n her aspect of 

Athena Polias, Athena was venerated as the goddess of the city and the protectress
of the citadel.[12][39][40] In Athens, the Plynteria, or "Feast of the Bath", was observed every year at the
end of the month of Thargelion.[41] The festival lasted for five days. During this period, the priestesses
of Athena, or plyntrídes, performed a cleansing ritual within the Erechtheion, a sanctuary devoted to
Athena and Poseidon.[42] Here Athena's statue was undressed, her clothes washed, and body
purified.[42] Athena was worshipped at festivals such as Chalceia as Athena Ergane,[43][40] the patroness
of various crafts, especially weaving.[43][40] She was also the patron of metalworkers and was believed
to aid in the forging of armor and weapons.[43] During the late fifth century BC, the role of goddess of
philosophy became a major aspect of Athena's cult.[44]
As Athena Promachos, she was believed to lead soldiers into battle.[45][46] Athena represented the
disciplined, strategic side of war, in contrast to her brother Ares, the patron of violence, bloodlust,
and slaughter—"the raw force of war".[47][48] Athena was believed to only support those fighting for a
just cause[47] and was thought to view war primarily as a means to resolve conflict. [47] The Greeks
regarded Athena with much higher esteem than Ares.[47][48] Athena was especially worshipped in this
role during the festivals of the Panathenaea and Pamboeotia,[49] both of which prominently featured
displays of athletic and military prowess.[49] As the patroness of heroes and warriors, Athena was
believed to favor those who used cunning and intelligence rather than brute strength. [50]

The Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis, which is dedicated to Athena Parthenos[51]

In her aspect as a warrior maiden, Athena was known as Parthenos (Παρθένος "virgin"),[45][52]

[53]
 because, like her fellow goddesses Artemis and Hestia, she was believed to remain perpetually a
virgin.[54][55][45][53][56] Athena's most famous temple, the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis, takes its
name from this title.[56] According to Karl Kerényi, a scholar of Greek mythology, the
name Parthenos is not merely an observation of Athena's virginity, but also a recognition of her role
as enforcer of rules of sexual modesty and ritual mystery.[56] Even beyond recognition, the Athenians
allotted the goddess value based on this pureness of virginity, which they upheld as a rudiment of
female behavior.[56] Kerényi's study and theory of Athena explains her virginal epithet as a result of
her relationship to her father Zeus and a vital, cohesive piece of her character throughout the ages.
[56]
 This role is expressed in a number of stories about Athena. Marinus of Neapolis reports that when
Christians removed the statue of the goddess from the Parthenon, a beautiful woman appeared in a
dream to Proclus, a devotee of Athena, and announced that the "Athenian Lady" wished to dwell
with him.[57]

Regional cults
Reverse side of a Pergamene silver tetradrachm minted by Attalus I, showing Athena seated on a throne (c. 
200 BC)

Athena was not only the patron goddess of Athens, but also other cities,
including Argos, Sparta, Gortyn, Lindos, and Larisa.[46] The various cults of Athena were all branches
of her panhellenic cult[46] and often proctored various initiation rites of Grecian youth, such as the
passage into citizenship by young men or the passage of young women into marriage. [46] These cults
were portals of a uniform socialization, even beyond mainland Greece. [46] Athena was frequently
equated with Aphaea, a local goddess of the island of Aegina, originally from Crete and also
associated with Artemis and the nymph Britomartis.[58] In Arcadia, she was assimilated with the
ancient goddess Alea and worshiped as Athena Alea.[59] Sanctuaries dedicated to Athena Alea were
located in the Laconian towns of Mantineia and Tegea. The temple of Athena Alea in Tegea was an
important religious center of ancient Greece.[g] The geographer Pausanias was informed that
the temenos had been founded by Aleus.[60]
Athena had a major temple on the Spartan Acropolis,[61][40] where she was venerated as Poliouchos
and Khalkíoikos ("of the Brazen House", often latinized as Chalcioecus).[61][40] This epithet may refer to
the fact that cult statue held there may have been made of bronze, [61] that the walls of the temple
itself may have been made of bronze, [61] or that Athena was the patron of metal-workers.[61] Bells
made of terracotta and bronze were used in Sparta as part of Athena's cult. [61] An Ionic-style temple
to Athena Polias was built at Priene in the fourth century BC.[62] It was designed by Pytheos of
Priene,[63] the same architect who designed the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.[63] The temple was
dedicated by Alexander the Great[64] and an inscription from the temple declaring his dedication is
now held in the British Museum.[62]

