Athena

**Athena** is the Goddess of Wisdom, Sciences, Strategic and Defensive Warfare, City Defense, the Arts, Crafts, and Skills of the Greco-Roman Pantheon. She holds the sixth throne on the High Olympian Council, as well as the commander of the divine army of Olympus.

She is known and worshipped by the Romans under the form of **Minerva**. Unlike the other gods, who became more disciplined, she is less warlike and militaristic, being instead a goddess of crafts and wisdom. Because the Romans depicted Minerva as a more cerebral and demure goddess, she dislikes the Romans despite being a Roman god, as they took away all her military importance and authority.

She is the daughter of Metis with Zeus, thus making her a step-child of Hera. She has many half-siblings through her father's numerous affairs, with her being the younger half-sister of Persephone, Hephaestus, Apollo, Artemis, and Ares, and the older half-sister of Hermes and Dionysus in particular.

Despite being a Maiden Goddess who swore off sexual desire, she has many famous half-blood offsprings such as Daedalus, George Washington, Frédéric Bartholdi, etc. The majority of her demigod children is living in Camp Half-Blood.

She's part of the Team Imperial Lords of the Battleground as the replacement "Queen", mainly due to a favor she owned to the its King Verethragna and her brother Ares.

## Overview

**Athena** is the Greek goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, philosophy, justice, law, mathematics, strength, arts, crafts, weaving, skill and reason who sprung from Zeus' forehead fully armored after he swallowed her mother, Metis. She represents just decisions and strategic warfare and is the only goddess allowed to carry Zeus' thunderbolts. She led battles as the disciplined, strategic side of war, in contrast to her brother Ares, the patron of violence, bloodlust and slaughter.

She has aided numerous heroes such as Heracles and Perseus, and supported the Greeks during the Trojan War. Although her given name is Athena, she adopted the name of her friend Pallas after killing him in battle. It was at this time that Zeus gave her the Aegis, a piece of armor capable of protecting her from all evil and disaster.

She was depicted crowned, with a crested helm, armed with a shield and spear. She is commonly shown accompanied by her sacred animal, the owl. She is the virgin patron of Athens, which was named in honor of her (the Parthenon, which overlooks the city, was a temple the Athenians dedicated to her.) The Greeks especially also associate the olive with her, as she won a contest against Poseidon to decide who would be the patron god or goddess of what would become Athens when she planted an olive tree as a gift to the city.

Although Perseus' conquest of Medusa is well known, Medusa was originally a ravishing woman with beautiful hair. She was so enamored with herself that she boasted one day that her hair was more beautiful than that of even Athena. In a fit of rage, Athena turned Medusa's hair into snakes that would turn anyone who looked at them into stone. Still unsatisfied, Athena had Perseus slay Medusa and is then said to have fitted Medusa's head into the Aegis to make it even more powerful. Another version was that Medusa herself was a high-priestess of Athena. Loyal and devout, Medusa's near supernatural beauty prompted people to make attempts at wooing her and would often come to Athena's temple simply to see Medusa. Of the men who wished to have the beautiful Medusa as their own, the most powerful was Poseidon, the Lord of the Ocean who was determined to make her his own. Using his divine powers, Poseidon made Medusa enter a dream-like state in which she succumbed to his advances. Outraged at Medusa having had been seduced by her arch-enemy, Athena punished the high-priestess by transforming her into the first gorgon. As a gorgon those fair features were hideously wrought and those golden locks twisted to hissing vipers. Anyone that met her eyes was petrified, a statue for all eternity.

## Appearance

Athena appears as a beautiful young woman, with a voluptuous figure and marble-like skin. Her light-purple hair is long and touches her waist while her eyes are kaleidoscopic, shifting from grey to greenish-blue to the same shade of purple as her hair. Following her 100-year exile, Nemesis branded her forehead with a crimson mark to remind her of her past crime.

She wears a black turtleneck sweater underneath a dark-colored blazer, a gray-plait short skirt, and thigh-high boots. Her Gorgoneion appears as a necklace in this form, and she also wears a pair of glasses purely for cosmetic purposes.

When on the battlefield, she wears a golden armor with a white silken dress underneath, a flowing cape behind her back that is embroidered with images of her past victories and conquests in golden threads, and her famous spear and shield in her hands. She was described as "*beautifully glorious, yet terrifying at the same time*".

## Personality

Athena is an exceptionally brilliant, quick-witted, and disciplined goddess, who always takes precautions before acting and disapproves of taking considerable risks.

