Athena

Who She Is

Athena is the daughter of Zeus who, on the battlefield and on Olympus, acts for the Achaeans and carries out what Hera wants. She appears in many forms: as a hand that seizes a hero by the hair, as a star that falls among the armies, as a herald, as a Trojan, as a brother of Hector. She gives Diomedes strength and a rule, protects Odysseus, takes the wits from the Trojans, and deceives Hector. She obeys Zeus in her own way: she accepts staying out of the war and keeps a loophole in the council's decision, arms herself against the order, and returns when Iris brings the threat. In Book V, it is she who sets and then lifts the limit of a mortal before the gods.

Trajectory

In Book I, when Achilles already draws his sword against Agamemnon, Athena, sent by Hera and visible only to him, seizes him by his golden hair and promises that he will receive three times as many gifts for this insult. Achilles obeys the goddess, not the king. The poem leaves the reading open: intervention from outside, or the visible form of the moment when he decides to restrain his wrath.

In Book II, Hera sends her to stop the flight of the Achaeans. Athena descends and finds Odysseus standing still, not touching the ship, and Odysseus recognizes her voice. Later, disguised as a herald, she imposes silence on the assembly. Before the march, she walks at the head of the army with the hundred-tasseled golden aegis and puts into every heart the will to fight without rest, so that war becomes sweeter than returning home.

In Book IV, she descends like a star that Zeus hurls, falls between the two armies, and takes the form of Laodocus to persuade Pandarus to shoot Menelaus: gratitude and glory before the Trojans, above all from Alexander, and a prayer to Apollo. She turns the arrow away from Menelaus's skin as a mother brushes the fly away from her son, but she directs it to the spot where the belt joins the cuirass.

In Book V, she gives Diomedes strength and boldness so that he stands out among the Argives and wins noble glory. She leads Ares by the hand out of the fight, on the argument of avoiding Zeus's wrath. When Diomedes is wounded by Pandarus, she answers his prayer: she lifted the mist from his eyes, and she sets a rule, that he not fight head-on against the other immortals, but that, if Aphrodite comes to war, he wound her.

Later, she accuses Diomedes of weariness or fear and compares him to Tydeus, and he answers that he keeps her command. Athena then lifts the limit: she orders him to strike Ares, who has changed sides, climbs into the chariot beside Diomedes, puts on the helmet of Hades, and guides the spear.

In Book VI, the Trojan women's prayer is addressed to her: Theano, the priestess, places the finest robe on the goddess's knees and asks her to break Diomedes's spear. Athena refuses with a nod. In Book VII, Athena and Apollo, seeing the Argives die, agree to halt the war for a day and arrange the duel of Hector and Ajax, and they alight in the form of vultures on the oak of Zeus.

In Book VIII, when Zeus forbids the gods to descend, Athena agrees to stay out, but asks permission to give the Argives useful counsel. Then she arms herself with Hera and, before Zeus's threat arrives, complains: he forgets that she saved Heracles from the labors of Eurystheus, and now he yields to Thetis. When questioned, she falls silent.

In Book X, Athena sends a heron, whose cry only Odysseus and Diomedes hear, and she hears the prayer of both. She gives Diomedes the courage so that no Achaean takes from him the glory of the blow on Dolon, appears beside him in the Thracian camp, and orders him back to the ships before another god rouses the Trojans.

In Book XI, she does not let Socus's spear reach the entrails of Odysseus. In Book XV, when Ares wants to avenge his son Ascalaphus, she takes from him the helmet, shield, and spear and rebukes him: people better than his son have already died, and it is hard to protect the generation and offspring of all men. Later, she scatters the mist from the Achaeans' eyes so that they see Hector, and she hastens the day appointed to him, under the might of the Pelides.

In Book XVII, Zeus sends her, in the form of Phoenix, to rouse Menelaus, and Athena rejoices that he invoked her first, and gives him the spirit of a fly. In Book XVIII, she throws the aegis over Achilles's shoulders, he appears to the Trojans, she crowns his head with a golden cloud and kindles a blazing flame. She reinforces his shout, and the Trojans are thrown into confusion. Later, in the Trojan assembly, the narrator says she took their wits, and no one pays attention to Polydamas.

In Book XIX, Zeus rebukes her for having forgotten Achilles, and she swoops down like a bird of prey to drip nectar and ambrosia into his breast. In Book XX, she turns Hector's spear aside with a breath, so that it lands at his feet. In Book XXI, she and Poseidon, in the form of men, reassure Achilles, whom the river nearly carries off, and give him the glory, and Athena infuses him with strength. Then she knocks Ares down with a black stone and Aphrodite with a blow to the chest, and she boasts of being superior.

In Book XXII, when Zeus asks whether he should save Hector from death, Athena objects: a mortal long destined by fate. Zeus yields, and she descends. When the scale goes down, she goes to Achilles, says that now the two of them will bring great glory to the ships and that he should rest while she persuades Hector to fight. She takes the form of Deiphobus, his brother, and Hector thanks him for the courage of having left the wall. Athena returns the spear to Achilles without Hector noticing, and Hector understands, when he calls Deiphobus and no one comes, that the goddess deceived him.

In Book XXIII, she notices that Apollo knocked Diomedes's whip away, returns it, and puts strength into the horses. She breaks the yoke of Eumelus's team. In the foot race, she assists Odysseus: she eases his limbs and makes Ajax slip in the dung of the oxen. In Book XXIV, she continues to hate Troy since Paris offended the goddesses and preferred the one who offered him desire; it is she who yields her place to Thetis beside Zeus.

Themes Embodied

Athena embodies War as divine craft: strength given, rule imposed, rule suspended. She embodies Fate and Free Will in the power to define where what a mortal can do ends, and in the way of intervening without undoing what fate has traced, as in the case of Hector. And Honor and Reputation appears in the glory she gives Diomedes and promises to Achilles.

In Book V, the poem does not say who decides how far a mortal may go against a god, and it answers by showing Athena: she sets the rule, keeps the rule while it serves her, and suspends it because of a personal grievance against Ares, who promised to fight against the Trojans and changed sides. In Book XXII, the same power turns against Hector, and Athena's deception is read in two ways: she diverts him from flight, but only because he, now alone, chooses to believe someone is at his side. Two reasons coexist for her action, the order of Zeus and her own choices. The goddess who accepts staying out of the war is the one who, in Book VIII, keeps a loophole in the council, and the one who then arms herself.

Relationships

• Zeus: the father whom she obeys in part, who treats her with gentleness and whom she contests.
• Hera: the ally who sends her into the field and with whom she arms herself.
• Diomedes: the mortal to whom she gives strength, a rule, and an exception.
• Odysseus: the protégé whom she holds back, accompanies, and helps.
• Achilles: the hero whom she seizes by the hair in Book I and arms with flame in Book XVIII.
• Hector: the Trojan whom she deceives in Book XXII.
• Apollo: the god with whom she arranges to halt the war and who knocks Diomedes's whip away.
• Thetis: the goddess whom she resents Zeus for heeding in Book VIII.
• Ares: the god whom she removes from the battle, wounds, and knocks down.