Athena.

Athena was tall, strong, graceful, Gray- eyed and she likes owl's, From the beginning, she was preety amazing goddess, In fact, even her birth was unusual.

Zeus, the father of gods and goddesses, was also Athena’s father. Her mother was a mortal woman named Metis. Older gods had warned Zeus that he would be in trouble if Metis gave birth to a daughter. So he swallowed Metis whole.

When it came time for Athena to be born, she sprang full grown out of Zeus’s head. She was completely dressed in armor, as she always would be. She also carried a shield and a spear. As you might guess about a woman in armor, she was a great warrior.

Athena was also a goddess of wisdom. She taught people about arts and crafts. She also taught them how to think clearly and live well. She was often seen with an owl, so owls became a symbol of wisdom.

Athena didn’t get along with the sea god Poseidon. For one thing, they were often rivals over one thing or another. Once the people of a new city were looking for a god to watch over and protect them. Athena and Poseidon both wanted the job.

To impress the city’s citizens, the two gods gave them gifts. Poseidon struck the ground with his three-pointed spear, and water poured out. The water turned into a river that flowed into the sea. Poseidon told the people to build ships to sail to the sea. He said that they could travel everywhere. They could become the most powerful people on earth.

The citizens were indeed impressed. But then Athena told them to taste the water. It tasted awful. It was saltwater, which is impossible to drink.

Then Athena gave the citizens her gift. When she hit the ground with her spear, a tree magically grew up within seconds. She explained that it was a special tree—an olive tree. Its wood was good both for building houses and for heating those houses in winter. Better still, the tree’s little green fruits, called “olives,” were delicious. And oil made out of the olives was useful for cooking.

The citizens liked Athena’s gift better than Poseidon’s. Not only did they choose Athena to watch over them, they named the city after her. They called it Athens. Poseidon left in a huff, causing a serious flood on his way. But the Athenians weren’t bothered very much. With Athena’s help, their city grew to be strong and wealthy. Athens became one of the greatest cities of all time. Today it’s the capital and the largest city of Greece.

Hera.

Hera was the queen of the gods and the protector of women. Her husband Zeus ruled the earth and sky. She was the mother of the war god Ares and the forge god Hephaestus. Her daughter, Ilithyia, was the goddess of childbirth.

Hera was beautiful and graceful. But she was also stern and bossy. And she could be very vain about her good looks. Hera was furious when she lost a beauty contest with Athena and Aphrodite. Another time, a mortal queen claimed to be more beautiful than Hera. The goddess turned that queen into a crane.

Although Hera was the goddess of marriage, her own marriage wasn’t happy. For one thing, Zeus was always interested in other women. Hera had good reason to be jealous.

Once she sent a hundred-eyed monster named Argos to spy on Zeus. Even Zeus couldn’t get away with much with Argos watching him!

Annoyed, Zeus called upon his son Hermes, the messenger god. He ordered Hermes to kill Argos. This was hard to do, because some of Argos’s eyes were always awake and watching. But Hermes managed to put all those eyes to sleep. Then he killed Argos as Zeus had commanded.

Hera put Argos’s eyes in the peacock’s tail. The peacock was her favorite bird from that time on. Hera was also fond of cows, lions, and cuckoos.

Next, Zeus asked a young goddess named Echo for help. Echo was a wonderful storyteller. At Zeus’s orders, Echo told Hera stories. That kept Hera’s attention for hours and hours. Meanwhile, Zeus could sneak away and do whatever he wanted.

Hera figured out what was going on. She got very angry with Echo. This wasn’t fair, of course. Echo couldn’t help what she was doing. After all, she couldn’t very well disobey the king of the gods. But when Hera was angry, she could be most unfair.

Hera cursed Echo. She took away Echo’s power to tell stories. She even took away Echo’s power to speak normally. Instead, Echo could only repeat things said by others.

Echo became so sad that she disappeared completely. But it is said that you can still hear her voice. If you shout in a canyon or valley, Echo might repeat your words.

Aphrodite.

Aphrodite had an unusual birth. She rose up out of sea foam, beautiful and fully grown-up. She was the goddess of love, and she liked doves, sparrows, and swans. She was married to Hephaestus, the god of the forge, but not at all happily. She was really in love with Ares, the god of war.

Aphrodite and her son Eros were in charge of making people and gods fall in love. Eros used his magic bow and arrow to make that happen.

Oddly, this goddess of love helped start a terrible war. But she didn’t really mean to. Eris, the goddess of discord, liked to stir up trouble. So one day Eris made a golden apple. She wrote the words “For the Fairest” on it. Then she threw this apple where the goddesses Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite would find it.

Each one of them thought she was “the Fairest”—the most beautiful goddess of all. They decided to hold a beauty contest. To judge the contest, they chose a mortal named Paris. He was a handsome Prince of Troy.

Each goddess took Paris aside and offered him a gift. If Paris chose Hera, she promised to make the ruler of the world. If he chose Athena, she promised to make him a victorious soldier. But Paris wasn’t very ambitious or brave. He wasn’t interested in either of those offers.

Then Aphrodite promised Paris the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. This appealed to Paris much more than the other offers did. So he judged Aphrodite “the Fairest” of the goddesses, and she got to keep the apple.

this was exactly what the troublemaking Eris had hoped for. The most beautiful woman in the world happened to be married already. Her name was Helen. She was the Queen of Sparta and the wife of King Menelaus.

When Helen and Paris ran away to Troy together, Menelaus was furious. He called all the great warriors of Greece together, and they declared war on Troy. Many thousands of warriors died in the Trojan War, which lasted ten years. It ended with the destruction of Troy.

