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25-603: The Palladium , the wooden image of Minerva (Greek Athena ) that the Romans claimed had been rescued from the fall of Troy and was in the keeping of the Vestals ; The sacred fire of Vesta tended by the Vestals, which was never allowed to go out; and the ancilia , the twelve shields of Mars wielded by his priests, the Salii , in their processions, dating to the time of Numa Pompilius ,

50-509: A beggar. There he was recognized by Helen , who told him where to find the Palladium. After some stealthy killing, he won back to the ships. He and Diomedes then re-entered the city and stole the sacred statue. Diomedes is sometimes depicted as the one carrying the Palladium to the ships. There are several statues and many ancient drawings of him with the Palladium. According to the Narratives of

75-644: A newly woven one. It was also carried to the sea by the priestesses and ceremonially washed once a year, in the feast called the Plynteria ("washings"). Its presence was last mentioned by the Church Father Tertullian who described it derisively as nothing but "a rough stake, a shapeless piece of wood". Earlier descriptions of the statue have not survived. Pallas (daughter of Triton) In Greek mythology , Pallas ( / ˈ p æ l ə s / ; Ancient Greek : Παλλάς , romanized :  Pallás )

100-589: A sacred relic or icon believed to have a protective role in military contexts for a whole city, people or nation. Such beliefs first become prominent in the Eastern church in the period after the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I , and later spread to the Western church. Palladia were carried in procession around the walls of besieged cities and sometimes carried into battle. The Trojan Palladium

125-447: A statue in the likeness of Pallas, and wrapped the aegis, which she had feared, about the breast of it, and set it up beside Zeus and honored it. Later, Athena took on the title Pallas as tribute to her late friend. This story about Athena and Pallas inspired a yearly festival in Libya dedicated to the goddess. A passage by Herodotus recounts this custom: "Next to these Machlyes are

150-513: The Augustan period mythographer Conon as summarised by Photius , while the two heroes were on their way to the ships, Odysseus plotted to kill Diomedes and claim the Palladium (or perhaps the credit for gaining it) for himself. He raised his sword to stab Diomedes in the back. Diomedes was alerted to the danger by glimpsing the gleam of the sword in the moonlight. He disarmed Odysseus, tied his hands, and drove him along in front, beating his back with

175-636: The citadel of Troy and which was later taken to the future site of Rome by Aeneas . The Roman story is related in Virgil 's Aeneid and other works. Rome possessed an object regarded as the actual Palladium for several centuries; it was in the care of the Vestal Virgins for nearly all this time. Since around 1600, the word palladium has been used figuratively to mean anything believed to provide protection or safety, and in particular in Christian contexts

200-672: The Auseans; these and the Machlyes, separated by the Triton, live on the shores of the Tritonian lake. The Machlyes wear their hair long behind, the Auseans in front. They celebrate a yearly festival of Athena, where their maidens are separated into two bands and fight each other with stones and sticks, thus (they say) honoring in the way of their ancestors that native goddess whom we call Athena. Maidens who die of their wounds are called false virgins. Before

225-737: The Palladium remained within its walls. The perilous task of stealing this sacred statue again fell upon the shoulders of Odysseus and Diomedes . The two stole into the citadel in Troy by a secret passage and carried it off, leaving the desecrated city open to the deceit of the Trojan Horse . Odysseus, according to the epitome of the Little Iliad (one of the books of the Epic Cycle ) preserved in Proclus's Chrestomathia , went by night to Troy disguised as

250-524: The Trojan royal line, and of Iasion , founder of the Samothrace mysteries. Whether Elektra had come to Athena's shrine of the Palladium as a pregnant suppliant and a god cast it into the territory of Ilium, because it had been profaned by the hands of a woman who was not a virgin, or whether Elektra carried it herself or whether it was given directly to Dardanus vary in sources and scholia . In Ilion, King Ilus

275-446: The beginning of the fight, Athena got the upper hand, until Pallas took over. Before she could win, Zeus, who was in attendance, fearing to see his own daughter lose, distracted Pallas with the Aegis , which she had once shown interest in. Pallas, stunned in awe, stood still as Athena, expecting her to dodge, impaled her accidentally. Out of sadness and regret, Athena created the palladium ,

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300-568: The controversial emperor Elagabalus (reigned 218–222 AD) transferred the most sacred relics of Roman religion from their respective shrines to the Elagabalium , the Palladium was among them. In Late Antiquity , it was rumored that the Palladium was transferred from Rome to Constantinople by Constantine the Great and buried under the Column of Constantine in his forum. Such a move would have undermined

