Athene

Also known as: Alea / Athene Aiantis / Athene Ergane / Athene Narcæa / Athene the Goddess of Booty / Bridler / Celeuthea / Chalciœcus / Cydonia / Hippia / Itonian Athene / Pan-Achæis / Polias / Poliatis / Poliuchus / Pæonian Athene / Sharp-eyed / Sthenias / the Goddess of Winds · Family: Greek mythology · Role: goddess · First appears: Book 1 · Chapter 8

Athene’s accounts begin with her connection to Poseidon: she is described as their daughter, and later she and Poseidon contest Attica before agreeing to share the country at Zeus’s command. Another account has her springing from Zeus’s head. In Book 1, she places Erichthonius in a chest and entrusts him to Aglaurus, Erse, and Pandrosus, forbidding them to look inside. She strikes Marsyas for taking up her flutes, and Callimachus makes her a golden lamp.

Across later accounts, Athene is associated with temples and statues throughout Greece. Phidias is credited with making statues of her, and other dedications and shrines are linked to figures including Theseus, Orestes, Epopeus, Danaus, and Odysseus, who names her statue Celeuthea. At Mothone, Diomede dedicates her statue after praying about destructive winds; at Aulis, she tries to turn Teuthis from his homeward march, but he wounds her thigh, and the people later make a statue showing the wound. In Tegea, her statue is called Hippia or Alea, and tradition connects her with the chariot of Enceladus.