Ares.

Ares was the god of war. He wore armor and a helmet, and he carried a shield, sword, and spear. He was big and strong and had a fierce war cry, but his war cry was mostly just a lot of noise. Ares didn’t fight at all well. The armored goddess Athena was a much better warrior.

The Ancient Greeks didn’t like war, and they didn’t like Ares, either. They considered him a troublemaker. And like many troublemakers, Ares was a coward and a bully.

In fact, Ares was never really of use to anybody in a war. One time a group of giants declared war on the gods. The giants wanted to rule the entire universe. To keep Ares out of the fighting, they sneaked up on him and knocked him out cold, then they stuffed him into a jar.

The other gods heard Ares screaming for somebody to let him out. They just ignored him because they figured they could fight better without him. They went on to defeat the giants, and then they let Ares out of the jar after the battle was over. Ares bragged about how he could have beaten the giants if he’d been free. The other gods only laughed.

Ares never stayed loyal to one side or the other in a war. He just enjoyed watching people fighting and dying. The war between Greece and Troy was one of the worst ever fought, and even the gods joined in the battle. When the war started, Ares promised his mother, Hera, to help the Greeks. But he was in love with the goddess Aphrodite, so she easily talked him into helping the Trojans.

The Trojans would have been just as happy without Ares’s help. Always the bully, he didn’t pick fights with other gods. Instead, he challenged a mortal Greek warrior named Diomedes, but Diomedes wounded Ares.

Ares liked to cause pain for others, but he whined and complained whenever he got hurt. This time was no different. The wound he got from Diomedes wasn’t very serious, but even so, Ares didn’t keep fighting. He went running back to Olympus, the home of the gods, and wept and wailed to his father Zeus. Even though Zeus bandaged up Ares’s wound, he was not at all proud of his warrior son.

That wasn’t the only time Ares was wounded. The great hero Heracles wounded him twice, and one of those times he took away Ares’s armor and weapons. Both times Ares ran away crying to Olympus.

Hestia.

The beautiful Hestia was the oldest of the gods of Olympus. She disliked gossip, so hardly any stories were told about he. But it would be a mistake to think she wasn’t important. In some ways, she was the most important of all the gods.

From the earliest times, the other gods of Olympus all had duties. Hermes carried messages, Ares was in charge of war, Artemis watched over all hunters, and Zeus ruled over everybody. Other gods had other jobs. But for a time, no one seemed to know what Hestia was supposed to do.

One day the gods Poseidon and Apollo told Zeus that they both loved Hestia. Both of them wanted to marry her. They demanded that Zeus choose between them. Otherwise, war would break out among the gods. And such a war would have been terrible indeed.

But Hestia solved the whole problem very simply. She refused ever to have a husband. Zeus was relieved and grateful to avoid a war. As a reward, he gave Hestia the keys to Olympus. He put her in charge of the gods’ everyday business. Hestia made sure that the gods always had plenty of food, clothing, and money. After all, even gods have to worry about such things!

Zeus also made Hestia the goddess of homes everywhere. It was she who taught mortals how to build houses. And every house had a sacred spot for her. That was the hearth, the center of family life.

Mortals prayed to Hestia more than to any of the other gods. Every family meal began and ended with a prayer to Hestia. Whenever a baby was born, the parents carried it around the hearth and prayed to Hestia. Mortals had a saying: “Begin with Hestia.” In other words, when doing anything, always start out in the right way.

Hestia lived a quiet life, leaving fame and adventure to others. Zeus’s half-mortal son Dionysus showed up on Olympus one day. He wanted to have a throne like the other important gods. Hestia gladly gave up her own throne for him. After all, she was too busy to spend much time sitting there.

Artemis.

Artemis was the god Apollo’s twin sister. She was goddess of the moon and of the hunt. She didn’t like cities very much, preferring to roam forests and mountainsides.

She hunted with a silver bow and silver arrows. Like all good hunters, Artemis liked to protect wildlife. She took special care to watch over small animals.

Artemis was a strong-willed goddess. She knew what she wanted from an early age. Once when she was three years old, she was sitting on her father Zeus’s knee. Zeus asked the little goddess what she most wanted in life.

First, she asked Zeus for three different names. These would fit her moods, which could be seen in the changing Moon. When she was cheerful and the moon was bright, she was called Selene. When she was in a bad mood and the moon was dark, she was called Hecate. The rest of the time she was called Artemis.

She also asked Zeus for loyal goddesses to hunt with. Zeus gave her lots of female followers called nymphs. Finally, she told Zeus that she never wanted to have much to do with men. So Zeus made sure that Artemis never fell in love with a man and never had a husband.

Although she wasn’t interested in much except hunting, Artemis could also be a good warrior. In fact, she was a much better fighter than Ares, the god of war. She was also more clever. One time some giants declared war on the gods. The giants trapped Ares in a jar, so he couldn’t do any fighting at all. Artemis tricked two of the giants by taking the shape of a deer and running between them. The giants both shot arrows at the deer, but killed each other instead.

Artemis was also clever about keeping men out of her life—both gods and mortals. The river god Alpheus fell in love with her and went chasing after her through the woods. Artemis smeared mud all over her own face, then told her nymphs to do the same. Alpheus couldn’t tell Artemis and the nymphs apart. The river god gave up and went home, sad and disappointed.

Artemis was especially honored by a legendary race of women called Amazons. They were all warrior women who never married.

Hephaestus.