Key Points

- An immortal and unbreakable shield

Brief Bio

The Aegis of Athena is referred to in several places in the Iliad. "It produced a sound as from myriad roaring dragons and was borne by Athena in battle ... and among them went bright-eyed Athene, holding the precious aegis which is ageless and immortal: a hundred tassels of pure gold hang fluttering from it, tight-woven each of them, and each the worth of a hundred oxen.

The Cyclopes in Hephaestus's forge, busily burnished the Aegis Athena wears in her angry moods—a fearsome thing with a surface of gold like scaly snake-skin, and the linked serpents and the Gorgon herself upon the goddess's breast—a severed head rolling its eyes, furnished with golden tassels and bearing the Gorgoneion (Medusa's head) in the central boss. 

In the Iliad when Zeus sends Apollo to revive the wounded Hector, Apollo, holding the aegis, charges the Achaeans, pushing them back to their ships drawn up on the shore. 

In some versions, Zeus watched Athena and Triton's daughter, Pallas, compete in a friendly mock battle involving spears. Not wanting his daughter to lose, Zeus flapped his aegis to distract Pallas, whom Athena accidentally impaled. Zeus apologized to Athena by giving her the aegis; Athena then named herself Pallas Athena in tribute to her late friend.