Athena Hera, Athena was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War. She plays an active role in the "Iliad", in which she assists the Achaeans and, in the "Odyssey", she is the divine counselor to Odysseus. In the later writings of the Roman poet Ovid, Athena was said to have competed against the mortal Arachne in a weaving competition, afterwards transforming Arachne into the first spider; Ovid also describes how she transformed Medusa into a Gorgon after witnessing her being raped by Poseidon in her temple. Since the Renaissance, Athena has become an
Athena the 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 , "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". Athena was originally the Aegean goddess of the palace, who presided over household crafts and protected the king. A single Mycenaean Greek inscription