The Quarrel between Athene and Poseidon

You know, Athene really seems to have trouble getting along with the other gods.  Or is that just my imagination?

---

The rocky hill in Attica was home to a number of people even before Kekrops arrived, but their ways were crude, and lacked the polish of civilization.

No one knew who Kekrops was, really.  They didn’t know where he had come from, or who his parents were.  Some said he had sprung whole from the ground, but that only made for more questions.

What mattered to the Attic people was that he brought them the ways to make their lives better.

He taught them to worship Zeus and the other Olympians.  And he taught them the ways of life the gods preferred.  (He taught them other things, too, that were less pleasant.  Like hating foreign ‘barbarians’ and disdaining the people from neighboring cities and enslaving those captured in war.  But no one likes to talk about that.)  By taking a wife and fathering three lovely daughters on her, he showed them how he wanted women to be treated.  The men liked that.  (The women, not so much.)

As the little village began to grow into a real city — or the tentative beginnings of one, at any rate — the people began to wonder just what they should call it.

Seeing an opportunity, Kekrops made a great offering to the gods, and told them that his city would one day be the finest city in any land, and that he would name that city in the honor of whatever god would be its protector.

Two of the gods appeared on that rocky hill, ready to take Kekrops up on his offer:  mighty Poseidon, god of the sea, and wise Athene, goddess of war.

Arachne

I don’t want to think about how long it’s been since the last time I posted a myth…

---

The young city had not yet decided on its name or patron god when the girl named Arachne was born.  As a child, she witnessed the struggle to select a holy protector, and the divine rivalry that ensued.

As the newly named Athens struggled its way towards being a city that might day hope to rival at least nearby Megara in size, if not more important places like Argos or Pylos (to say nothing of the mighty Mycenae, rich in gold, with which poor Athens could never hope to compete), Arachne and her age-mates grew from children to adults.  And, like all who had seen the gods with their own eyes, they grew rich in the talents of handicraft and wit.  But, like all who had witnessed such squabbles in their formative years, they grew rich also in disrespect for the gods.

The poems of the young men and women of Athens described the gods as petty and childlike.  The paintings and pottery of the young men showed them as crude and comical figures.  The domestic arts were the only ones that seemed to spare this disrespect.