While this left many with a negative opinion of her and makes her seem cold and calculating, she still concedes with the reasons for her perspective and her opinion of her weaknesses. Because of this, she might be the worst enemy someone can make, for she would never give up or make a rash mistake simply because she hates someone. Despite this, she has shown to have a soft side for those who seek knowledge and tries to help them as much as she possibly can.

In battle, she is a fierce, astute, and extremely unpredictable warrior and tactician. Despite her calm and reserved demeanor, she can become intensely focused in a duel and shows many typical blood-knight traits, similar to that of her brother Ares, to the point where one might mistakenly see what she sees as a "friendly spar" to be a battle to the death. According to her, while she considers fighting as an inevitable necessity at times, focusing more on minimizing casualties in war while still trying to achieve, she still appreciates the performative nature of a good battle, as it is the nature of all war gods.

She has a strong sense of justice and fairness that even her own allies and champions aren't exempt from, and extends to even those who had offended her. However, she is able to put aside personal grudges, or at least temporarily, to either help those who are desperate or to serve the greater good.

She can be extremely prideful and stern, having a dark side just like other gods: She transformed Arachne into a spider when the mortal girl defeated her in a weaving contest, and she cursed the *aulos* that she made because playing it grotesquely altered her facial features, which eventually led to the death of the satyr Marsyas. After Paris had decided to give the golden apple to Aphrodite instead of her or Hera, she took the side of the Greeks in the Trojan War and did everything within her power to bring him down, a testament to her vanity and capacity for vengeance. According to Annabeth, one of the first things the Athena's Cabin learned is that "Athena is the best at everything and any thought to the contrary is not taken well", which show that not even her children are immune from the effects of her vanity (hence why hubris seems to be the hereditary fatal flaw of her children).

However, despite her pride rivalling that of her father Zeus', she is able to admit that she is wrong, something that isn't even remotely in the nature of most gods.

She despises anything Roman, from the culture to even the heroes and demigods of the Roman part of the Pantheon, as the Romans didn't consider Minerva to be a true War Goddess and made her more of a defensive/strategic adviser and artist, even looking down upon defensive maneuvers and only falling back on them as a last resort. Because of this, she hates Rome with all of her essence and wants every single trait and influences of Rome to be erased. Her hatred against Rome even goes as far as allying herself with various other pantheons subjugated by the Roman Olympians to plan a rebellion, bringing in Christianity and shook the foundation of the Roman people's faith and belief, allowing the other gods she secretly allied with to rebel against the Olympians. Even after the Roman Pantheon collapsed and she was severely punished by her father, she still harbors great hatred toward Rome and its people.

### Roman Form

Athena can change into her Roman counterpart of **Minerva**. Unlike the other gods, she is less warlike and militaristic, being instead a goddess of crafts and wisdom. Because the Romans depicted Minerva as a more cerebral and demure goddess, she dislikes the Romans despite being a Roman god, as they took away all her military importance and stole her statue.

## Weaknesses

### Harming, Trapping, & Banishing

* **Witchcraft**: As witchcraft is a form of magic wielded by witches to oppose those of heavenly nature, pagan gods such as Athena are susceptible by witchery. There are many witchery spells and rituals that can be used to trap, weaken, and hurt her, with some rituals rumored to be capable of even killing immortals such as the pagan gods.
* **Celestial Weapons**: Weapons made out of sacred metals, such as Celestial Bronze or Imperial Gold, can be used against the majority of supernatural beings, including pagan gods such as Athena.
* **Lack of Worship & Offerings**: As a pagan goddess, Athena gains more power from the prayers, offerings, and sacrifices from mortal devotees, and is dependent on it to maintain her immense divinity. If she stops gaining offerings from her loyal followers, her powers may become immensely weakened. Due to her essence being tied to the Western Civilization, she can gain power from those associated and symbolized by her divine domains, or associated with her or the myths surrounding her.

