Arachne Arachne In Greek mythology (and later Roman mythology), Arachne (; from "spider", cognate with Latin "araneus") was a talented mortal weaver who challenged Athena, goddess of wisdom and crafts, to a weaving contest; this hubris resulted in her being transformed into a spider. There are many versions of the story's weaving contest, with each saying that one or the other won. Arachne was a Lydian maiden who was the daughter of Idmon of Colophon, who was a famous dyer in purple. She was credited to have invented linen cloth and nets while her son Closter introduced the use of spindle
Athena 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",