page_title: Cultural depictions of spiders
section_title: Ancient Greece and Rome
hierarchical_section_title: Cultural depictions of spiders / In folklore and mythology / Ancient Greece and Rome
caption_attribution_description: English: Arachne - Illustration by Gustave Doré of 1861 edition of Dante's Inferno.
context_page_description: Throughout history, spiders have been depicted in popular culture, mythology and in symbolism. From Greek mythology to African folklore, the spider has been used to represent a variety of things, and endures into the present day with characters such as Shelob from The Lord of the Rings and Spider-Man from the eponymous comic series. It is also a symbol of mischief and malice for its toxic venom and the slow death it causes, which is often seen as a curse. In addition, the spider has inspired creations from an ancient geoglyph to a modern steampunk spectacle. Spiders have been the focus of fears, stories and mythologies of various cultures for centuries.
  The spider has symbolized patience and persistence due to its hunting technique of setting webs and waiting for its prey to become ensnared. Numerous cultures attribute the spider's ability to spin webs with the origin of spinning, textile weaving, basket weaving, knotwork and net making. Spiders are associated with creation myths because they seem to weave their own artistic worlds.
context_section_description: A notable ancient legend from the Western canon that explains the origin of the spider comes from the Greek story of the weaving competition between Athena the goddess, and Arachne, sometimes described as a princess. This story may have originated in Lydian mythology; but the myth, briefly mentioned by Virgil in 29 BC, is known from the later Greek mythos after Ovid wrote the poem Metamorphoses between the years AD 2 and 8. The Greek "arachne" (αράχνη) means "spider", and is the origin of Arachnida, the spiders' taxonomic class.
  This myth tells of Arachne, the daughter of a famous Tyrian purple wool dyer in Hypaepa of Lydia. Due to her father's skill with cloth dyeing, Arachne became adept in the art of weaving. Eventually, she began to consider herself to be a greater weaver than the goddess Athena herself, and challenged the goddess to a weaving contest to prove her superior skill. Athena wove the scene of her victory over Poseidon that had earned her the patronage of Athens, while Arachne wove a tapestry featuring many episodes of infidelity among the Gods of Olympus, which angered Athena. The goddess conceded that Arachne's weaving was flawless, but she was infuriated by the mortal's pride. In a final moment of anger, Athena destroyed Arachne's tapestry and loom with her shuttle and cursed Arachne to live with extreme guilt. Out of sadness, Arachne soon hanged herself. Taking pity on her, Athena brought her back to life transformed as a spider, using the poison aconite; "—and ever since, Arachne, as a spider, weaves her web."
  The scholar Robert Graves proposed Ovid's tale may have its roots in the commercial rivalry between the Athenian citizenry of Greece and that of Miletus in Asia Minor, which flourished around 2000 BC. In Miletus, the spider may have been an important figure; seals with spider emblems have been recovered there.
caption: Arachne depicted as a half-spider half-human in Gustave Doré's illustration for an 1861 edition of Dante's Purgatorio
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