Biography

 

There are many different versions of myths throughout the centuries of the stories told from the past. We seek to give you a mix of different versions of stories combined to give a clear, interesting and exciting understanding of mythology

 

Athena is the goddess of wisdom, war, also arts and crafts, also believed to be one of the wisest of the Olympians. Athena was Zues’s favorite daughter out of all his kids, Athena is also one of the only goddesses that remained a virgin and through stories told she would rather focus on her crafts and warfare skills. 

Athena’s Birth 

The story of Athena begins with Zues’s pounding headache a headache so ridiculous that he had his son Hephaistos chop him dead in the center of the head to release the pain and in this action Athena was born in which she jumped out of his open skull fully grown in a full set of armor. Even Though Athena is the motherless god there is a story saying that Athena’s mother was Metis the Titan god of wisdom and Zues’s first wife who he soon swallowed whole after tricking her because his father Cronus warned him that his heir would take his throne just as he had taken Cronus’s throne. 

Athena and Pallas

After Athena was born she was sent to Poseidon's realm to train with Triton, thought to have been Poseidon's son where she met her bestest friend Pallas, who was believed to be Triton’s daughter. Athena and Pallas grew up together training their war prowess until one fatal day Zues came for a visit and they both wanted to show off the skills that they had honed, but Athena really wanted to impress her father, so they spared, but Zues did not want his daughter to lose so through his trickery he distracted Pallas and this resulted in Athena making the of mistake killing Pallas her best friend and cousin. After this Athena ended up taking on Pallas’s name in her honor and that is why sometimes she was referred to as Pallas Athena. After the death of Pallas you could imagine that Posideon wouldn’t be too happy about this and there are many stories but this could have easily been the spark between Athena and Poseidon's family feud. 

Athena Aphrodite and Hera

Athena returned home and she felt a bit out of place so she decided to try to make acquaintances with Hera and Aphrodite while they were at Peleus and Thetis’s wedding, so they sat and conversed until Eres who was angry about not being invited to the wedding tossed a golden apple in between them with the engraving “To the fairest” in which all the goddesses tried to lay claim to because of course they all thought that they were the fairest and to settle this disagreement they all decided to find the Prince of Troy “Paris” in which he would lay judgement on the fairest, all of them tried to nakedly seduce Paris but Aphrodite was the goddess of this action, so Paris ended up choosing Aphrodite and this sparked off the battle of Troy causing Athena and Hera to lead the Spartans to victory over the Trojans. 

Athena and Arachne

Athena had become weary of war and bloodshed and decided to focus on crafts and channel her wisdom until Athena was told that there was a peasant claiming to be a better weaver than her, so Athena immediately went to see if this peasant could own up to her words. This challenger’s name was Archanae and Athena had no love for her due to the boastfulness she had to challenge a goddess such as her. So, they weaved and after they were done they let the people be the judge in which the people chose no one as a winner seeming that both tapestries were up to par, but Athena took a closer look at Arachane’s tapestry and it seemed to show not only her father Zues, but also Posideon and the raping of their victims, this indeed enraged Athena and resluted in her bashing Archanae’s head in and left her but this did not kill Arachnae. Athena soon came back to Arachnea’s place because she had left her tapestry, but found Archanae had hanged herself because she could not bear the torture from Athena. This made Athena thoughtful of what she had caused, so Athena decided to save her, but not without cursing her so she turned her into a spider so she could continue to weave her webs forever along with her descendants. 