Epithets and attributes

See also: Category:Epithets of Athena
Cult statue of Athena with the face of the Carpegna type (late 1st century BC to early 1st century AD), from the
Piazza dell'Emporio, Rome

Bust of the Velletri Pallas type, copy after a votive statue of Kresilas in Athens (c. 425 BC)

Athena was known as Atrytone (Άτρυτώνη "the Unwearying"), Parthenos (Παρθένος "Virgin"),

and Promachos (Πρόμαχος "she who fights in front"). The epithet Polias (Πολιάς "of the city"), refers
to Athena's role as protectress of the city.[46] The epithet Ergane (Εργάνη "the Industrious") pointed
her out as the patron of craftsmen and artisans.[46] Burkert notes that the Athenians sometimes
simply called Athena "the Goddess", hē theós (ἡ θεός), certainly an ancient title. [5] After serving as
the judge at the trial of Orestes in which he was acquitted of having murdered his
mother Clytemnestra, Athena won the epithet Areia (Αρεία).[46] Some have described Athena, along
with the goddesses Hestia and Artemis as being asexual, this is mainly supported by the fact that in
the Homeric Hymns, 5, To Aphrodite, where Aphrodite is described as having "no power" over the
three goddesses. [65]
Athena was sometimes given the epithet Hippia (Ἵππια "of the horses", "equestrian"), [40][66] referring to
her invention of the bit, bridle, chariot, and wagon.[40] The Greek geographer Pausanias mentions in
his Guide to Greece that the temple of Athena Chalinitis ("the bridler")[66] in Corinth was located near
the tomb of Medea's children.[66] Other epithets include Ageleia, Itonia and Aethyia, under which she
was worshiped in Megara.[67][68] The word aíthyia (αἴθυια) signifies a "diver", also some diving bird
species (possibly the shearwater) and figuratively, a "ship", so the name must reference Athena
teaching the art of shipbuilding or navigation. [69] In a temple at Phrixa in Elis, reportedly built
by Clymenus, she was known as Cydonia (Κυδωνία).[70] Pausanias wrote that at Buporthmus there
was a sanctuary of Athena Promachorma (Προμαχόρμα), meaning protector of the anchorage.[71][72]
The Greek biographer Plutarch (AD 46–120) refers to an instance during the Parthenon's
construction of her being called Athena Hygieia (Ὑγίεια, i. e. personified "Health") after inspiring a
physician to a successful course of treatment.[73]

The owl of Athena, surrounded by an olive wreath. Reverse of an Athenian silver tetradrachm, c. 175 BC

In Homer's epic works, Athena's most common epithet is Glaukopis (γλαυκῶπις), which usually is

