When Greek Gods Get Angry - Wrath of Athena

The Greek gods were an interesting lot. These were immortal beings who ruled over the land of Greece and possessed almost unlimited power. At the same time, they often acted all too human. They fell in love, enjoyed celebrating, and, as many souls lingering in Hades can attest, they all had tempers.

Every now and then the gods would get angry. Rather than taking a deep breath, having a heart-felt conversation with their psychiatrist or trying to solve their problems using constructive methods, the gods all too often unleashed terrible punishments on those unlucky humans who got in their way.

Let's just say that when a human angered a Greek god, the skies would darken, the flowers hid their faces, even the great mountains quivered and that human didn't have a prayer in the world.

One of the most powerful deities in the extended Olympian family was grey-eyed Athena, the beautiful goddess of wisdom, handicrafts and agriculture. On her better days, she was known for her love of the arts and for teaching the humans important crafts and agriculture techniques. However, those grey eyes could get very dark, and Athena was one of the more fearsome fighters. One might imagine some of her mood swings stemming from a violent childhood which involved her father Zeus, king of the Greek gods, swallowing her mother and Athena herself bursting from his head in full armor. Yes, the gods had many family issues that probably could have benefited from some therapy - possibly involving hitting each other with foam bats.

That said, Athena was usually in a congenial mood, and often spent her days assisting whatever current Greek hero was on a perilous and seemingly impossible mission to conquer whatever terrible beast happened to be plaguing the land (see Bellerophon and Persues). However, Athena could mete out death and destruction as well as the next god. One girl in particular earned her place in Greek lore when she scorned Athena and earned a terrible punishment. This is the story of Arachne.