My Life as Athena: The Private Memoirs of a Greek Goddess

by Daphne Ignatius

  To her credit, Aphrodite carried her son to term, named him Aeneas, and entrusted him to her human lover to raise in the Trojan court. To safeguard Aeneas’s interests, she ensured Troy’s prosperity to the point that its neighbors began eying its wealth enviously. Apollo, her newest lover, also kept an eye on their interests out of loyalty to her, as did Ares, who hoped to regain her affections.

  I didn't believe the Grecian protestations about Helen and honor for one minute: It was a land grab, pure and simple. But because of my millennium-long patronage of Athens, I chose to support them. Hera, Hestia, and Poseidon also believed that Greece’s loyalty to them deserved loyalty in return. Zeus, as the king of the gods, decided to stand neutral, while Hephaestus—as weapons supplier to the gods—also decided it was in his best interest to stay out of it. Hades, as Lord of the Underworld, got everyone in the end, so he didn’t care either way.

  In this way, the council was split into three camps during this time: the neutral parties, the Grecian supporters, and the Trojan supporters. There is no question that this internal divide prolonged the war. I intervened several times with Achilles and Odysseus, nudging them in the right direction at pivotal moments, but never actually getting into the fight myself as I thought the whole endeavor was foolish. Ares fought invisibly at Hector’s side several times, diverting blows that could have killed the young prince. It was in this way that our sibling rivalry finally hit full boil, and I took Ares on directly.

  Diomedes was the youngest warrior king on the Grecian side, but had already proven his mettle on the battlefield. Some groups regarded him as being second to Achilles in military prowess and it was true, he was very skilled. However, he had an advantage that Achilles didn’t: He lacked hubris, and thus would actually think through all the possibilities instead of charging in with the assumption that his fighting skills would carry him to victory. I supported Achilles, but Diomedes deserved my regard more.

  It was after a particularly long skirmish with the Trojans that I found Diomedes resting by his chariot team, even as the other Greeks were on the field. Shocked and disappointed that he had backed out, leaving his men in the field, I lit into him.

  “Great Goddess, I know that you think me cowardly, but I know better than to pit myself against a god.” He pointed towards the plains of Troy with his chin. “Ares is leading the Trojans today, and it would be sacrilege for me to pit myself against him.”

  “Diomedes,” I said in a voice of steel. “Although you are correct that it would be foolish to match yourself directly against an immortal, it is not sacrilege if you are doing your duty to your men. I will stand with you to even the odds.”

  Turning, I brushed by his startled driver and mounted his chariot. Picking up the reins, I turned to Diomedes.

  “Are you coming?”

  Diomedes moved with alacrity, belting on his sword and gathering a few spears that he thrust into the holder built into the chariot. I pulled on my helm and tightened the vambraces on my forearms to prepare.

  “My Lord, what am I to do?” asked the driver in an undertone to Diomedes.

  “Spread the word, the goddess Athena fights with us today!” Diomedes replied as he leapt into the carriage behind me. I snapped the reins, starting the team moving forward at a trot, quickly picking up speed. I could see Ares’ athletic body weaving in and out of the fray, dealing death with abandon. I pointed the team straight at him and snapped the horses into a full gallop. Invoking my mother’s power of shielding, I cloaked myself from both mortal and immortal eyes so that it appeared that Diomedes was alone in the chariot.

  I heard a cheer erupt from hundreds of Grecian throats as they saw Diomedes racing into the fray. At the noise, Ares paused and turned to look at Diomedes charging straight at him. A grim smile split his face as he picked up a spear from a dead soldier at his feet. Testing the weight of the spear in his hand, he waited until Diomedes was within range and with a mighty thrust, he hurled the spear forward, straight and true. I smiled grimly to myself and then uncloaked myself to his gaze. Lifting one hand, palm forward, I stopped Ares’ spear dead in its flight.

  “Diomedes, cast your spear now!” He did so and I guided it to its destination. Ares bellowed in fury as the spear caught him in his shoulder. Our chariot thundered past him and I hastily slowed the team to turn and make another pass. Behind me, I saw Ares grasp the shaft as it jutted from his shoulder and pull it free with a shout of pain. As the chariot slowed, I called a palm-sized rock to my hand and thrust the reins at Diomedes. He snapped the reins, urging the team back to a gallop.