translated as, "bright-eyed" or "with gleaming eyes". [74] The word is a combination
of glaukós (γλαυκός, meaning "gleaming, silvery", and later, "bluish-green" or "gray") [75] and ṓps (ὤψ,
"eye, face").[76] The word glaúx (γλαύξ,[77] "little owl")[78] is from the same root, presumably according to
some, because of the bird's own distinctive eyes. Athena was clearly associated with the owl from
very early on;[79] in archaic images, she is frequently depicted with an owl perched on her hand.
[79]
 Through its association with Athena, the owl evolved into the national mascot of the Athenians
and eventually became a symbol of wisdom. [4]
In the Iliad (4.514), the Odyssey (3.378), the Homeric Hymns, and in Hesiod's Theogony, Athena is
also given the curious epithet Tritogeneia (Τριτογένεια), whose significance remains unclear. [80] It
could mean various things, including "Triton-born", perhaps indicating that the homonymous sea-
deity was her parent according to some early myths.[80] One myth relates the foster father relationship
of this Triton towards the half-orphan Athena, whom he raised alongside his own daughter Pallas.
[81]
 Kerényi suggests that "Tritogeneia did not mean that she came into the world on any particular
river or lake, but that she was born of the water itself; for the name Triton seems to be associated
with water generally."[82][83] In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Athena is occasionally referred to as "Tritonia".
Another possible meaning may be "triple-born" or "third-born", which may refer to a triad or to her
status as the third daughter of Zeus or the fact she was born from Metis, Zeus, and herself; various
legends list her as being the first child after Artemis and Apollo, though other legends identify her as
Zeus' first child.[84] Several scholars have suggested a connection to the Rigvedic god Trita,[85] who
was sometimes grouped in a body of three mythological poets. [85] Michael Janda has connected the
myth of Trita to the scene in the Iliad in which the "three brothers" Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades divide
the world between them, receiving the "broad sky", the sea, and the underworld respectively. [86]
[87]
 Janda further connects the myth of Athena being born of the head (i. e. the uppermost part) of
Zeus, understanding Trito- (which perhaps originally meant "the third") as another word for "the sky".
[86]
 In Janda's analysis of Indo-European mythology, this heavenly sphere is also associated with the
mythological body of water surrounding the inhabited world (cfr. Triton's mother, Amphitrite).[86]
Yet another possible meaning is mentioned in Diogenes Laertius' biography of Democritus, that
Athena was called "Tritogeneia" because three things, on which all mortal life depends, come from
her.[88]

Mythology
Birth

Athena is "born" from Zeus's forehead as a result of him having swallowed her mother Metis, as he grasps the
clothing of Eileithyia on the right; black-figured amphora, 550–525 BC, Louvre.

She was the daughter of Zeus, produced without a mother, so that she emerged full-grown from his
forehead. There was an alternative story that Zeus swallowed Metis, the goddess of counsel, while
she was pregnant with Athena, so that Athena finally emerged from Zeus. Being the favourite child
of Zeus, she had great power. In the classical Olympian pantheon, Athena was regarded as the
favorite daughter of Zeus, born fully armed from his forehead. [89][90][91][h] The story of her birth comes in
several versions.[92][93][94] The earliest mention is in Book V of the Iliad, when Ares accuses Zeus of
being biased in favor of Athena because "autos egeinao" (literally "you fathered her", but probably
intended as "you gave birth to her"). [95][96] She was essentially urban and civilized, the antithesis in
many respects of Artemis, goddess of the outdoors. Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess
and was later taken over by the Greeks. In the version recounted by Hesiod in his Theogony, Zeus
married the goddess Metis, who is described as the "wisest among gods and mortal men", and
engaged in sexual intercourse with her.[97][98][96][99] After learning that Metis was pregnant, however, he
became afraid that the unborn offspring would try to overthrow him, because Gaia and Ouranos had
prophesied that Metis would bear children wiser than their father. [97][98][96][99] In order to prevent this,
Zeus tricked Metis into letting him swallow her, but it was too late because Metis had already
conceived.[97][100][96][99] A later account of the story from the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, written in
the second century AD, makes Metis Zeus's unwilling sexual partner, rather than his wife. [101]
[102]
 According to this version of the story, Metis transformed into many different shapes in effort to
escape Zeus,[101][102] but Zeus successfully raped her and swallowed her. [101][102]
After swallowing Metis, Zeus took six more wives in succession until he married his seventh and
present wife, Hera.[99] Then Zeus experienced an enormous headache.[103][96][99] He was in such pain
that he ordered someone (either Prometheus, Hephaestus, Hermes, Ares, or Palaemon, depending
on the sources examined) to cleave his head open with the labrys, the double-headed Minoan axe.
[104][96][105][102]
 Athena leaped from Zeus's head, fully grown and armed. [104][96][91][106] The "First Homeric Hymn
to Athena" states in lines 9–16 that the gods were awestruck by Athena's appearance [107] and
even Helios, the god of the sun, stopped his chariot in the sky.[107] Pindar, in his "Seventh Olympian
Ode", states that she "cried aloud with a mighty shout" and that "the Sky and mother Earth
shuddered before her."[108][107]
Hesiod states that Hera was so annoyed at Zeus for having given birth to a child on his own that she
conceived and bore Hephaestus by herself,[99] but in Imagines 2. 27 (trans. Fairbanks), the third-
century AD Greek rhetorician Philostratus the Elder writes that Hera "rejoices" at Athena's birth "as
though Athena were her daughter also." The second-century AD Christian apologist Justin
Martyr takes issue with those pagans who erect at springs images of Kore, whom he interprets as
Athena: "They said that Athena was the daughter of Zeus not from intercourse, but when the god
had in mind the making of a world through a word (logos) his first thought was Athena."[109] According
to a version of the story in a scholium on the Iliad (found nowhere else), when Zeus
swallowed Metis, she was pregnant with Athena by the Cyclops Brontes.[110] The Etymologicum
Magnum[111] instead deems Athena the daughter of the Daktyl Itonos.[112] Fragments attributed by the
Christian Eusebius of Caesarea to the semi-legendary Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon, which
Eusebius thought had been written before the Trojan war, make Athena instead the daughter
of Cronus, a king of Byblos who visited "the inhabitable world" and bequeathed Attica to Athena.[113][114]

