Everything you need to know about Athena

Athena, goddess of wisdom and war

Athena, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, handicraft, and warfare who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of various cities across Greece, particularly the city of Athens, from which she most likely received her name.Athena, also referred to as Athene, is a very important goddess of many things. 

She is goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, strategic warfare, mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill. She is known most specifically for her strategic skill in warfare and is often portrayed as companion of heroes and is the patron goddess of heroic endeavour.

According to some sources, Athena was praised for her compassion and generosity. Athena was a patron of the arts and crafts, especially when it came to spinning and weaving.In later poetry, Athena embodied wisdom and rational thought.Athena served as a guardian of Athens, where the Parthenon served as her temple. Zeus trusted her to wield the aegis and his thunderbolt.

Athena was born from Zeus after he experienced an enormous headache and she sprang fully grown and in armour from his forehead. She was the daughter of Zeus; no mother bore her. She sprang from Zeus’s head, full-grown and clothed in armor. She was Zeus’s favorite child. According to Homer’s account in the Iliad, Athena was a fierce and ruthless warrior. In the Odyssey, she was angry and unforgiving. In the course of the Trojan War, she struck Ajax with madness. Known for protecting civilized life, she was the Goddess of the City.

The owl was her bird, and the olive tree was hers.

She has no mother but one of the most commonly cited stories is that Zeus lay with Metis, the goddess of crafty thought and wisdom, and then swallowed her whole as he feared she will give birth to a child more powerful than him because of a prophecy – but she had already conceived. Her most important festival was the Panathenaea, which was celebrated annually at Athens. She is referred to in poetry as “gray-eyed.” She was known as Athena Parthenos ("Athena the Virgin"), but, in one archaic Attic myth, the god Hephaestus tried and failed to rape her, resulting in Gaia giving birth to Erichthonius, an important Athenian founding hero. 

Athena was the patron goddess of heroic endeavor; she was believed to have also aided the heroes Perseus, Heracles, Bellerophon, and Jason. Along with Aphrodite and Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War. She plays an active role in the Iliad, in which she assists the Achaeans and, in the Odyssey, she is the divine counselor to Odysseus. She is one of three virgin goddesses; the other two were Hestia and Artemis.

Athena invented the flute, but she never played it.

She was also a warrior goddess, and was believed to lead soldiers into battle as Athena Promachos.

From her origin as an Aegean palace goddess, Athena was closely associated with the city. She was known as Polias and Poliouchos (both derived from polis, meaning "city-state"), and her temples were usually located atop the fortified acropolis in the central part of the city. The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis is dedicated to her, along with numerous other temples and monuments. As the patron of craft and weaving, Athena was known as Ergane. The sacred image of Athena, a wood statue called the Palladium, protected the Trojans as long as they had it.