  Ares picked up another spear, but wisely chose not to throw it. He would wait for me to get within range and jam it into my wheels, or perhaps shove it into the chest of one of the horses to incite a spectacular crash. He waited as we charged in, a heroic figure standing splattered with blood, his spear at the ready.

  I weighed the rock, judged the wind direction, aimed, and flung it with all my strength. The rock hit Ares dead center in the forehead. He stayed upright for an instant, swaying, and then toppled over like a felled tree. Diomedes cursed loudly and yanked the team away to the left, keeping them from running Ares over. I turned to look behind us at Ares’ prone body to see if he would rise. He didn’t. A sudden chill entered my heart. I couldn’t have hurt him seriously, could I? He was immortal…

  I saw Aphrodite materialize beside him and crouch down. She looked up, rage etched on her face, before she whisked him off the battlefield. I didn’t bother to explain anything to Diomedes, but just vanished back to Olympus to Ares’ villa.

  I was too late. Zeus was already there, summoned at Aphrodite’s request. She was talking to him animatedly when I materialized. I started to ask about Ares, regret already suffusing my being. Yes, I competed with him, but I didn’t hate him (though I didn’t love him, either).

  Zeus cut me off with a wordless hand, and went in to check on Ares alone. I turned to Aphrodite, whose eyes sparked with anger.

  “Is Ares all right?”

  “He will be,” she answered tightly. “How could you have challenged him so openly?”

  “How could you have set him against his own people?” I retorted. “Gaia! He’s patron of Sparta and he’s been fighting them for months! It’s an unconscionable betrayal of their loyalty!”

  Aphrodite pressed her lips together, her cheeks pink with anger. There was no adequate response to my challenge. What Ares had done was a betrayal, and he had done it out of love of her.

  Without another word, I brushed past her and followed my father into Ares’ bedchamber. Zeus sat on Ares’ bed, talking to him. Ares sported a big red bruise on his forehead, but that appeared to be the extent of his injuries. At my entrance, Ares started to sit up, but Zeus placed a hand on his shoulder to press him back down.

  “Well, children,” said Zeus wryly. “This has gone beyond simple fun and games. We have exposed our internal division to the humans below.”

  I felt a blush of humiliation climb my cheeks. He was right. Whatever happened, we had to look united so the mortals would have confidence in us.

  “You’re right, Father. Ares, I’m sorry for flinging that rock.”

  “That was a marvelous shot, though,” Ares responded, a note of humor in his voice as he lifted a hand to probe the bruise on his forehead. “I should have remembered that arm of yours.”

  “I want to make myself clear,” said Zeus. “No more. You are to leave the outcome of the war to me. Is that clear?”

  “Father, I agree that we should no longer involve ourselves directly in the war,” I said. “But do we not owe it to our people to continue offering counsel? If we were to suddenly disappear, will they not believe that the gods have abandoned them and abandon us in retaliation?”

  Zeus frowned, not having thought it through from that angle. “No direct intervention. Counsel is fine.”

  “This needs to apply to everyone, not just Ares and me,” I said, thinking of Aphrodite. “It would not be fair otherwise.
”

  Zeus just sighed softly to signify consent. “I will call a council meeting to ensure that everyone gets the message that the war should be left to me.”

  As a rule, we gods honored Zeus’s edict and limited our involvement to counsel. As the years stretched on, however, it became all too clear that the siege was not working. The Trojans were too well protected behind their walls, and they knew their country so well that they could not be starved out. Indeed, it was the Greeks who were in danger of dying out from disease and hunger.

  The prayers from the common Greek soldier transformed from “please give us victory” to “please let us go home.” It was on their behalf, after ten years, that I counselled Agamemnon, the commander-in-chief of the Grecian forces, and his vassal kings to cut their losses and return home. The outcry that followed convinced me that these fools would happily starve their men to death, as long as they continued to be housed comfortably by the sea.

