Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Athena trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Athena trivia for players who know the owl and want the rest. This quiz starts with the myths - Zeus swallowing Metis and the goddess springing fully armed from his skull, the olive tree that beat Poseidon's salt spring, the strange birth of Erichthonius, Arachne turned into a spider, Medusa, Tiresias struck blind, and the golden apple that started the Trojan War. It then follows her through the epics as patron of heroes - the mirror shield she lent Perseus, Bellerophon's bridle, the Argo, Diomedes, the trick played on Hector and her long mentoring of Odysseus - and into her cult: the epithets Pallas, Parthenos, Promachos and Glaukopis, the Panathenaia, the Parthenon and Phidias's lost gold-and-ivory statue. The last section covers Athena after antiquity, from Botticelli and the French Revolution to Freud's desk, Nashville's full-size Parthenon and the Great Seal of California. Every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. See also our Poseidon, Hades and Greek Mythology quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Athena is the Greek goddess of wisdom, warfare and what third domain?
Handicraft
As Athena Ergane she was patron of weavers, potters and metalworkers.
Q 02Which bird is Athena's most famous symbol?
The owl
It became the mascot of her city and, through her, a symbol of wisdom.
Q 03According to Hesiod, Athena was born from which part of her father Zeus?
His forehead
Someone had to split his skull with a double-headed axe to let her out, and the sun god stopped his chariot in shock.
Q 04Modern scholars generally agree that Athena took her name from what?
The city of Athens
The -ene ending is common in place names and rare in personal names; other cities had similar goddesses named after them, like Mykene and Thebe.
Q 05What gift did Athena give the Athenians to win their patronage?
The first olive tree
It provided wood, oil and food, and became the symbol of Athenian prosperity.
Q 06Who was Athena's Roman equivalent?
Minerva
The Roman goddess took over most of Athena's imagery and joined Jupiter and Juno in the Capitoline Triad.
Q 07Zeus swallowed which pregnant goddess, Athena's mother, to stop a prophesied son overthrowing him?
Metis
She was called the wisest of gods and mortals, and is said to keep advising Zeus from inside his mind.
Q 08Which mortal weaver challenged Athena to a contest and was turned into the first spider?
Arachne
Ovid is almost the only source; her name simply means 'spider' in Greek.
Q 09Which Roman poet is nearly the sole source for the story of the spider-weaver?
Ovid
It appears in his Metamorphoses; the only earlier hint is a passing line in Virgil's Georgics.
Q 10In Ovid's version, which woman did Athena turn into a snake-haired Gorgon after she was raped in Athena's temple?
Medusa
The gorgoneion, the Gorgon's face on Athena's shield, is much older than this story and began as a charm to ward off evil.
Q 11Athena's famous temple on the Athenian Acropolis is called what?
The Parthenon
It takes its name from her title Parthenos, 'the virgin'.
Q 12Which sculptor made the lost gold-and-ivory statue of Athena inside her great temple on the Acropolis?
Phidias
It stood 11.5 metres tall and held the winged goddess Nike in its right hand.
Q 13What was Athena's main festival in her own city, held in midsummer?
The Panathenaia
It fell in the month Hekatombaion and was the most important date on the Athenian calendar.
Q 21In the Odyssey, Athena is the special protector of which cunning hero?
Odysseus
She first appears to him on Ithaca disguised as a herdsman, and he lies to her; she is delighted.
Q 22In the Iliad, Athena tricks Hector into facing Achilles by disguising herself as which brother of his?
Deiphobus
When Hector throws his spear and turns for another, she has vanished.
Q 23Which god of bloodlust and slaughter is contrasted with Athena's disciplined, strategic side of war?
Ares
In the Iliad he attacks her and she flattens him with a boulder.
The golden apple that set Athena against Hera and Aphrodite was inscribed with what?
Q 14Athena's famous epithet, Pallas, is thought to derive from a Greek word meaning what?
Young woman
Later Greeks, having forgotten this, invented a friend named Pallas whom she accidentally killed.
Q 15What was Athena's most common epithet in Homer, usually translated 'bright-eyed' or 'grey-eyed'?
Glaukopis
It shares a root with the Greek word for the little owl.
Q 16The palladium, a statue of Athena, was believed to protect which city from ever falling?
Troy
Cassandra clung to it during the sack; Ajax the Lesser dragged her off, and Athena wrecked the Greek fleet in revenge.
Q 17Athena cast the deciding vote to acquit which hero of murdering Clytemnestra?
Orestes
She ruled that from then on a tied jury would always acquit.
Q 18What did Athena lend Perseus so he could look at the Gorgon without being turned to stone?
A polished bronze shield
Hermes lent the curved sword, and Athena guided the blow.
Q 19Athena helped Bellerophon tame the winged horse Pegasus by giving him what?
A bit
As Athena Hippia she was credited with inventing the bit, bridle, chariot and wagon.
Q 20Athena advised the builder of which famous ship, sailed by Jason and his crew?
The Argo
The builder was also called Argos, which is why the ship shares his name.
For the fairest
Eris threw it at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis; the goddesses took the dispute to Paris.
Q 25Athena struck the hunter Tiresias blind for seeing her naked, then gave him what compensating gift?
The language of the birds
His mother Chariclo, Athena's bathing companion, begged for mercy on his behalf.
Q 26Athena's adopted son Erichthonius was born from the earth after which god tried to rape her?
Hephaestus
She hid the infant in a chest and gave it to the daughters of Cecrops, who could not resist opening it.
Q 27Athena invented which musical instrument, then threw it away because playing it puffed out her cheeks?
The aulos
The satyr Marsyas picked up the cursed flute and was later flayed by Apollo.
Q 28Athena turned the chaste Attic girl Myrmex into which insect for claiming to have invented the plough?
The ant
The Greek word for ant is myrmex, hence the Myrmidons.
Q 29Athena saved Perdix, the nephew Daedalus pushed from a tower, by turning him into which bird?
A partridge
The bird nests in hedges and avoids high places, mindful of the fall.
Q 30Athena saved the maiden Corone from Poseidon by turning her into what?
A crow
'The virgin goddess feels pity for a virgin,' as Ovid puts it.