Athena in The Mediterranean: A Comparative Analysis of the Evidence for Cult Worship of Athena in Athens and the South Italian City-States of Magna Graecia

As a Summer Research Project for the Classics Division of the Humanities Department, I studied the worship of the Greek goddess, Athena. As the Greeks spread to inhabit large portions of modern-day Italy, bringing to these lands their religion. Of course, the physical separation from their ancestral land led to variations in lifestyle. Different religious needs and altered priorities led the Greeks to change their habits of devotion. In this paper, I explore how these cultural differences impacted the worship of Athena in Magna Graecia, as compared to that in her home-city, Athens