The High Priestess of Athena Polias held the highest religious office in Ancient Athens. She enjoyed great prestige and played an official role which was otherwise uncommon in Ancient Athens. Several occasions are mentioned when she made her influence known in historical events of importance, and she is known to have influenced offices by recommendation. She supervised the city cult of Athena based in the

Parthenon The Parthenon (; grc, Παρθενών, , ; ell, Παρθενώνας, , ) is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena during the fifth century BC. Its decorative sculptures are considere ...

, and was the chief of the lesser officials, such as the plyntrides, arrephoroi and kanephoroi. She was the high priest of one of the three cults of the Acropolis of Athens: the other two were the High Priest of Poseidon-Erechtheus and the Priestess of Athena Nike. The most known individual official of this position was Lysimache I. The office could not have survived the ban of all non-Christian priesthoods during the

persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began during the reign of Constantine the Great (306–337) in the military colony of Aelia Capitolina ( Jerusalem), when he destroyed a pagan temple for the purpose of constructing a Christian chur ...

References

* Jeffrey M. Hurwit,
The Athenian Acropolis: History, Mythology, and Archaeology
' * Joan Breton Connelly,
Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece
' * Garland, Robert, Religion and the Greeks, Bristol Classical Press, London, 1994 {{DEFAULTSORT:High Priestess of Athena Polias Ancient Athenian religious titles Athena Ancient Greek priestesses

See also

References