Pallas Athena

Detail of a Roman fresco from Pompeii showing Ajax the Lesser dragging Cassandra away from

the palladion during the fall of Troy, an event which provoked Athena's wrath against the Greek armies [115]

Athena's epithet Pallas is derived either from πάλλω, meaning "to brandish [as a weapon]", or, more
likely, from παλλακίς and related words, meaning "youth, young woman". [116] On this topic, Walter
Burkert says "she is the Pallas of Athens, Pallas Athenaie, just as Hera of Argos is Here Argeie."[5] In
later times, after the original meaning of the name had been forgotten, the Greeks invented myths to
explain its origin, such as those reported by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus and
the Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus, which claim that Pallas was originally a separate entity,
whom Athena had slain in combat. [117]
In one version of the myth, Pallas was the daughter of the sea-god Triton;[81] she and Athena were
childhood friends, but Athena accidentally killed her during a friendly sparring match.[118] Distraught
over what she had done, Athena took the name Pallas for herself as a sign of her grief. [118] In another
version of the story, Pallas was a Gigante;[104] Athena slew him during the Gigantomachy and flayed
off his skin to make her cloak, which she wore as a victory trophy. [104][12][119][120] In an alternative variation
of the same myth, Pallas was instead Athena's father, [104][12] who attempted to assault his own
daughter,[121] causing Athena to kill him and take his skin as a trophy. [122]
The palladion was a statue of Athena that was said to have stood in her temple on the Trojan
Acropolis.[123] Athena was said to have carved the statue herself in the likeness of her dead friend
Pallas.[123] The statue had special talisman-like properties [123] and it was thought that, as long as it was
in the city, Troy could never fall.[123] When the Greeks captured Troy, Cassandra, the daughter
of Priam, clung to the palladion for protection, [123] but Ajax the Lesser violently tore her away from it
and dragged her over to the other captives.[123] Athena was infuriated by this violation of her
protection.[115] Although Agamemnon attempted to placate her anger with sacrifices, Athena sent a
storm at Cape Kaphereos to destroy almost the entire Greek fleet and scatter all of the surviving
ships across the Aegean.[124]

Lady of Athens

The Dispute of  Minerva and Neptune by René-Antoine Houasse (c. 1689 or 1706)

In Homer's Iliad, Athena, as a war goddess, inspired and fought alongside the Greek heroes; her aid
was synonymous with military prowess. Also in the Iliad, Zeus, the chief god, specifically assigned
the sphere of war to Ares, the god of war, and Athena. Athena's moral and military superiority to
Ares derived in part from the fact that she represented the intellectual and civilized side of war and
the virtues of justice and skill, whereas Ares represented mere blood lust. Her superiority also
derived in part from the vastly greater variety and importance of her functions and from the
patriotism of Homer's predecessors, Ares being of foreign origin. In the Iliad, Athena was the divine
form of the heroic, martial ideal: she personified excellence in close combat, victory, and glory. The
qualities that led to victory were found on the aegis, or breastplate, that Athena wore when she went
to war: fear, strife, defense, and assault. Athena appears in Homer's Odyssey as the tutelary deity of
Odysseus, and myths from later sources portray her similarly as helper of Perseus and Heracles
(Hercules). As the guardian of the welfare of kings, Athena became the goddess of good counsel, of
prudent restraint and practical insight, as well as of war. In a founding myth reported by Pseudo-
Apollodorus,[111] Athena competed with Poseidon for the patronage of Athens.[125] They agreed that
each would give the Athenians one gift [125] and that Cecrops, the king of Athens, would determine
which gift was better.[125] Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring sprang
up;[125] this gave the Athenians access to trade and water. [126] Athens at its height was a significant sea
power, defeating the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis[126]—but the water was salty and
undrinkable.[126] In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil's Georgics,[111] Poseidon instead gave
the Athenians the first horse.[125] Athena offered the first domesticated olive tree.[125][53] Cecrops
accepted this gift[125] and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens. [125] The olive tree brought
wood, oil, and food,[126] and became a symbol of Athenian economic prosperity. [53][127] Robert
Graves was of the opinion that "Poseidon's attempts to take possession of certain cities are political
myths",[126] which reflect the conflict between matriarchal and patriarchal religions. [126]

