Athena雅典娜

Origins

Told that any child of the wise goddess Metis would surpass its father, Zeus swallowed her while she was pregnant. Soon his head was splitting with pain; Hephaestus cracked it open with an axe, and Athena sprang out fully armed, shouting a war cry.

Sacred symbols

OwlOlive treeThe aegisSpear

Myths

The weaver who became a spider

Arachne boasted that she wove better than the goddess. In their contest she wove the scandals of the gods — and wove them flawlessly. Athena tore the cloth apart in fury and turned her into a spider.

Medusa's head

She lent Perseus a polished shield to use as a mirror, so he could behead Medusa without meeting her gaze. The head, which turned onlookers to stone, was later fixed to her aegis.

Patron of the clever

She loved a sharp mind. In the Odyssey she guides Odysseus in one disguise after another, and when he lies to her face she laughs: among mortals you are the best at schemes, and among gods I am.

Relationships with the other gods

• KinZeus

  Born from his head

  Athena sprang from his skull and was always his favourite, the only one allowed to carry his thunderbolt and his aegis. Ares complained bitterly that whatever this daughter did, Zeus let her do it.

• AllianceHera

  The league of the passed-over

  The two goddesses Paris did not choose became Troy's most determined enemies, driving their chariot down from Olympus side by side. Their earlier joint venture, with Poseidon, was tying up Zeus.

• RivalryAphrodite

  Wisdom against beauty

  For the golden apple Athena offered Paris wisdom and victory; Aphrodite offered him a woman — and won. Athena collected on the battlefield: first she urged Diomedes to stab Aphrodite's hand and sneered that she must have scratched it on a brooch, and later simply knocked her flat with her fist.

• RivalryPoseidon

  The naming of Athens

  Both wanted to be patron of a new city. Poseidon struck the rock with his trident and a salt spring gushed out; Athena planted the first olive tree. The people chose the olive and the city became Athens. Poseidon, furious, flooded the surrounding plain.

• RivalryAres

  The two faces of war

  One is strategy and discipline, the other brute force and bloodlust — and in Homer the first always wins. Athena helps Diomedes wound Ares, then later fells him herself with a boundary stone and laughs: "Have you still not learned how much stronger I am?"

• DesireHephaestus

  Desire refused

  He split Zeus's head for her birth, and later fell in love and pursued her; the maiden goddess pushed him away. In the struggle his seed fell on the earth, which bore the child Erichthonius. Athena raised the boy and made him king of Athens. The city's craftsmen honoured the two of them together as their patrons.