Pythagoras: His Life and Teaching, a Compendium of Classical Sources (59 page)

p. 164 ‘
[“Protectress”].

An epithet of Athena mentioned by Homer in The Iliad, IV,8 (
). Also mentioned by Pausanias, Book 9, Chapter 33, who says it was a villiage of no great size, which got its name from Alalkomenes, a native (
), who is said to have reared Athena, or alternately, Alalkomenia was one of the daughters of Ogyges. (Cf. Sibelis,
Pausaniae Graeciae Descripto
, Vol. 4 pp. 222-223) In his commentary on
The Iliad
, Leaf writes, “It is hard to say whether the local or attributive sense prevails in this title. Pausanias testifies to a cultus of Athene at Alalkomenai, near the Tritonian lake Boiotia, down to the time of Sulla; but the word is evidently also significant, ‘the guardian’. (We hear also of
in the Et. Mag. (i.e. Etymologia Magnum)) Probably the name of the town was taken was either taken from the title of the goddess or adapted to it from an older form, or was itself the cause of the adoption of the cultus; a local adjective being then formed with a distinct consciousness of its original significance.” (Leaf,
The Iliad
, Vol. 1, p. 116)

p. 164
[“worker”].

An epithet of Athena mentioned in Pausanias' Book I, Cap. 24. Cf. Shilleto,
Pausanias' Description of Greece
, Vol. 1, p. 45)

p. 164
[“sound of limbs”].

Or, “wholeness of limbs,” implying the general nature of a thing.

p. 164
“leading to the end”.

In simpler terms, to “be brought to completion.”

p. 165
[“making weak”].

From Nicomachus' as quoted by Photius,
Bibliotheca
p.144B. In the sense of “feminine.” Cf. Liddell Scott, A
Greek-English Lexicon
, p. 798a under
Thomas Taylor translated this as “the producing cause of females.” (Cf. Taylor,
Theoretic Arithmetic
, p. 204)

p. 165
[“guardian of the city”].

An epithet of the guardian diety of a city. Cf.
in Aristophanes,
Equites
, 581 (Leeuwen,
Aristophanes Equites cum prolegomenis et commentariis
, p. 110).