Palladium (classical antiquity)
Protective cult image in Greek and Roman mythology
In Greek and Roman mythology, the Palladium or Palladion (Greek Παλλάδιον (Palladion), Latin Palladium) was a cult image of great antiquity on which the safety of Troy and later Rome was said to depend, the wooden statue (xoanon) of Pallas Athena that Odysseus and Diomedes stole from the citadel of Troy and which was later taken to the future...