Minerva of different Roman emperors. She often is represented on the reverse side of a coin holding an owl and a spear among her attributes. Stemming from an Italic moon goddess "*Meneswā" ('She who measures'), the Etruscans adopted the inherited Old Latin name, "*Menerwā", thereby calling her Menrva. It is presumed that her Roman name, Minerva, is based on this Etruscan mythology. Minerva was the goddess of wisdom, war, art, schools, and commerce. She was the Etruscan counterpart to Greek Athena. Like Athena, Minerva burst from the head of her father, Jupiter (Greek Zeus), who had devoured her mother (Metis) in
Amalthea (mythology) Amalthea (mythology) In Greek mythology, Amaltheia () is the most-frequently mentioned foster-mother of Zeus. The name "Amaltheia", in Greek "tender goddess", is clearly an epithet, signifying the presence of an earlier nurturing goddess, whom the Hellenes, whose myths we know, knew to be located in Crete, where Minoans may have called her a version of "Dikte". There were different traditions regarding Amaltheia. Amaltheia is sometimes represented as the goat who nurtured the infant-god in a cave in Cretan Mount Aigaion ("Goat Mountain"), sometimes as a goat-tending nymph of uncertain parentage (the daughter of Oceanus, Helios, Haemonius, or—according to Lactantius—Melisseus), The