325-513: The description of Cybele's needle. However its ultimate fate is unknown, with its destruction likely. Palladium (classical antiquity) In Greek and Roman mythology , the Palladium or Palladion (Greek Παλλάδιον (Palladion), Latin Palladium ) was a cult image of great antiquity on which the safety of Troy and later Rome was said to depend, the wooden statue ( xoanon ) of Pallas Athena that Odysseus and Diomedes stole from

350-533: The east-facing wing of the Erechtheum temple in the classical era. Considered not a man-made artefact but of divine provenance, it was the holiest image of the goddess and was accorded the highest respect. It was placed under a bronze likeness of a palm tree and a gold lamp burned in front of it. The centerpiece of the grand feast of the Panathenaea was the replacement of this statue's woolen peplos (a garment) with

375-457: The flat of his sword. From this action was said to have arisen the Greek proverbial expression "Diomedes' necessity", applied to those who act under compulsion. Because Odysseus was essential for the destruction of Troy, Diomedes refrained from injuring him. Diomedes took the Palladium with him when he left Troy. According to some stories, he brought it to Italy; others say that it was stolen from him on

400-510: The following list: Classicist Alan Cameron notes that three of these supposed tokens were fictional (the ashes, scepter, and veil) and are not named in any other sources as sacred guarantors of Rome. The other four objects were widely attested in Latin literature, but have left no archaeological trace. In the 1730 excavations of the Palatine Hill by Francesco Bianchini , he noted a stone matching

425-633: The imposition of Christianity as a state religion that excluded all others . In late antiquity , some narratives of the founding of Constantinople claim that Constantine I , the first emperor to convert to Christianity, transferred the pignora imperii to the new capital. Though the historicity of this transferral may be in doubt, the claim indicates the symbolic value of the tokens. The 4th-century scholar Servius notes in his commentary to Vergil 's Aeneid that "there were seven tokens (pignora) which maintain Roman rule (imperium Romanum) ," and gives

450-451: The intervention of human intellectual meddling." The arrival at Troy of the Palladium, fashioned by Athena in remorse for the death of Pallas, as part of the city's founding myth , was variously referred to by Greeks, from the seventh century BC onwards. The Palladium was linked to the Samothrace mysteries through the pre-Olympian figure of Elektra , mother of Dardanus , progenitor of

475-616: The primacy of Rome, and was naturally seen as a move by Constantine to legitimize his reign and his new capital. The goddess Athena was worshipped on the Acropolis of Athens under many names and cults, the most illustrious of which was of the Athena Poliás , " protectress of the city". The cult image of the Poliás was a wooden effigy, often referred to as the " xóanon diipetés " (the "carving that fell from heaven"), made of olive wood and housed in

500-523: The second king of Rome . In the later Roman Empire , the maintenance of the Altar of Victory in the Curia took on a similar symbolic value for those such as Symmachus who were trying to preserve Rome's religious traditions in the face of Christian hegemony . The extinguishing of the fire of Vesta by the Christian emperor Theodosius I is one of the events that mark the abolition of Rome's ancestral religion and

525-555: The way. According to various versions of this legend the Trojan Palladium found its way to Athens , Argos , Sparta (all in Greece ) or Rome in Italy . To this last city it was either brought by Aeneas, the exiled Trojan (Diomedes, in this version, having only succeeded in stealing an imitation of the statue) or surrendered by Diomedes himself. An actual object regarded as the Palladium

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550-458: Was a warrior and a daughter of Triton . After Athena was born fully armed from Zeus ' forehead, Triton, son of Poseidon and messenger of the seas, became foster parent to the goddess and raised her alongside his own daughter, Pallas. The sea god taught both girls the arts of war. During an athletics festival, Pallas and Athena fought with spears in a friendly mock battle in which the victor would be whoever managed to disarm her opponent. At

575-522: Was blinded for touching the image to preserve it from a burning temple. During the Trojan War , the importance of the Palladium to Troy was said to have been revealed to the Greeks by Helenus , the prophetic son of Priam . After Paris ' death, Helenus left the city but was captured by Odysseus. The Greeks somehow managed to persuade the warrior seer to reveal the weakness of Troy: the city would not fall while

600-576: Was said to be a wooden image of Pallas (whom the Greeks identified with Athena and the Romans with Minerva) and to have fallen from heaven in answer to the prayer of Ilus , the founder of Troy . "The most ancient talismanic effigies of Athena", Ruck and Staples report, "were magical found objects, faceless pillars of Earth in the old manner, before the Goddess was anthropomorphized and given form through

625-605: Was undoubtedly kept in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum for several centuries. It was regarded as one of the pignora imperii , sacred tokens or pledges of Roman rule ( imperium ) . Pliny the Elder said that Lucius Caecilius Metellus had been blinded by fire when he rescued the Palladium from the Temple of Vesta in 241 BC, an episode alluded to in Ovid and Valerius Maximus . When

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