  I placed a diseased blanket on Agamemnon’s bed and waited to see if a little discomfort would change his mind. It didn’t help. He simply placed his younger brother in charge as he healed. I wasn’t prepared to cast a plague on the entire leadership of the Greek army, so I took a more devious route.

  One night as Odysseus slept, I added a little something to his dreams: the image of a giant wine cask rolling through the open gates of Troy. When he awoke, he was woozy (as is often the case when your mind has been tampered with), but that particular dream had unusual clarity and so he knew that it meant something. I was patient, and after a few days of contemplation, inspiration struck him hard.

  The wine cask became a horse (an animal sacred to the Trojans), and Odysseus spent a week selling his idea to his reluctant cohorts. They viewed subterfuge as dishonorable, whereas the pragmatic Odysseus was a firm believer in the creed, ‘the ends justify the means.’ A well-timed breakout of dysentery on my part helped bring them around to his way of thinking. The rest became history.

  If anything was dishonorable, it was the sack of Troy. Instead of taking slaves as was the usual practice, the Greek army put men, women, and children alike to the sword. In horror, Hera and I flashed down to Troy and guided the Trojans into the temples to shield them until the madness abated. But it was too little and too late. The raging soldiers simply barred the temple doors and set fire to the building with the people inside. Hades himself came to Troy that day to gather the souls and guide them to the Underworld.

  I heard later that a frantic Aphrodite searched through the bodies in the palace, looking for her son Aeneas. Luckily, he survived, having escaped through tunnels known only to the royal family, while his countrymen were being slaughtered. Aeneas went on to have many adventures before he married a Latin noblewoman and founded a settlement that would eventually become known as Rome.

  As for the Greek army, we had plans for them. After being divided for so long, we Olympians finally came together to punish the Greeks for their brutality. Poseidon would see to it that their ships were destroyed in a series of great storms. If by chance a few did survive Poseidon’s wrath, we would ensure that the remainder of their lives would be a series of trials. Even death would not be an escape, for Hades would use his gift to identify the worst offenders and treat them accordingly.

  This is too brutal, you may say. An eternity of punishment for one day’s insanity? You may be right. I know that I was trying to atone for my part in the destruction of an entire civilization. Perhaps we all were.

  A New World

  Odysseus was not spared for his part in the devastation of Troy. Although he had tried to restrain his soldiers, it was his idea that got the Greeks into the city to begin with. As a result, Poseidon’s storm washed his ship right out of the Mediterranean, past the pillars of Heracles, and out into the open ocean, where it was assumed he would die of thirst slowly and painfully.

  I had not forgotten that I had planted the seed of the Trojan horse in his mind, so I felt that I owed him. It helped that Odysseus was an intelligent and self-reliant man who believed in helping himself instead of waiting for the gods to intervene. I knew that all I had to do was give him a chance and he would do the rest for himself.

  I found his ship floating aimlessly in the open ocean. Odysseus and his crew were all huddled on deck, half delirious with thirst. When I materialized, some of the men started to sit up. With a pass of my hand, they sagged back onto the deck in a deep sleep. I wasn’t interested in doing my work in front of a dozen curious eyes, and that included Odysseus himself. I surveyed the ship. Their oars were splinters, useless. Their sail hung in ragged strips from the mast. I didn’t see any barrels of fresh water, so those must have been washed overboard in the storm.

  The first priority was to get them to land so they could look for water and food. I dematerialized and headed to the Athens dock to find a useable sail. I slipped invisibly into the warehouse of a merchant named Epidorus, whom I had helped in the past. Sure enough, stacked under some fishing nets was an oilcloth sail that would do. I gathered the bulky fabric in my arms when it occurred to me that I should leave something in payment. Pulling off one silver earring, I left it on the nets, chuckling to myself as I thought of the furor it would cause in the morning. Perhaps the sailors would think that the pile had been used for a midnight dalliance.

  Back on the ship, I focused on the old sail and made a pass with my hand. The sail tumbled to the deck. I left it there for the men to reuse. Next, I unfolded the heavy fabric, covering a few of the men with its span. I raised my hands, willing the sail to rise in the air and attach itself to the cross arms of the mast. I used the cording from the old sail to lash the oilcloth into place. Now came the hard part.

