thene, also called Pallas Athene, was the Goddess of wisdom and one of the great Greek deities. She was the daughter of Zeus, and in a way, also the daughter of Zeus’ first wife, Metis, the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. Before Athene’s birth, Zeus swallowed Metis because it was predicted that she would give birth to a child destined to be greater and stronger than himself. At the proper time, fully armed and with an ear-splitting war shout, Athene burst forth from Zeus’ head. She immediately took her seat at Zeus’ right hand side in the great council of the gods. In the war that was going on between the gods and the giants, Athene helped Zeus and Heracles, who was sent for at her suggestion, not only by giving them sound advice, but also by taking part in the action. She buried Enceladus, son of Tartarus, and Gaea, under Mount Etna.

Athene was the preserver of the state, with Athens and Attica especially, being under her divine protection. She combined in herself, the best qualities of her parents in perfect balance. Inheriting the power and valour of her father and the prudence and wisdom of her mother, whose name means "wise counsel", she was qualified to preside over all the intellectual phases of life. She was both a goddess of war and of peace and of the arts and trades connected with peace. As the former, she is usually portrayed as being armour clad as the protector of the state from its enemies.

Like Zeus, Athene could send storms and rough weather; she was the mistress and Zeus the master of thunder and lightning and she too would hurl thunderbolts to enforce her will and frighten her foes. Zeus permitted her to carry the aegis, a shield with the head of a Gorgon on it. Athene invented the plough and the rake, and created the olive tree, services that made her the protector of agriculture.

One of Athene’s more important, peaceful activities, was to teach. She taught mortals how to tame horses and yoke oxen; she taught Erichtonius how to fasten his horses to his chariot, and Bellerophon how to tame the winged steed, Pegasus. At Lindos in Rhodes, she showed Danaus, father of fifty daughters, how to build a fifty-oared ship; she gave similar instructions to Argos, the builder of the Argo the ship that carried Jason and his comrades to Colchis in quest of the Golden Fleece, and she actually supervised its construction. For these acts, Athene was revered as the inventor and protector of the arts or sciences of shipbuilding and horse taming. She also invented the flute, the trumpet, the spindle, the distaff, and the famous Pyrric war-dance, which she was the first to perform in the ceremonies of celebration following the victory of the gods in the war with the giants, a victory to which she contributed.

Athene threw the flute, said to have been invented by Apollo, away in disgust, when playing on it, she noticed that it distorted her features and made the gods laugh. It was that very same flute that, the Phrygian satyr, Marsyas picked up, and gave forth the sweet sounds of its own accord because the lips of a goddess had touched it, and which led to the contest with Apollo in which Marsyas was flayed to death.

Probably one of the most famous myths concerning Athene, is that of the contest between her and Arachne, a Lydian maiden, whose father, Idmon of Colophon, was a famous dyer in purple. Arachne excelled in her ability to weave extremely fine cloth, and was very proud of it. As Athene was known to be deeply interested in work for women – so much so that all forms of domestic work, art and activities were described as "works of Athene" – and she was an expert weaver herself, Arachne proposed a test of skill between herself and Athene. Arachne produced a piece of cloth in to which she wove the love of the gods. Athene, angered in the first place by the challenge, and then by the choice of subject, but mainly by the fact that she could not fault the work, tore it in to shreds, and threw it back in the face of Arachne. The unhappy girl burning with shame and humiliation hanged herself. Upon the realisation that she had probably gone too far, Athene cut down the rope and brought Arachne back to life, but still punished her for daring to compete with a goddess by changing her into a spider and the rope into a cobweb which Arachne was condemned to spin through endless ages.

In the Trojan War, Athene was on the side of the Greeks until Ajax the Lesser violated Priam’s daughter, Cassandra. She then caused the death of Ajax and disrupted the retiring Greek fleet by sending storms.

Odysseus was Athene’s hero, and she made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was one of her favourites. It was through her goodwill and assistance the he finally – after twenty years of hardship – reached home safely in spite of Poseidon’s hate and all of his efforts to prevent it. In addition to her partiality for Odysseus, Athene was also the good friend and helper of Jason, Perseus, Heracles, Bellerophon and Diomedes, and it was fitting that she should be so, in her capacity of goddess of war, as all these heroes were brave soldiers and fighters.

As one of the twelve gods who sat as judges at the court of Areopagus, (where Ares was acquitted of having killed the violator of his daughter), Athene had the privilege of casting the deciding vote in the case of a tie, a privilege she exercised when the judges could not agree at the trial of Orestes for the murder of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra.

Athene won control of Attica in her struggle with Poseidon, in which, Cecrops, acting as judge, decided that her tree – the oak, that symbolised strength and power – would be of greater benefit to mankind than the horse that the sea god had produced by striking his trident upon the ground. Cecrops’ daughters, Agraulos, Pandrosus and Herse, representing, pure clean air, dew and rain respectively were Athene’s first priestesses. The sacred olive tree stood in the Pandroseion, the temple of Pandrosus on the Acropolis of Athens, where the daughter of Cecrops was honoured equally with the goddess. In her honour the Parthenon was built in Athens; it takes its name from the Greek word meaning virgin.