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Ladies and gentlemen, today I am standing up for Atheney.

She is the goddess of wisdom.

She is the goddess of strategic warfare. She is the goddess of crafts and especially of weaving. She is one of the most charismatic Olympian gods, by which I mean we have loads of stories with her in doing loads of things. She's the daughter of Zeus, of course. She famously springs fully formed from his head. What better

origin story for the goddess of wisdom than to be born from the brain of the wily king of the gods.

Well, you know, it wouldn't be me if someone didn't say, how about the rest of the story?

She does have a mother, although she herself denies it. In Iskla's

Eumenides, she says, I don't have a mother, so I don't value mothers. You're like, well, okay,

but in fact she does have a mother. Metis, whose name means wisdom or skill. So Athene could,

let's be honest, get at least some of her brains from her extremely cunning mother.

The reason that she's born as she is is because Zeus believes that there's a risk that his

offspring with Metis might turn out to be stronger than him. This is a terrible fear that he has.

You know, it doesn't stop him from getting her pregnant. I mean, it's not that much of a fear.

He impregnates Metis, and then he literally consumes her while she is pregnant with Athene.

And so it kind of sounds like a cute story that she's, you know, born fully formed from his head,

but it is, in fact, a dark tale of paternal jealousy and patriarchal consumption.

You're welcome.

I will be back ruining stories from your childhood at the same time next week. Athene is indeed, though,

less powerful than her father. The interesting thing is that she doesn't seem to bear him any

ill will, which is surprising given how extremely competitive she is. Another key to her personality,

another thing we should consider,

is that she is a parthenos. She's unmarried, a maiden, is how that always used to be translated.

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