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
Owl of Athena by them to represent Athena and were even used for motivation during battles by other Greek cities, such as in the victory of Agathocles of Syracuse over the Carthaginians in 310 BC —in which owls flying through the ranks were interpreted as Athena’s blessing— or in the Battle of Salamis, chronicled in Plutarch's biography of Themistocles. The association between the owl and the goddess continued through Minerva in Roman mythology, although the latter sometimes simply adopts it as a sacred or favorite bird. For example, in Ovid’s "Metamorphoses", Cornix the crow complains that her spot as the goddess' sacred bird