxagoras,  often styled "Anaxagoras of Clazomenae".

 Archaeology

The site of Liman Tepe, which lies near an old harbor contains very important  Bronze Age excavations, the most prominent and remarkable of which is the amount  of varying archaic burial sites, as well as evidence of the practises associated  with them close by. One possible explanation for this is that these sites were  used by different social groups within society.

The city was famous for production and exports of olive oil and its painted  terracotta sarcophagi, which are the finest monuments of Ionian painting in the 6th  century BC.

It was also prized for its variety of garum.

 Ancient  olive press

Olive oil extraction installation (işlik) dating back to the third  quarter of the 6th century BC uncovered in Klazomenai is the only surviving  example of a level and weights press from an ancient Greek city and precedes by  at least two centuries the next securely datable earliest presses found in  Greece. It  was restored and reconstructed in 2004-2005 through collaboration between Ege  University, a Turkish olive-oil exporter and a German  natural building components company, as well as by local artisans, on the basis  of the clearly visible millstone  with a cylindrical roller and three separation pits. The olive oil obtained  turned out to be quite a success in business terms as well.

excavated

restoration and reconstruction

thatched roof

general view after completion of works

 Financial  pioneers

In an event noted by Aristotle,  Klazomenians also appear as financial pioneers in economic history, for having used one commodity  (olive oil), in an organized manner and on a city-scale, to purchase  another (wheat), with interests refundable on the value of the first. Around 350 B.C., suffering  from a shortage of grain and scarcity of funds, the rulers of the city passed a  resolution calling on citizens who had stores of olive oil to lend to the city  at interest. The loan arranged, they hired vessels and sent them to ports of  exportation of grain and bought a consignment on the pledged security of the value of the oil.