Athena’s Adopted Son

Athena went to Hephaistos’s forge to get a new spear, but Hephaistos had other things in mind. Hephaistos wanted Athena but the virgin goddess wasn’t going to be a victim, so she tried to escape Hephaistos, but Hephaistos chased her and soon he caught up, but when Hephaistos caught up she turned around and fought him off, but Hephaistos still ended up as story says spilling his seed on her leg, Athena won this battle and she wiped his seed to the Earth which ended up impregnating Gaea and this in result was the birth of Erichthonius in which Athena was forced to take on the role of guardianship for. Given that Athena had many responsibilities as goddess she saw that she would not be able to care for Erichthonius with this notion she gave Erichthonius to King Cecrops’s daughters Pandrosus, Aglaurus, and Herse in which they were forced to look after, but the only condition was that they could not look in the basket to view Erichthonius. Now for context King Cecrops was half snake half man and Erichthonius was also which makes sense on why Athena wanted to put him in the care of Cecrops, but anyway all of the sisters disobeyed and took a peak and when this happened Erichthonius started crying profusely, but this cry sounded like the most horrific sound to Athena, so Athena showed back up and when she saw that the sisters had disobeyed her orders she cursed them to hear Erichthonius’s cry constantly forever and this resulted in all of Cecrop’s daughter committing suicide. There are other stories implying that when all other sister’s disobeyed Pandrosus was the only one who didn’t and in result Athena made her one of her priestesses. 

Athena and Posideon’s Contest

After Cecrops’s daughters committed suicide Athena came to the palace offering to be the Patron goddess for his kingdom but on one condition and that was to raise Erichthonius to be king, but before she could even finish Posideon entered the hall to counter this arrangement stating that he had already chosen to lay claim to this land. This argument started to get serious, so Zues intervened and offered a contest between two with Cecrops and his citizens as the judge to determine who would lay claim to the land, so Poseidon made the first move and with one solid strike to the earth with his Trident he created a hot spring as a gift to the people, but the gift wasn’t received with excitement being that it was sea water and that land had plenty of water sources around it already, so now it was Athena’s turn she knelt to the ground planted a seed and up rooted an olive tree which could produce olive oil and also wood for lumber and at this instant the city named Athena their patron goddess henceforth the land being named Athens after Athena giving that her gift had succeeded Posiedon’s. Other sources state that this could have been the cause of the war between Atlantis and Athens, but as you would think Poseidon wouldn’t be too happy about this at all first you kill his could be granddaughter and now you lay claim to land that he wanted on his realm, so Posideon sent a huge flood to lay waste to the Attic plains for the Athenians not choosing him and after the flood Athena made sure Athens was still standing and she told the people to sacrifice young virgin lambs and young virgin women to her temples also before also  Erichthonius did become King after the passing of Cecrops and he made sure to always honor Athena by creating the Panathenaic Festival which lasted for days. 

Athena and Medusa

Poseidon had many more quarrels with Athena from that point on and one of the most known stories is the assault of Medusa. There is a version where Medusa consents to lay with Poseidon and they end up having children, but we will point focus to another version that may give insight on how civilization as far back as the ancient Greeks still co aligns with our contemporary society today. Medusa was one of Athena’s most cherished priestesses and all of Athena’s priestesses must take a vow to never lose their virginity as this is the most important characteristic for a woman to be close to Athena. Medusa was said to be very beautiful even to the gods and one specific god took notice of her which was Posiedon. One day Posideon snuck into Athena’s temple and raped medusa which disrespected Athena’s temple and tainted one of her most beloved Preistess. Medusa was afraid to tell Athena what had happened, but could not bear anymore disloyalty than she already had felt to her goddess, so she told Athena what happened and none of the other priestesses claimed to believe her probably because they did not want any harm to come from the god Poseidon for themselves, but Athena did believe her given that Poseidon had been on a vengeance spree since losing the contest. So Athena offered a solution that may seem like downright punishment to some, the solution was to turn Medusa into a gorgon so that no other being would be able to even lay eyes on her without being petrified, again this may have seemed like punishment, but Medusa agreed and Athena cursed her to become a gorgon and sent her to live with the rest of the gorgons on Sarpedon, so that harm could never come near here again at least so she thought until one fateful day Zues called upon Athena to help her half brother Perseus defeat Medusa in battle. Athena could not defy the King god Zeus so in her mind she had no choice, nevertheless after medusa’s slaying at the hands of Perseus with help from Athena she placed Medusa’s head on her shield as a somewhat talisman there are many different translations for it but knowing Athena she probably did this as a sign of respect for Medusa as she had done for Pallas. This is where we end with the Greek goddess Athena’s story. There is much more of Athena to be learned as she will surely be featured in a fair amount of our Greek Hero stories.

Research by Jameek Braggs