Herodotus, The Histories, Book 4, chapter 189

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It would seem that the robe and aegis of the images of Athena were copied by the Greeks from the Libyan women; for except that Libyan women dress in leather, and that the tassels of their goatskin cloaks are not snakes but thongs of hide, in everything else their equipment is the same. [2] And in fact, the very name betrays that the attire of the statues of Pallas has come from Libya; for Libyan women wear the hairless tasselled “aegea” over their dress, colored with madder, and the Greeks have changed the name of these aegeae into their “aegides.”¹ [3] Furthermore, in my opinion the ceremonial chant² first originated in Libya: for the women of that country chant very tunefully. And it is from the Libyans that the Greeks have learned to drive four-horse chariots.

1 The aegis is the conventional buckler of Pallas. Probably the conservatism of religious art retained for the warrior goddess the goatskin buckler which was one of the earliest forms of human armor.

2 The ὀλολυγή (says Dr. Macan) was proper to the worship of Athena; a cry of triumph or exultation, perhaps of Eastern origin and connected with the Semitic Hallelu (which survives in Hallelu-jah).

Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.

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Commentary references to this page (1):
- Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Electra, 702
Cross-references to this page (4):
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), AEGIS
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), CORIA´RIUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CYRE´NE
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), MARMA´RICA
Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (15):
- LSJ, Λίβυ^ς
- LSJ, Παλλάδιον
- LSJ, αἴγεος
- LSJ, αἰγίς
- LSJ, ἐρευθ-έδα^νον
- LSJ, ἱμάντ-ι^νος
- LSJ, κατηγορ-έω
- LSJ, μετονομ-άζω
- LSJ, ὀλολυ_γ-ή
- LSJ, πλήν
- LSJ, θύσα^νος
- LSJ, θυ^σαν-ωτός
- LSJ, σκυ?τ-ι^νος
- LSJ, συ-ζεύγνυ_μι
- LSJ, χρίω

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Herodotus, The Histories
A. D. Godley, Ed.

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Herodotus, The Histories A. D. Godley, Ed.

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Herodotus, The Histories
A. D. Godley, Ed.