40 Fun Facts About Nike (Greek Goddess)

Which sportswear logo, sketched by a student in 1971, was inspired by the wings of the goddess Nike?

The Swoosh earned student Carolyn Davidson just $35, though the company later thanked her with a diamond ring in its shape and 500 shares.

Since the 1928 Amsterdam Games, Nike has been the main figure on which sporting prizes?

Summer Olympic medals have shown her ever since; the 2004 Athens redesign swapped the Roman Colosseum behind her for a Greek stadium.

According to the travel writer Pausanias, why did Athens keep a wingless statue of Nike in her temple?

A Victory with no wings could never leave the city, the Athenians reasoned, so her old cult statue stayed wingless while other Nikes flew.

Which brother of Nike, the Greek spirit of strength, shares his name with the hero of the God of War games?

Kratos got his video-game name late in development, after the character was already designed, and the match with the myth was a coincidence.

A famous marble relief from the Temple of Athena Nike shows the goddess bending down to adjust what?

Her sandal gives the carving its name, and the slab once belonged to a parapet built to stop visitors falling off the temple's rock.

On which Greek island did a French diplomat dig up the Winged Victory statue of Nike in 1863?

Samothrace kept her in its Sanctuary of the Great Gods, where she was found broken into a body and scattered fragments of drapery and feathers.

Which sporting prize, stolen in 1966 and sniffed out by a dog named Pickles, was a gilded statuette of Nike?

The FIFA World Cup was at first the Jules Rimet Trophy, which showed her lifting a ten-sided bowl; stolen again in 1983, it has never been recovered.

Which French Riviera city did Greek settlers name Nikaia, after Nike, reportedly to mark a win over local tribes?

Nice began around 350 BC as a Greek colony, and its name is said to mark a victory over the neighboring Ligurians.

Which common boy's name joins the Greek word nike to the word for people, meaning 'victory of the people'?

Nicholas pairs nike with laos, the Greek for people, and spread across Europe through Saint Nicholas of Myra, the bishop behind Santa Claus.

Under which name did the Romans worship Nike, giving her a temple on the Palatine Hill that stored war booty?

Victoria kept her Greek twin's look in Rome, and her image on Roman coins was probably copied from the cult statue in that Palatine temple.

Which underworld river goddess, whose waters bound the gods' most solemn oaths, was the mother of Nike?

Styx was the first deity to answer Zeus's call to war, bringing her four children with her, and the unbreakable oath sworn on her water was her reward.

Nike and her siblings were the first allies Zeus won in his war against which enemies, led by Cronus?

The Titans lost the war, and Zeus rewarded his earliest recruits by keeping Nike and her siblings at his side for ever after.

Which museum displays the Winged Victory statue of Nike at the top of its grand Daru staircase?

The Louvre set her on that landing in the 1880s, a nod to the lofty spot where she once looked down over a sanctuary.

Which part of the Winged Victory statue of Nike did its finder sail back for in 1891, without success?

Her head has never turned up, though a dig in 1950 did recover the palm of her right hand, which is now displayed alongside the statue.

The Temple of Athena Nike, built around 420 BC, is the smallest temple on which famous Athenian hilltop?

The Acropolis lost the tiny temple in the 1680s, when the Ottomans pulled it down and used its stones to build defenses.

The Nike of Callimachus honoured an Athenian commander killed in which 490 BC battle against Persia?

Marathon was fought at all because Callimachus cast the deciding vote to attack; the Persians smashed his monument ten years later.

A gilded Nike nicknamed El Ángel tops an independence column on Paseo de la Reforma in which capital?

Mexico City unveiled her in 1910 for the centenary of the independence struggle; in 1957 an earthquake threw her to the ground in pieces.

Which luxury carmaker asked sculptor Charles Sykes for a bonnet mascot that would evoke the goddess Nike?

Rolls-Royce got something else: Sykes was unimpressed by the brief and reworked his figurine of a real woman into the Spirit of Ecstasy.

During the Cold War, the US military gave the name Nike to a family of which weapons ringing American cities?

Anti-aircraft missiles called Nike Ajax became America's first such system in the 1950s, built to hit jets flying too high and fast for guns.

Early Greek art makes Nike hard to tell from which other winged goddess, who carries a herald's staff?

Iris the messenger and the goddess of victory were both painted as winged women in a hurry, so an unlabeled figure can be either.

Zelus, a brother of Nike, personified the Greek word that gave English which term for eager enthusiasm?