The Athena Giustiniani, a Roman copy of a Greek statue of Pallas Athena. The guardian serpent of the
Athenian Acropolis sits coiled at her feet.[128]

Pseudo-Apollodorus[111] records an archaic legend, which claims that Hephaestus once attempted to

rape Athena, but she pushed him away, causing him to ejaculate on her thigh.[129][51][130] Athena wiped
the semen off using a tuft of wool, which she tossed into the dust,[129][51][130] impregnating Gaia and
causing her to give birth to Erichthonius.[129][51][130] Athena adopted Erichthonius as her son and raised
him.[129][130] The Roman mythographer Hyginus[111] records a similar story in which Hephaestus
demanded Zeus to let him marry Athena since he was the one who had smashed open Zeus's skull,
allowing Athena to be born.[129] Zeus agreed to this and Hephaestus and Athena were married, [129] but,
when Hephaestus was about to consummate the union, Athena vanished from the bridal bed,
causing him to ejaculate on the floor, thus impregnating Gaia with Erichthonius. [129]
The geographer Pausanias[111] records that Athena placed the infant Erichthonius into a small
chest[131] (cista), which she entrusted to the care of the three daughters
of Cecrops: Herse, Pandrosos, and Aglauros of Athens.[131] She warned the three sisters not to open
the chest,[131] but did not explain to them why or what was in it.[131] Aglauros, and possibly one of the
other sisters,[131] opened the chest.[131] Differing reports say that they either found that the child itself
was a serpent, that it was guarded by a serpent, that it was guarded by two serpents, or that it had
the legs of a serpent.[132] In Pausanias's story, the two sisters were driven mad by the sight of the
chest's contents and hurled themselves off the Acropolis, dying instantly,[133] but an Attic vase
painting shows them being chased by the serpent off the edge of the cliff instead. [133]
Erichthonius was one of the most important founding heroes of Athens [51] and the legend of the
daughters of Cecrops was a cult myth linked to the rituals of the Arrhephoria festival.[51][134] Pausanias
records that, during the Arrhephoria, two young girls known as the Arrhephoroi, who lived near the
temple of Athena Polias, would be given hidden objects by the priestess of Athena,[135] which they
would carry on their heads down a natural underground passage. [135] They would leave the objects
they had been given at the bottom of the passage and take another set of hidden objects, [135] which
they would carry on their heads back up to the temple. [135] The ritual was performed in the dead of
night[135] and no one, not even the priestess, knew what the objects were.[135] The serpent in the story
may be the same one depicted coiled at Athena's feet in Pheidias's famous statue of the Athena
Parthenos in the Parthenon.[128] Many of the surviving sculptures of Athena show this serpent. [128]
Herodotus records that a serpent lived in a crevice on the north side of the summit of the Athenian
Acropolis[128] and that the Athenians left a honey cake for it each month as an offering. [128] On the eve
of the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, the serpent did not eat the honey cake[128] and
the Athenians interpreted it as a sign that Athena herself had abandoned them. [128] Another version of
the myth of the Athenian maidens is told in Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – 17
AD); in this late variant Hermes falls in love with Herse. Herse, Aglaulus, and Pandrosus go to the
temple to offer sacrifices to Athena. Hermes demands help from Aglaulus to seduce Herse. Aglaulus
demands money in exchange. Hermes gives her the money the sisters have already offered to
Athena. As punishment for Aglaulus's greed, Athena asks the goddess Envy to make Aglaulus
jealous of Herse. When Hermes arrives to seduce Herse, Aglaulus stands in his way instead of
helping him as she had agreed. He turns her to stone. [136]

