Abstract
In the Homeric epics, man’s encounter with immortals strikes the human senses. Both, the human and the divine body are at stake. Focusing on the goddess Athena, this paper analyses the sensory regimes of the human perception of the gods. Whenever a divinity appears, the human body is temporarily but strongly affected. The senses are altered, and this alteration is precisely what makes the god or goddess recognisable as such. With Athena, we explore the divine body and its perception. In a scene where she undresses and then arms herself with the aegis, the poet stages a gendered feminine body. This body changes from a state of non-visibility (as it would be dangerous to see it) to a state of hyperbolic visibility, characteristic of the gods’ presence on the battlefield.
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