Athena

Athena is the daughter of Zeus and the goddess most closely associated with intelligence in action. She is a warrior, but her war is the war of strategy and craft rather than of raw violence; her rival in the Iliad is Ares, whom she consistently outmanoeuvres and, in Book XXI, defeats. She is also the patron of weaving, metalwork, and other skilled crafts.

In the Iliad she is firmly on the Achaean side. She checks Achilles’ hand when he is about to kill Agamemnon in Book I, persuades Pandarus to break the truce in Book IV, encourages Diomedes in Book V, and tricks Hector at the walls in Book XXII. Her favour is decisive but not always gentle: she can deceive and manipulate as readily as she can protect.

In the Odyssey, Athena is the divine engine of the plot. She persuades Zeus to release Odysseus from Calypso, visits Telemachus in the guise of Mentes and Mentor, guides the young man to Pylos and Sparta, and repeatedly disguises Odysseus—as a beggar, as an old man, as a king—so that he can test his household before revealing himself.

Her relationship with Odysseus is one of mutual recognition. She calls him the most cunning of mortals and admits that she loves him for it; he in turn knows that he needs her. When they meet on Ithaca in Book XIII, she reveals herself and they sit down to plan the destruction of the suitors. Without her, the return would be impossible; with her, it becomes a contest of intelligence that she and Odysseus win together.