Birth of Athena and the War with the Giants

Author: Hesiod; Pindar; Pseudo-Apollodorus

Time Period: 999 BCE–1 BCE

Country or Culture: Greek

Genre: Myth

Overview

As one of the great divinities of ancient Greece, the goddess Athena has extensive mythical origins stemming from many traditions that all contribute to the complicated divinity familiar to historians today. As one of the twelve Olympians, Athena is most commonly described as the goddess of wisdom and war, the protector of strongholds and heroes, and the inventor and master of skillful crafts and weaving.

The different traditions do not all agree on the story of Athena’s birth. Most of the later traditions describe Athena as the daughter of Zeus, the all-powerful god, and Metis, the most intelligent and crafty of goddesses. In this story, Zeus is compelled to swallow Metis, who is pregnant with Athena, which leads to Zeus giving birth to Athena from his head. Some sources suggest that different deities assist Zeus in opening his head, including Hephaestus, Prometheus, or Hermes. Many sources ascribe the birthplace of Athena to the river Triton. Within this tradition, Athena is usually described as emerging from her father’s head dressed fully in the accoutrements of war, heralding her birth with a screeching war cry.

Another tradition regards Athena as the daughter of Pallas, a winged giant, whom Athena is forced to kill when he attempts to violate her chastity. In these and other sources, Athena uses his skin as a defensive aegis and ties his wings to her feet. It is perhaps due to this lineage that Athena is often described with the surname Pallas, as Pallas Athena. A Libyan tradition suggests that Athena is the daughter of Poseidon. In this account, Athena is educated by the river god Triton along with his daughter Pallas, whom Athena eventually kills. According to Herodotus, Athena becomes angry with her father and goes to Zeus, who makes her his own daughter. Some scholars attribute this lineage as providing her with the surname Tritogenia (Tritogenia Athena), which can be loosely taken to mean “Triton birth”; other scholars suggest that Tritogenia has etymological origins in the ancient Boeotian word for “head,” associating the surname with Athena’s birth from the head of Zeus.

Myths regarding the births of the gods are extremely significant in defining who the gods are and what they will come to represent. Born from Zeus’s head and having inherited the cunning intelligence of her mother, Metis, Athena’s character is often considered the harmonious blend of power and wisdom. However, her birth from the head of Zeus also serves to align her more closely with a male deity than a female one, and as such, Athena often occupies a space between the male and female genders. Her birth from the head, rather than from male or female genitalia, corresponds with her characterization as a chaste and virginal goddess, hence her epithet Parthenos (“virgin”). Thus, Athena was often perceived by the ancient Greeks as an ethical deity, attributed with presiding over law, authority, and justice, as well as with founding the ancient court, the Areopagus. Born dressed in war armor, Athena is also described as the goddess of war and battles and the protector of heroes and cities under siege.

Summary

The story of Athena’s unusual birth is recounted in numerous Greek sources. Although among the following sources the fundamental and crucial aspects of Athena’s birth from Zeus’s head remain unchanging, the details surrounding this climactic moment are told differently from version to version.

In an account by Hesiod, who makes three references to the birth of Athena in the Theogony, Zeus consorts with the goddess Metis, the clever daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. Metis becomes pregnant with the goddess Athena. Fearing that Metis is pregnant with the son who has been prophesized to overthrow him and following the advice of Gaia and Uranus, Zeus takes Metis into his hands and swallows her whole. As Metis is known for her wit and cunning, her offspring are feared by Zeus and his parents as threats to his power. Even though they know that Athena, equal in strength and intelligence to her father, is to be born before Metis conceives a son, Zeus takes no chances and swallows Metis ahead of time.

After swallowing Metis, Zeus gives birth to Athena—fully arrayed in the arms of war—from his head. The birth takes place on the banks of the river Triton; Athena remains hidden there for some time. In his last reference to the birth of Athena, Hesiod reports that along with Athena, Zeus also conceives Deino (“the awful”), Agestratos (“the host-leader”), Atrytone (“the untiring”), and Potnia Egrekydoimos (“the queen who revels in tumults, wars, and battles”). Jealous of Zeus’s adultery and of his ability to reproduce without her, Hera conceives the god of fire and craftsmanship, Hephaestus, on her own.