### Killing

* **Divine Weapons**: The divine weapons of the gods, which are crafted from sacred metals and are imbued with their wielders' divinity, can be used to kill or injure fellow immortal gods like Athena. However, due to her immense power, only a god’s Symbol of Power is capable of killing her.
* **Enochian Weapons**: Athena can be killed using weapons made out of Enochian metals.
	+ **Longinus**: As the Longinus are Sacred Gears made out of Enochian metals of the highest-ranking, forged by Heavens' forges with the highest-quality Enochian technology and are imbued with fragments of the Biblical God's divinity, those with enough skills and experience can absolutely and permanently killed Athena, to the point where she can never be reborn or resurrected again.
* **Faustian Weapons**: Athena can be killed using weapons made out of Faustian metals.
* **Primordials' Weapons**: Weapons created and wielded by primordial entities can be used to permanently and absolutely obliterate every and any being in existence but other primordial entities, erasing their entire existence from the worlds so that they can never be reborn, or resurrected again without being saved by God's omnipotence.

## Attributes

She was depicted as a stately woman armed with a shield and spear, and wearing a long robe, crested helm, and the famed aigis - a snake-trimmed cape adorned with the monstrous visage of the Gorgon Medousa (Medusa).

Athena's attributes are her spear, the armor, the helmets, the olive trees, the Aegis, and the Gorgoneion. Books, scrolls, and pens are also considered sacred to her, as they represent knowledge.

Her most famous patron city is Athens, which was named by the people after her.

### Sacred Animals

Her sacred animals are the owls and the serpents, which represent the wisdom of the sky and the earth respectively.

The gorgons are also considered to be a race blessed by her, as their progenitors (Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa) were originally her High Priestesses.

## Etymology

### Athena

Athena is associated with the city of Athens. The name of the city in ancient Greek is Ἀθῆναι (*Athȇnai*), a plural toponym, designating the place where—according to myth—she presided over the *Athenai*, a sisterhood devoted to her worship. In ancient times, scholars argued whether Athena was named after Athens or Athens after Athena. Now scholars generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city; the ending -*ene* is common in names of locations, but rare for personal names.

Testimonies from different cities in ancient Greece attest that similar city goddesses were worshipped in other cities and, like Athena, took their names from the cities where they were worshipped. For example, in Mycenae there was a goddess called Mykene, whose sisterhood was known as *Mykenai*, whereas at Thebes an analogous deity was called Thebe, and the city was known under the plural form *Thebai* (or Thebes, in English, where the 's' is the plural formation). The name *Athenai* is likely of Pre-Greek origin because it contains the presumably Pre-Greek morpheme *\*-ān-*.

In his dialogue *Cratylus*, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (428–347 BC) gives some rather imaginative etymologies of Athena's name, based on the theories of the ancient Athenians and his own etymological speculations:

Thus, Plato believed that Athena's name was derived from Greek Ἀθεονόα, *Atheonóa*—which the later Greeks rationalised as from the deity's (θεός, *theós*) mind (νοῦς, *noũs*). The second-century AD orator Aelius Aristides attempted to derive natural symbols from the etymological roots of Athena's names to be *aether*, *air*, *earth*, and *moon*.

### Minerva

The name *Minerva* stems from Proto-Italic *\*meneswo* ('intelligent, understanding'), and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *\*menos* ('thought'). Helmut Rix (1981) and Gerhard Meiser (1998) have proposed the PIE derivative *\*menes-ueh₂* ('provided with a mind, intelligent') as the transitional form.

## Trivia

* Athena likes reading, well-prepared coffee (mixed with a heavy amount of alcohol), and deep-fried foods.
	+ She dislikes dealing with paperwork, perverts, and measuring her height.
* According to Apollo, she makes awful puns whenever she is stressed, much to his and other Olympians' suffering.
* When she leads in battle, she is known as "Athena Promachos."
* She is one of the patron deities of Sparta,  where she was called "Athena Poliachos", meaning "Athena Protector of the City."
* She was known as "Athena Parthenos" ("Athena the Virgin"), which was how she was worshiped at the Athenian Parthenon. This would also be the name of her statue that stood there, which eventually becoming the most famous Greek statue of all time.
* The Pallas family of asteroids is named after Pallas Athene Parthenos, one of Athena's alternative names.
	+ 2 Pallas, the third-largest asteroid in the solar system, is named after her.
	+ The Pallas crater on the Moon is named after her.
* She and Hephaestus are the only gods Zeus trusted to wield his thunderbolt.
* Her most important festival was the Panathenaea, which was celebrated annually in Athens.
* Athena's Roman form is displayed on the Medal of Honor - the highest military decoration awarded by the United States Government, much to her dismay.
	+ Her image as Minerva is, once again, appeared on the Great Seal of California, as she was born an adult, and California was never a territory.
		- In Chapter XXX, Hermes jokingly stated that this is why she never travel to California willingly.