and heroes of the Acropolis, but they also explain how the citizen body came into
being, and set up a relationship so intimate that Athena could even be considered the
mother of their ancestral hero.
Athena’s birth out of the head of Zeus was among the most widely represented of
myths in Athens. It was a common scene on black-figure vases from around the middle
of the sixth century for example, and the subject of the sculptures of the east pediment
of the Parthenon. From this it may come as a surprise to learn that the myth is not set in
Athens; indeed, Athena’s birth does not even take place in Greece, but beside the river
Triton in Libya (whence her epithet Tritogeneia). The situation may seem more
surprising still when we take account of the fact that there were other local traditions
of Athena’s birth that represented her as indigenous. In Boeotia, for example, she was
thought to have been born at the Alalkomeneion, one of her major sanctuaries in the
region (see Deacy 1995:93–6), while Pausanias relates that, at Aliphera in Arcadia, there
was an altar of Zeus Lecheate ̄s ‘‘In Childbed’’ (8.26.6). In short, Athens’ patron god
does not have the natural association with the land that being indigenous would supply.
Instead, Athena’s close tie with Athens is established through another, and perhaps
more effective, means. Rather than being born there, she chose to come to Athens to
be its patron, even being willing to enter into a contest over it with a rival god,
Poseidon (see, e.g., Apollodorus,Library3.14.1). She won when the token she
produced in support of her claim, the olive, was accepted over Poseidon’s, a salt
spring. This story is among the most striking myths of a deity’s arrival. On the one
hand, Athena chose Athens above all the cities of the Greek world, and her very first
act was to produce the tree that was the staple crop of Attica. On the other hand, the
Athenians chose her as well, with the result that her patronage was not only her
choice, but something the Athenians likewise desired.
Athena’s relationship with her people is expressed further in the myth about
Erichthonius, one of the early Athenian kings, and the ancestor of the Athenian
citizenry. I will mostly follow in summary the version of the myth narrated in one
of our sources, Apollodorus,Library3.14.6, because it is itself a convenient summary
of various facets of the myth. According to this version, Athena went to Hephaestus
because she needed weapons, but having been rejected by Aphrodite the god fell in
love with her, and attempted to rape her. When he launched his attack, she ran away.
Presumably we are meant to understand here that she did not yet have the weapons
with which she could defend herself. In other words, this is Athena before she has
come into possession of her characteristic warrior attributes: a more girlish figure,
vulnerable to male sexual attention. Her vulnerability without weapons is emphasized
in the next stage of the story in that, though Hephaestus was lame ( ̄en gar cho ̄los), he
managed to catch up with her. A struggle ensued in which she managed to resist rape,
but Hephaestus ejaculated over her leg. She wiped the semen to the ground ‘‘in
disgust,’’ but when the semen hit the ground, Ge (Mother Earth) became impreg-
nated, and in time produced a child, Erichthonius, out of the ground.
We have here the Athenian version of a common pattern in local myth, namely for a
foundation hero to be the autochthonous (‘‘earth-born’’) son of Ge. Indeed,
Erichthonius’ name is an ideal name for such a hero, meaning as it does ‘‘very
earthy.’’ But the Athenians are doing something very clever with autochthony myth
in that they are making him the offspring of gods as well: Hephaestus, but also in a
sense Athena, who retains her virginity yet plays a crucial role in the production of the
The Religious System at Athens 225