Athena

Reading notes

• The Battle of Frogs and Mice §152 Athena

  Goddess of wisdom and war. Zeus asks her to help the mice, but she refuses, cataloguing the petty injuries they have done her, including gnawing through the robe she wove and cannot afford to have mended.

• The Epigrams of Homer §14 Athena

  Goddess of crafts as well as war and wisdom; the Kiln-song's speaker asks her to hold her hand protectively over the potters' kiln if they pay him fairly.

• The Homeric Hymns §5.1 Athena

  Goddess of wisdom and war. Zeus asks her to help the mice, but she refuses, cataloguing the petty injuries they have done her, including gnawing through the robe she wove and cannot afford to have mended.

• The Iliad §1.188 Athena

  Goddess of war-craft, Zeus's favored daughter and a fierce partisan of the Achaeans; she checks Achilles's sword-hand in the Book 1 quarrel and repeatedly intervenes on the battlefield, most fatally against Hector in Book 22.

• The Odyssey §1.42 grey-eyed Athena

  Goddess of wisdom and war, Odysseus's steady patron, who argues his case before Zeus and personally sets Telemachus's journey in motion disguised as Mentes.

• The Odyssey §3.375 Tritogeneia

  A cult-title of Athena of uncertain origin, used here as Nestor recognizes her true divinity.

• The Odyssey §4.762 Unwearied One

  A cult epithet (Atrytone) of Athena, invoked by Eurycleia in her prayer for Telemachus's safety.