Athena the Greek Goddess of War
Athena: Is the Greek Goddess of wisdom, crafts, agriculture,reason, intelligent activity, arts, literature, wisdom,crafts, and war.
Athena is the daughter of Zeus, and is from the city, Handicrafts, and agriculture. She is Zeus’ favorite child.
She invented the brittle (horse Bit) so that man could train a horse, The trumpet, the flute, the pot, the rake, the plow, the ship, and the chariot. Athena was allowed to use her fathers weapons even his master thunderbolt.
Her favorite city is Athens (named after her). Her tree is the olive tree, and the owl is her bird. She has no children therefore a virgin goddess.
She gave her namesake city the gift of the olive tree, providing oil, food, and wood.Athena also fought in the trojan war.
Minerva is her roman name
When it was time for Athena To be born the blacksmith, Hephaistos, threw an axe at Zeus’ head, it cracked open and athena sprang from it in full battle armor therefore having no mother.
Athena often helped heroes, like Jason and Perseus and her half brother hercules. She wore an aegis, a goatskin shield which had a fringe of snakes. When Perseus killed the gorgon Medusa, whose face turned men to stone, he gave the gorgon head to Athena, and she placed it on her shield.
Hercules and the Nemean Lion
Hercules’ cousin, Eurystheus set twelve labours to be carried out by Hercules over twelve years of his servitude. The first task was to slay the vicious Nemean Lion that had been terrorizing people around Nemea, and to bring back its pelt as a trophy. For his first attempt he had tried with to bring down the lion with his bow and arrow made out of a sturdy olive tree, and in a subsequent attempt he tried to tackle the lion with his bronze sword. Eventually Hercules threw away his weapons and tackled the lion with his bare hands, forcing the lion to the ground and finally killed it. Hercules spent many unsuccessful hours trying to skin the lion, and gradually became furious with frustration. This would have meant failure at his very first task! And this is precisely when Athena steps in, and, disguised as an old woman, she advises Hercules to use the lion’s own claws. Hercules succeeds in skinning the lion with its sharp claws and from then wore the hide himself as armor, granting him invincible protection from his enemies. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/athena.html
http://www.greekmythology.com/Olympians/Athena/athena.html