Alea (
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
: ) was an
epithet
An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...
of the
Greek goddess
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of de ...
Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of v ...
, prominent in
Arcadian mythology, under which she was worshiped at
Alea Alea or ALEA may refer to:
Places
* Alea (Arcadia), a town of ancient Arcadia, Greece, located near the modern town in Argolis
* Alea (Thessaly), a town of ancient Thessaly, Greece
* Alea, Arcadia, a village in the municipal unit Tegea, Arcadia ...
,
Mantineia and
Tegea
Tegea (; el, Τεγέα) was a settlement in ancient Arcadia, and it is also a former municipality in Arcadia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the Tripoli municipality, of which it is a municipal un ...
.
Alea was initially an independent goddess, but was eventually assimilated with Athena.
A statue of Athena Alea existed on the road from
Sparta
Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referr ...
to
Therapne.
[ Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'' iii. 19. 3 7] Her most important sanctuary was the famous
Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea.
Notes
References
*
Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'' with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library*
Pausanias, ''Graeciae Descriptio.'' ''3 vols''. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903.
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
External links
at the Athena Museum
Epithets of Athena
Tegea
Greco-Roman relations in classical antiquity
{{Greek-myth-stub