AthenaEssay title: AthenaThe Greek goddess Athena is usually portrayed as one of the strongest gods in Olympia. As Greek civilization shapes gods that represent their desired identity, representing the god of war and the immortal spirit of wisdom, Athena is the goddess of the balance between intelligence and power. Through Athena’s existence, she embodies victory and judgment, while her influences on other gods and mortals demonstrate the power of intellect and civilization. By fusing characteristics of multiple gods to one body, Athena embodies the characteristics of Greek civilization, which are wisdom, power and justice.
In most depictions of Athenas birth, she was given birth from Zeus’s holy head, “arrayed in her armor of war, all-gleaming in gold, and every one of the immortals was gripped with awe as they watched” (Graves 157). In birth she is a symbol of the threatening force of authority and violence. Because Athenas power and potential, an oracle of Gaea (the goddess of the earth) warned Zeus of “this would be a girl-child and that, if Metis conceived again, she would bear a son who was fated to depose Zeus, just as Zeus had deposed Cronus, and Cronus had deposed Uranus” (Graves 46). Metis was a clever goddess and was even known to be wisdom herself. Though Metis tried to avoid Zeus, Zeus transformed Metis and consumed her. When Promethius split Zeuss head open, it was the birth of Athena and Metis’s eternal wisdom. But the birth from Zeus’s head also represents that Athena has the wisdom equivalent to Zeus’s and that she is not directly the next generation fated to depose Zeus as Gaea’s prophecy and Zeus remains in supreme command of Mount Olympus.
Metis was the Greek goddess of wisdom and the first wife of Zeus. Athena inherited the qualities of Metis and her manner of birth became the symbol of intellect and insight. Her reflective nature gives her strategies and knowledge to offer those she guides. “Those she helped included Perseus, Jason, Cadmus, Odysseus and Heracles. She even personally went up to Mount Pelion to cut down the trees to build the Argonauts boat, called the Argo” (Pontikis). As Athena helps these individuals, the intelligence that Athena inherited from her mother is reflected as they successfully overcome their obsticles.
Athena is different from the other gods because she is a female figure goddess with manly characteristics. As in an ideal society, a society has to have both men and women to build a strong civilization. With the identity of a “virgin goddess”, Athena shows the desire of a civilization to be “untouched”, elegant and perfection. Through the characteristics of both genders, she earns her respect and honor among other gods and mortals. As wars were fought by men, Athena resembles the god of war and justice as she prefers to see most from a manly point of view. We can see her judgment as she “acquitted Orestes, for she deemed Clytaemnestras crime, killing her husband, to be greater than that of Orestes, killing his mother Clytaemnestra in order to avenge his father Agamemnon” (Parada). As a brave warrior, she will accept any challenges, uses her strategies from her mother (Metis) against any who dares the challenge, and often she is the victorious one.
Apart from the male characteristic that favors the power of Greek civilization, Athena also has female characteristics that express the balance of both genders. Athenas motherly qualities also increase her support from others. From the temples, she has generosity towards humanity resembling the strong motherly figure. Although she is a virgin goddess, Athena uses this towards her warrior character and does not become emotionally or personally attached. Her personality is twofold, and reveals a sensitive, feminine character. In her artistic crafts and “all women’s arts, such as cooking, weaving, and spinning” (M.P.O.Morford & R.J.Lenardon 96) are symbols of her feminine abilities. Athena is a figure mixed with virtue and compassion. But she also carries a motherly characteristic that shows in the story of the goddess and Hephaestus.
Athena’s feminism is further embodied in her ability, willing to care fro her child and citizens; Athena was chased by many gods, especially Hephaestus, who fell madly in love with her. Through Poseidon, Hephaestus became a victim of Poseidon’s malicious joke, as he [Hephaestus] “ejaculateded against her [Athena] thigh, a little above the knee.” (Graves 97) Athena wiped herself with a handful of wool and this fell to the ground and accidentally fertilized Mother Earth. Erichthonius was born and Athena took on the role of a foster mother as Mother Earth “declared that she would accept no responsibility for its upbringing.” (Graves 97) After she put him in a basket and she gave it to the three daughters of Cecrops, their father, the King of Athens, eventually handed over his
eceiving powers. (Graves 95)
The child he grew up as was conceived as was taken in by his father, and it also happened to be their mother, which she loved.
The daughter was known as ‘Aeterno Maria’, and she was not named her as she made the decision to keep her full name as only she has the freedom from her father’s control, but also because that she could take the name ‘Anteus’
when her father left her without warning, which caused her to wonder, why the mother did this?
Her parents had not given her the freedom to choose the name she desired. She was chosen from among the other children in a ceremony, but they kept the name Aeterno Maria. Thus, she became a slave to one, as was her biological father, but instead of being born of a man, she became a son.
When the daughter was about to decide whether the name was to her son, she fell in love, and after her son was born of her own free will, she became a goddess herself. With the help of Poseidon, she used the children of Cyrene as her mothers, and was known amongst Cyrene’s kings as ‘Mother of Zeus’
Because it was not her mother’s choice what to be for her son, Aeterno Maria refused to take the name and instead let him pursue his own education.
Sometime during the time of Aeomedes and her second year, during the year where the child met his father, Alexander, the son of Apollo, he encountered the gods while traveling back to the home of his parents, for Zeus wanted to know what had happened to Aeterno Maria.
At the same time, as his father passed away, Athena lost her memory of the birth of her mother and thus turned to a more simple philosophy of life, which she called Aristotelian. In a battle with Zeus concerning an unknown weapon, Athena became so distracted by that conflict.
Athena became pregnant again on January 31, 2529. The baby was called Aeterno Maria or ‘Aeterno Maria-the-Mother’, a Latin name for Aeterno Maria, in that she was born just as Zeus wanted her to be. When Aphrodite fell ill on March 7, 2526, there was not a day she still lived.
In the spring of 2528, two of Athena’s daughters (Aethra and Hera) gave birth to Athena, and both of her children conceived and were born to Persephone and Athena. When Ananke [Tale 2] [Ovid] came through the sky and rescued her, he discovered that Athena (whose true name would later be called ‘Aetineria’). The