Minerva, goddess of wisdom and the arts, the only child of Jupiter who merited participation in the privileges associated with the highest status of divinity. All the Mythologists and Poets speak about her in this manner. To be convinced of this, one need only read the hymn of Callimachus on the baths of Minerva , which is one of the most beautiful works of antiquity. One sees in that hymn, that Minerva gives the spirit of prophesy, that she prolongs the days of mortals at her will, that she procures happiness after death, that all that she authorizes with the nod of a head is irrevocable, and that all she promises inevitably arrives; because, adds the poet, she is the only one in the heavens to whom Jupiter had accorded the glorious privilege of being most like him and able to enjoy the same advantages. In effect, when the mythologists tell us that she was born to Jupiter without the help of a mother, that signifies that Minerva is nothing other than virtue, wisdom, the advisor of the sovereign master of the gods.

Not only did she guide Ulysses in his voyages, but also she did not refuse to teach the daughters of Pandarus the art of representing flowers and battles in works of tapestry, after having embellished the cloak of Juno with her beautiful hands. From then on, Trojan ladies paid homage to that precious veil that shined like a star and that Homer described in the sixth book of the Iliad .

This goddess did not disregard presiding over the successes of navigation; she enlightened the Argonauts on the construction of their ship, or she built it herself according to Appollodorus. All the poets assure us that she placed on the prow the speaking wood , cut from the forest of Dodona, who dictated the route of the Argonauts, notified them of dangers, and taught the Argonauts to avoid them. Under that figurative language, one sees that it is the question of a rudder that was placed on the ship, Argo.

It is in vain that the ancients recognized several Minervas : the five that Cicero counted are one and the same person, the Minerva of Saïs , that is to say, Isis, according to Plutarch. Her cult was taken from Egypt to Greece, passing through Samothrace, in Asia Minor, with the Gauls and the Romans. Saïs dedicated the first to Minerva a magnificent temple, and disputed a long time with other cities of the world the glory of incensing her altars. Afterwards, the Rhodians put themselves under the goddess's particular protection. Ultimately, she abandoned the sojourn at Rhodes to give herself completely to the Athenians, who dedicated to her a superb temple and celebrated in her honor festivals of which the solemnity attracted to Athens spectators from all over Asia; that is what the medals prove, and Minerva was nicknamed Αθήνη [ Athene ].

Although she did not reign as powerfully in Laconia as in Attica, nevertheless, she had her temple in Lacedemonia as in Athens, in an elevated place which overlooks the entire city. Tyndarus laid the foundations, Castor and Pollux completed it. They also built the temple of Minerva Asia on their return from Colchos. Ultimately, among the temples that were consecrated in the entire country, those that carry the name of Minerva ophtalmitide are the most remarkable; Lycurgus dedicated the temple under that name in the market-town of Alphium, because that place served as an asylum against Alcander's anger who, not content with Lycurgus's laws, wanted to gouge his eyes out.

Minerva is given, in statues and in paintings, a simple beauty, casual, modest, a grave air, noble, full of force, majesty. On medallions, her ordinary dress shows her as a protector of the arts and not like the formidable Pallas whom, covered by a shield, inspires horror and carnage. She is dressed in a peplum, a dress celebrated by the Poets, and reflects genius, prudence, and wisdom. Other times she is represented with helmet on head, a lance in one hand and a shield in the other, with the aegis on her chest; it is Pallas who we designate thusly.

In those statues that were anciently sitting, according to Strabo; you see her again in that attitude. The owl and the dragon that were consecrated to her often accompany her images. Those caused Demosthenes, exiled by the people of Athens, to say when he left that Minerva entertains herself in the company of three stupid villains: the owl, the dragon, and the people.

It is known that Minerva was honored in different places under the names of Minerva of the beautiful eyes, Minerva of the blue eyes, inventor Minerva, hospitable, itonia, lemnia, peonia, saronion, stenion, sunion and other epithets of which the principal ones are explained in the Encyclopedia.