ABSTRACT
Athena was an important part of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine cultural tradition and memory. To date, late-antique images of the popular deity—and her Roman counterpart Minerva—have usually been considered secular, devoid of all previous pagan meaning. Occasionally, scholars have deemed Athena’s continued popularity the result of an antiquarian interest in the classical past. Based on an analysis of steelyard weights of the period 400–600 CE and prominent statues in cities like Athens and Constantinople, Wade argues that many people considered Athena a contemporary deity, one who symbolised utopian ideals of both the Graeco-Roman past and the Christian future.