In the Olympian Ode, the Greek Theban poet Pindar provides a similar description of Athena’s birth, but with some variation. According to Pindar, Athena springs from Zeus’s head in Rhodes with the assistance of the god Hephaestus, who wields a bronze axe at Zeus’s head in order to open it. As she springs out from her father’s head, Athena screams a terrifying war cry that makes Uranus and Gaia shudder. Following her birth, the sun god Hyperionides (also known as Helios) constructs a shining altar and founds the rites of sacrifice—a gift that makes both Zeus and Athena very happy. Following this, Pindar tells of Reverence, the daughter of Forethought, bringing joy and valor to the people of Rhodes, where Athena was born. In the acropolis of Lindus (Lindos), a precinct is founded for the goddess—although it is without a holy fire. Zeus brings a saffron cloud upon the people of Lindus and causes it to rain gold. Athena endows the people with the gift of skill, enabling them to excel in craftsmanship.

In Pseudo-Apollodorus’s Bibliotheca (The Library), even though Metis turns herself into many forms as a way to evade Zeus, he rapes and impregnates her. While pregnant with Athena, Metis tells Zeus that after she

“Zeus slept with Metis, although she turned herself into many forms in order to avoid having sex with him. When she was pregnant, Zeus took the precaution of swallowing her, because she had said that, after giving birth to the daughter presently in her womb, she would bear a son who would gain the lordship of the sky. In fear of this he swallowed her. When it came time for the birth, Prometheus (or Hephaestus, according to some) by the river Triton struck the head of Zeus with an axe, and from his crown Athena sprang up, clad in her armor.”

gives birth to Athena, she will bear a son who will claim kingship of the sky. Fearing the fulfillment of Metis’s prophecy, Zeus swallows her. When Athena is ready to be born, Prometheus (or Hephaestus) assists Zeus by prying his head open with an axe. Athena springs forth, fully clad in battle armor.

Pseudo-Apollodorus then describes Athena’s role in the Gigantomachy, the war with the giants, following her birth. The gods receive an oracle that none of them will be able to defeat the giants without the assistance of a mortal. With the help of Athena, Zeus calls upon his part-mortal son Heracles to assist in defeating the giants. With Athena’s counsel, Heracles fires an arrow at the giant Alcyoneus (Alkyoneus) and then drags him outside of Pallene, where he dies. As another giant, Enceladus (Enkelados), attempts to flee, Athena throws the island of Sicily at him. While she fights, Athena is protected by the skin of Pallas.

Bibliography

Aeschylus. Eumenides. Ed. Alan H. Sommerstein. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989. Print.

Apollodorus. The Library of Greek Mythology. Trans. Keith Aldrich. Lawrence: Coronado, 1975. Print.

Aristophanes. The Birds. Trans. William Arrowsmith. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1961. Print.

Carter, Susan. “Athena and the Mirror.” She Is Everywhere! An Anthology of Writing in Womanist/Feminist Spirituality. Ed. Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum. New York: iUniverse, 2005. 209–25. Print.

Deacy, Susan. Athena. London: Routledge, 2008. Print.

Hesiod. The Works and Days, Theogony, and The Shield of Herakles. Trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Mineola: Dover, 2006. Print.

Hurwit, Jeffrey M. The Athenian Acropolis: History, Mythology, and Archaeology from the Neolithic Erato the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Print.

Leitao, David D. The Pregnant Male as Myth and Metaphor in Classical Greek Literature. New York: Cambridge UP, 2012. Print.

Long, Christopher P. “The Daughters of Metis: Patriarchal Dominion and the Daughters of Between.” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 28.2 (2007): 67–86. Print.

Pindar. The Odes and Selected Fragments. Trans. G. S. Conway and Richard Stoneman. London: Dent, 1997. Print.

Pomeroy, Sarah B., Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. Ancient Greece: A Political, Social and Cultural History. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. Print.