Aegis

The aegis is a piece of cloth worn on the shoulders. It is one of the attributes of Zeus ‘the Aegis-bearer,’ who gives victory and fills the opponent with terror and makes him flee, as stated in the Iliad: Zeus shook the aegis, giving victory to the Trojans. (Iliad 17, 593)

In the Iliad, it is described as follows: It is ageless and immortal with a hundred tassels of pure gold hanging from it (Iliad 2.447).

Zeus lends it to his daughter Athena when she has to fight: About her shoulders Athena flung the tasselled aegis, fraught with terror, all about which Rout is set as a crown, and therein is Strife, therein Valour, and therein Onset, that maketh the blood run cold, and therein is the head of the dread monster, the Gorgon, dread and awful, a portent of Zeus that beareth the aegis (Iliad, 5.738).

Athena wearing the Aegis. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, CdM. Public domain

Zeus also lends it to Apollo, who is seen covering Hector’s body with it.

Aegis is usually described as an emblem of power and protection.

The word “aigis” means goat-skin. Wild goat is the animal that climbs to the highest extent in the mountains, which means that it is the symbol of that which can rise highest to the heights of the spirit; just as Heracles is clothed in the lion skin, indicating his victory over the ego, so whoever puts on the goat skin shows mastery over lower nature and liberation of the spirit.

This liberation also implies overcoming fear. The head of the Gorgon depicted on the aegis makes it the symbol of fearlessness.

If we consider the structuring consonants forming the name Aegis, Ι+Γ, then the Aegis could mean ‘the consciousness that rushes forward’. And Zeus stirring the Aegis would cause fear to that which is stuck to the old, that which does not want to change.

Sri Aurobindo uses this word only as a symbol of power.