Zeal comes from zelos, the eager rivalry that Zelus stood for, and by way of Latin and French the same Greek word also produced jealous.

Which sculptor gave both his colossal seated Zeus and his Athena Parthenos a small figure of Nike to hold?

Phidias made the Nike in Athena's palm about six feet tall, so even the small figure stood as tall as a grown man.

The Nike of Paionios, perched on a tall pillar, marked a 425 BC victory over which Greek city-state?

Sparta lost the 425 BC fight for the island of Sphacteria, and the victors raised the statue beside a great temple of Zeus as a pointed boast.

The Winged Victory statue of Nike is shown touching down on what, carved from gray marble?

A ship's prow forms her base, cut from gray marble quarried on Rhodes, which is one reason scholars think she marked a win at sea.

Which Berlin landmark is crowned by a four-horse chariot driven by the Roman counterpart of Nike?

Brandenburg Gate's driver began as a goddess of peace; after Napoleon hauled the chariot off to Paris and Prussia won it back, she was recast as victory.

Which Greek city is named after a half-sister of Alexander the Great, herself named for a battlefield victory?

Thessaloniki honors Thessalonike, said to have been born on the day her father Philip II won a battle in Thessaly; nike supplies the end of her name.

In the epic Dionysiaca, Nike urges a hesitant Zeus to fight which monster who stole his thunderbolts?

Typhon had scared many gods into fleeing, so Nike came in disguise, scolded Zeus into action and held her shield in front of him in the battle.

Which early Greek poet first mentions Nike in his Theogony, a poem on the birth of the gods?

Hesiod wrote around 700 BC and gave no details of what Nike actually did in the war, only that Zeus rewarded her for taking his side.

The Temple of Athena Nike, squeezed onto a bastion in Athens, is built entirely in which architectural order?

Ionic columns, slimmer than Doric ones and topped with scrolls, suit its tiny scale, and it is the earliest temple on its hill built wholly in the style.

Which object became the key attribute of Nike in Greek art, held out in her hand toward the victor?

A wreath for the winner became her usual prop in 5th-century BC art, and from the 4th century BC artists often gave her a palm frond as well.

Which name of Ptolemaic queens, later Latinized as Veronica, comes from the Greek for 'bearer of victory'?

Berenice is the Macedonian form of Pherenike, built on the word nike, and Queen Berenice II is the traditional namesake of the constellation Coma Berenices.

Astronomer Auguste Charlois named which kind of space object after Nike when he discovered it in 1891?

An asteroid numbered 307 Nike orbits in the main belt, and in 1972 Pioneer 10 passed it at long range during the first spacecraft crossing of that belt.

In which Roman building did the altar of Victory, the Roman Nike, stand until Christian emperors removed it?

The Senate house gained the altar in 29 BC, when Octavian marked his defeat of Antony and Cleopatra, and pagan members fought for decades to keep it.

Which Hellenistic monument, rebuilt inside a Berlin museum, shows Nike flying in to crown Athena in battle?

The Pergamon Altar's frieze has Athena seizing a winged Giant by the hair while his mother Gaia rises from the ground to plead for him.

Which Athenian tragedian ended three of his plays with a prayer asking Nike to keep crowning him?

Euripides was speaking to the judges as much as to the goddess, since Athenian plays competed for prizes at festivals of Dionysus.

How was the priestess of Athena Nike chosen under a decree of democratic Athens?

By drawing lots, Athens created what has been called its first democratic priesthood, and the state paid the winner fifty drachmas plus a share of the sacrifices.

A Homeric Hymn breaks with the usual family tree and calls which god the father of Nike?

Ares is hailed in the hymn as father of warlike Victory, a fitting parent for a goddess whose favor decided battles.

The Nike held by the Statue of Zeus, a Wonder of the Ancient World, was made of which materials?

Gold and ivory covered the 41-foot seated god as well, and the whole statue was kept coated in olive oil to protect it from the damp air.

Reliefs on the parapet of the Temple of Athena Nike show pairs of Nikes leading which animal to sacrifice?

A bull appears with Nike on painted vases as well, and the same parapet shows other Nikes setting up battlefield trophies before a seated Athena.

Herodotus quotes an oracle crediting Zeus and Nike for the Greek win in which 480 BC sea battle?

Salamis began a long habit: Greek armies were still pairing Zeus and Victory as a battle watchword more than a century later.