Athena

Athena was the daughter of Zeus and Metis. Zeus swallowed Metis when she was pregnant, and Athena later sprang fully armed from his head, in some versions with the help of Hephaestus's axe. The birth was shown on the east pediment of the Parthenon.

She is the goddess of practical intelligence, weaving and crafts, as well as of war as strategy rather than frenzy (the role of Ares). In the Iliad she backs the Greeks, and in the Odyssey she is the protector of Odysseus. She helped heroes such as Perseus, Heracles and Bellerophon.

She became patron of Athens after winning a contest with Poseidon, by offering an olive tree. The Parthenon on the Acropolis, built in the fifth century BCE, was her temple, and contained a gold and ivory statue by Pheidias. Every four years the Panathenaic festival presented her with a new robe (peplos).

She is a virgin goddess. Her symbols are the owl, the olive, the aegis (a goatskin cloak with the Gorgon's head) and the spear.