GREEK MYTHOLOGY

Athena
The adorable goddess of the Athenians

or the ancient Greeks, Athena, one of the most important Olympian deities, was the goddess of wisdom and skill.
The fact that Athena was born from the head of Zeus and never received a mother's care meant that her powers were more masculine than feminine. Above all, she was martial goddess, one who had entered life dressed for war and uttering battle-cries. Her military accoutrements included a helmet, a spear and the aegis, a goat-skin shield which Amaltheia had given Zeus and which only Athena was entitled to use. To the shield was fastened the gorgoneum, the head of Gorgo the Medusa which turned to stone anyone who set eyes upon it. Athena was also alone in being allowed to enter her father's armory, and could even use his thunderbolt. The frequently-used epithet Athena Hippia ('of the horses') is also associated with the military prowess of the goddess. According to the relevant myth, it was Athena who taught mankind how to tame the horse, and she gave Bellerophon a golden bridle to enable him to break in the winged horse Pegasus (for which she was known as Athena Chalinites, "of the bridle"). When Athena Hippia tamed the wild horse, she acquired a fresh dimension in the minds of the Greeks: now she became the goddess of ingenuity and skill, representing the concept of the superiority of the mind over physical power and the violence of war. She was responsible for the development of all the crafts and techniques that made it easier for man to live in peace. Architects, sculptors and painters honored her as their patron. It was Athena, too, who made man's first weapons and tools, and she who taught the arts of ship-building(to the Argonauts), plugging the fields with oxen, making pottery on the wheel, working bronze, and creating objects in gold. Her greatest invention of all, however, was the art of weaving.
Throughout antiquity she was renowned as possessing the highest skills in this field, and it was she who wove and embroidered the superb garments worn by the gods and heroes. Her first pupil at the loom was Pandora, who passed on the knowledge to the other women. This attribute of Athena's was the source of the myth of Arachne , another skillful weaver who dared to compare herself
to the goddess and challenge her to a competition. The goddess turned Arachne into a spider (still known by that name in Greek today) and condemned her to spin in perpetuity but to have all her worksdestroyed by man. The peaceful side of Athena's character was symbolized by the olive, the tree which she gave to the Athenians and taught them how to cultivate. According to the myth, it came about that there was a contest between Athena and Poseidon over which of them should be the patron of the city of Athens. The other gods advised Athena and Poseidon to offer the city one gift each, and the winner of the contest would be he or she whose gift was the better. Both ascended to the Acropolis, and Poseidon struck the ground with his trident: a spring of salt water immediately welled up. Athena stamped her foot, and an olive, the first in the world, sprouted on the spot. In the end, the city was awarded to Athena, and took its name from her. The divine olive tree continued to adorn the sacred rock, and when the Persians burned the Acropolis in 480 BC it immediately put out fresh leaves. In commemoration of this, an olive tree has been planted on the Acropolis and can be seen today on the west side of the Erechtheum.

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