  I stood at the back of the slip and pursed my lips. This was really more Poseidon’s expertise, but I was able to gather enough breath to get the sail filled and the ship moving. For a full day and night, I blew the ship along as Odysseus and his men slept around me. I didn’t stop until I saw a foggy green coastline in the distance. I was exhausted by then and would have liked to depart and leave the crew to it, but decided I couldn’t take the chance that they would drift from the shore. So, I kept at it until the ship grounded on the rocky beach.

  I had no idea where we were, as the beach was edged with a type of tree I had never seen before. The beach itself was narrow, and beyond it the terrain rose dramatically to form a steep hillside. The deep green foliage surrounding me, combined with the light mist, meant that the crew would be able to find water nearby. I could hear birdsong, which told me the woods sheltered wildlife that could feed the men. Odysseus and his crew now had a chance for survival. As far as I was concerned, I had repaid my obligation to Odysseus; it was up to him now.

  I took a moment to rest before waking Odysseus. The effort of moving the ship had taken a toll on me, and I could not remember the last time I’d been this tired. Tired. I was actually tired. It had been centuries since the last time I’d felt fatigued—since before I became patron to Athens. I straightened as a realization hit me: I was out of range of Athens. I couldn’t feed on their prayers. I lifted my hands and regarded them. Then, I looked over the ship’s rail to the rocky beach. Focusing on a stone, I willed it to move. It did, but it took more effort from me than it should have. My mind absorbed the new information.

  First things first: I needed to get back home and rebuild my strength. Bending over Odysseus, I blew on his face to wake him. His eyelids trembled and opened. He groaned, then bolted upright as the unnatural haze cleared from his mind. I stepped back to let him acclimate. Odysseus surveyed his sleeping countrymen before his presence of mind returned.

  “Great Athena, are my men alive?” he croaked in a parched voice.

  “They are. They are merely sleeping. I will wake them soon so that you can start foraging.”

  Odysseus struggled to his feet, catching sight of the beach and forest. “Gaia! Thank you, Lady! You’ve saved us from a slow death at sea! Are we in Greece somewhere?”

  I shook
my head, reluctant to dismay him. “This is a new land. Poseidon’s wrath swept you a world away from your homeland. You and your men are far from home now.”

  Odysseus nodded, still eying his surroundings. He turned back to me and spoke decisively.

  “It matters not. We will find our way home, or die in the attempt.” He went to one knee in front of me. “My men and I owe you our lives, great Athena. We will honor you for the rest of our days.”

  I nodded to him. “I must go. It’s up to you now.” I lifted the sleeping spell from his crewmen, and departed for a well-deserved rest on Olympus.

  After a large meal and a long sleep, I came to in my bed and lay there idly. I had told Odysseus that he was on his own, but I was curious about the land I had found. I had seen Crete, most of Greece, and Troy, but this new land seemed very different in terms of the terrain. Isis had told me that as long as a believer resided in a new land, I could visit as often as I wished. Were there people there? What would they be like? Did they worship immortals like us, or elemental spirits in the natural world around them? My mind was brimming with questions that I had no answers to, and it filled me with longing and new energy.

  I flung the covers off and sprang to my feet, calling for nourishment. I would need to check in with my chief priestess in Athens, but after that, I could go explore. No sober peplos for me today. It would be a short chiton for ease of movement, and stout sandals. And a weapon, just in case.

  Days had passed on Earth as I slept, but Odysseus and his men were still where I had left them. I slipped in invisibly and wandered their camp. They had been busy, using the remnants of their original sail to build makeshift tents on the ship’s deck. A couple of fires were going, on which roasted some fowl they had caught. They had also felled some saplings and were shaping a new set of oars. Odysseus was strategizing with his first mate as to how best they might store water for their trip home, as all their water barrels had been lost. I smiled as I walked by them unseen. I liked the man. If anybody could make it thousands of miles home on sheer grit, it was Odysseus.