Patron of heroes

Attic red-figure kylix painting from c. 480-470 BC showing Athena observing as the Colchian dragon disgorges
the hero Jason[137]

According to Pseudo-Apollodorus's Bibliotheca, Athena advised Argos, the builder of the Argo, the

ship on which the hero Jason and his band of Argonauts sailed, and aided in the ship's construction.
[138][139]
 Pseudo-Apollodorus also records that Athena guided the hero Perseus in his quest to
behead Medusa.[140][141][142] She and Hermes, the god of travelers, appeared to Perseus after he set off
on his quest and gifted him with tools he would need to kill the Gorgon. [142][143] Athena gave Perseus a
polished bronze shield to view Medusa's reflection rather than looking at her directly and thereby
avoid being turned to stone. [142][144] Hermes gave him an adamantine scythe to cut off Medusa's head.
[142][145]
 When Perseus swung his blade to behead Medusa, Athena guided it, allowing his scythe to cut
it clean off.[142][144] According to Pindar's Thirteenth Olympian Ode, Athena helped the
hero Bellerophon tame the winged horse Pegasus by giving him a bit.[146][147]
In ancient Greek art, Athena is frequently shown aiding the hero Heracles.[148] She appears in four of
the twelve metopes on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia depicting Heracles's Twelve Labors,[149]
[148]
 including the first, in which she passively watches him slay the Nemean lion,[148] and the tenth, in
which she is shown actively helping him hold up the sky.[150] She is presented as his "stern ally",
[151]
 but also the "gentle... acknowledger of his achievements." [151] Artistic depictions of
Heracles's apotheosis show Athena driving him to Mount Olympus in her chariot and presenting him
to Zeus for his deification.[150] In Aeschylus's tragedy Orestes, Athena intervenes to
save Orestes from the wrath of the Erinyes and presides over his trial for the murder of his
mother Clytemnestra.[152] When half the jury votes to acquit and the other half votes to convict,
Athena casts the deciding vote to acquit Orestes[152] and declares that, from then on, whenever a jury
is tied, the defendant shall always be acquitted.[153]
In The Odyssey, Odysseus' cunning and shrewd nature quickly wins Athena's favour. [154][139] For the
first part of the poem, however, she largely is confined to aiding him only from afar, mainly by
implanting thoughts in his head during his journey home from Troy. Her guiding actions reinforce her
role as the "protectress of heroes," or, as mythologian Walter Friedrich Otto dubbed her, the
"goddess of nearness," due to her mentoring and motherly probing. [155][140][156] It is not until he washes
up on the shore of the island of the Phaeacians, where Nausicaa is washing her clothes that Athena
arrives personally to provide more tangible assistance. [157] She appears in Nausicaa's dreams to
ensure that the princess rescues Odysseus and plays a role in his eventual escort to Ithaca.
[158]
 Athena appears to Odysseus upon his arrival, disguised as a herdsman; [159][160][154] she initially lies
and tells him that Penelope, his wife, has remarried and that he is believed to be dead, [159] but
Odysseus lies back to her, employing skillful prevarications to protect himself. [161][160] Impressed by his
resolve and shrewdness, she reveals herself and tells him what he needs to know in order to win
back his kingdom.[162][160][154] She disguises him as an elderly beggar so that he will not be recognized
by the suitors or Penelope,[163][160] and helps him to defeat the suitors.[163][164][160] Athena also appears to
Odysseus's son Telemachus.[165] Her actions lead him to travel around to Odysseus's comrades and
ask about his father.[166] He hears stories about some of Odysseus's journey. [166] Athena's push for
Telemachos's journey helps him grow into the man role, that his father once held. [167] She also plays
a role in ending the resultant feud against the suitors' relatives. She instructs Laertes to throw his
spear and to kill Eupeithes, the father of Antinous.