There we are told that the Trojan matrons, in a time of stress, brought a robe to offer to the goddess, and that the priestess Theano placed it "upon the knees of beauteous-haired Athene." Unless, as is possible, this is a purely metaphorical expression, it would seem to imply a seated statue; but it is to be noted that the Palladium of Troy, the sacred image of Athena which was stolen by Ulysses and Diomed, and which was preserved, according to conflicting traditions, in one or another shrine in later Greece, was a standing statue of a primitive type.

The inconsistency is not of great importance, except as showing that the supposed mention of the statue of Athena in the Iliad had little, if any, influence on later tradition; and in any case it is isolated, and does not refer to a Greek, but a foreign temple.

On the other hand, we find frequent mention in later writers of primitive statues of the gods which were said to have been set up or dedicated by various persons in the heroic age.

An example is offered by the Trojan Palladium already mentioned; another was the statue of Artemis carried off from Tauris by Iphigenia and Orestes; rival claimants to this identification existed at Sparta and at Brauron in Attica.

The legends of dedication are of no historic value; the story of the Palladium itself was unknown to Homer, though it occurred in later epics.