Lee Hall (2) (1934–2017)

Lee Hall approaches Athena as if she was an historical figure of sorts, starting with her origins as a fertility cult goddess, and following her gradual metamorphosis into a warrior goddess, a female who is acceptable in a male culture, and from there as Greece, and especially Athens, moved into its golden age, the transformation into a beacon of civilization and culture. She shows the beginnings of this transformation happening in Homer's Iliad and Oddyssey, in the former Athena is relentlessly determined to destroy Troy and all its inhabitants, quite unfairly too, given that Hector and Priam were faithful to her and believed themselves blessed by her favor almost to the very end. In the latter, Athena, in her fondness for Odysseus, her desire to settle his problems satisfactorily, she opts, in the end (only after ripping the the rogue suitors wrecking his house) to negotiate a peace through diplomatic channels so that the families of the dead suitors will not feel obliged to take revenge on Odysseus and his family. It was a good read and having finished, there is a certain intriguing arc to the story, but Athena's absolute rejection of everything female, her disdain for women, is disturbing, in the end. The culture from the north, that brought the horse and the bridle and the chariot, was violently male and displaced a matriarchal culture, this much is established prehistory now. Except for sex and breeding, women were pretty much regarded as barely human: any goddess who was to survive this point of view would have to play a deep game, and that ultimately, is the point, I think, that Hall makes although she never quite comes out and says so. Athena, remarkably, succeeds in becoming the second most powerful entity among the Olympians, and it would seem that once she has established that fact, she begins to move on, combining, perhaps, some of the better feminine and masculine qualities together in a new way, her focus on Athens, or rather, with the focus of Athenians on her. Very interesting. ****… (more)