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Long shot, but does anyone have more info about this so I don't feel insane? I learned recently that Athena's Etruscan counterpart, Menrva, was often shown on art in romantic-looking poses with Hercle (counterpart of Hercules). We have no surviving Etruscan literature but going by this consistent motif scholars generally interpret these poses as indicative of a lost narrative of the union of the two gods, in a departure from Athena and Minerva's usually virginial character. The scholars in question also labeled this pairing a purely Etruscan invention, like Menrva being a lightning thrower or associated with medicine on top of war. I have found none that don't make that claim. But I DID find this random master's thesis (by a guy who's a Classics PhD now) and apparently it goes beyond that and there actually WAS similar Greek art?

https://escholarship.org/content/qt7hm110md/qt7hm110md.pdf?v=lg

The smoking gun is a c. 500-600 BC Greek vase painting (the Etruscan art we have by contrast is newer, 200s-400s) which labels Athena as "Herakles girl [kore]", but in the context of a wedding where "kore" would almost always be translated as "bride." There's more that I'll post. So did the Etruscans actually make this up themselves, and the pairing was unique to them? Or did they and at least some Greeks independently come up with it? Or or were the Etruscans preserving an older Greek narrative lost to time? What the fuck is going on here?

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