Athena Trivia
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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
Handicraft, above all weaving: in Hesiod it is Athena who teaches Pandora, the first woman, how to work a loom.
Q 02Which bird is Athena's most famous symbol?
The owl
The owl became the emblem of her city, and it is through Athena that the bird came to stand for wisdom.
Q 03In Greek myth, Athena was born fully grown from which part of her father Zeus?
His forehead
His forehead: in most tellings a god split Zeus's aching skull with an axe, and Athena leapt out in full armour, a sight that made the sun god halt his horses.
Q 04On Athena's advice, the hero Cadmus sowed what in the ground, raising a crop of armed warriors?
A dragon's teeth
A dragon's teeth: the warriors who sprang up turned on one another, which is why 'sowing dragon's teeth' still means planting the seeds of strife.
Q 05What gift did Athena give the Athenians to win their patronage?
The first olive tree
The first olive tree gave the city wood, oil and food, and it won her Athens over Poseidon's offer of a salt-water spring.
Q 06Who was Athena's Roman equivalent?
Minerva
Minerva took over Athena's armour and imagery, and Rome enthroned her beside Jupiter and Juno in its chief temple on the Capitoline Hill.
Q 07Zeus swallowed which pregnant goddess, Athena's mother, to stop a prophesied son overthrowing him?
Metis
Metis was called the wisest of gods and mortals, and in Hesiod's telling she went on counselling Zeus from inside him.
Q 08Which mortal weaver challenged Athena to a contest and was turned into the first spider?
Arachne
Arachne is simply the Greek word for spider, which is why spiders, scorpions and mites are classed as arachnids.
Q 09In Homer, Athena guides young Telemachus while disguised as which old friend of his father?
Mentor
Mentor: Athena borrows the old Ithacan's shape to advise the young man, which is how 'mentor' came to mean a wise and trusted guide.
Q 10In Ovid's telling, Athena punished which woman for being violated by Poseidon inside her temple?
Medusa
Medusa: Ovid has Athena turn her hair to snakes, yet the Gorgon's face that Athena wears is far older than his tale and began as a charm against evil.
Q 11Athena's famous temple on the Athenian Acropolis is called what?
The Parthenon
The Parthenon did not become a ruin until 1687, when a Venetian shell set off the gunpowder the Ottomans had stored inside it.
Q 12Which sculptor made the lost gold-and-ivory statue of Athena inside her great temple on the Acropolis?
Phidias
Phidias was later accused of stealing gold meant for the statue, and is said to have had its gold taken off and weighed to prove his innocence.
Q 13At the Panathenaia, Athena's great midsummer festival, a procession crossed Athens to present her with what?
A newly woven robe
A newly woven robe: Athenian women and girls began weaving it months ahead, and its delivery is thought to be the scene on the frieze now among the Elgin Marbles.
Q 21In Homer, Athena, disguised as a young herdsman, meets which hero on his home shore?
Odysseus
Odysseus: he answers the herdsman with an invented life story, and she smiles, drops the disguise and praises him for the lie.
Q 22In the Iliad, Athena tricks which hero into facing Achilles by posing as his brother Deiphobus?
Hector
Hector: when he threw his spear and turned to his 'brother' for another, nobody was there, and he realised the gods had called him to his death.
Q 23In the Iliad's battle of the gods, Athena flattens which Olympian with a boulder after he charges her?
Ares
Ares: both are gods of war, but he stood for blood lust and she for strategy and discipline, which is why Homer lets her floor him with one stone.
Q 14In one myth, the Pallas of 'Pallas Athena' was whom, killed by the goddess by accident while sparring?
Her childhood friend
Her childhood friend: the two girls were raised together, and the grieving Athena carved a wooden statue in Pallas's likeness, the first Palladium.
Q 15Homer's favourite epithet for Athena, glaukopis, is traditionally translated into English how?
Bright-eyed
Bright-eyed: glaukos meant 'gleaming' in Homer and only later named a blue-grey colour, which is why some translators write 'grey-eyed' instead.
Q 16The palladium, a statue of Athena, was believed to protect which city from ever falling?
Troy
Troy: when it fell, Ajax the Lesser tore Cassandra away from the statue as she clung to it, and in revenge Athena wrecked the Greek fleet on its way home.
Q 17Athena cast the deciding vote to acquit which hero of murdering Clytemnestra?
Orestes
Orestes went free when the jurors split evenly and Athena's vote settled it; she then ruled that 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
A polished bronze shield showed Perseus the Gorgon's reflection, so he never had to look at her; Hermes lent the curved sword and Athena guided his hand.
Q 19Athena helped Bellerophon tame the winged horse Pegasus by giving him what?
A bit
A bit, on a golden bridle: Bellerophon slept in her temple, dreamt that she laid it beside him, and woke to find it there.
Q 20Athena fitted the prow of the Argo, Jason's ship, with a beam of sacred oak that had what power?
It could speak
It could speak: the timber came from the oak of Zeus's oracle at Dodona, so the ship itself could warn and advise the Argonauts.
Q 24The golden apple that set Athena against Hera and Aphrodite was inscribed with what?
For the fairest
'For the fairest': Eris, goddess of discord, threw it among the wedding guests, and Athena tried to bribe the judge, Paris, with victory in war before he chose Aphrodite.
Q 25Athena struck the hunter Tiresias blind for seeing her naked, then gave him what compensating gift?
The language of the birds
The language of the birds: his mother begged for mercy, but Athena could not undo the blinding, so she cleansed his ears to read omens in birdsong and gave him a staff to walk by.
Q 26Athena's adopted son Erichthonius was born from the earth after which god tried to rape her?
Hephaestus
Hephaestus: Athena hid the earth-born infant in a chest and gave it to the daughters of Cecrops with orders never to look inside, which they could not resist doing.
Q 27Athena invented which musical instrument, then threw it away because playing it puffed out her cheeks?
The aulos
The aulos, a double reed pipe: the satyr Marsyas picked up the one she threw away, challenged Apollo to a contest with it, lost, and was flayed alive.
Q 28Athena turned the Attic girl Myrmex into which industrious insect for claiming she had invented the plough?
The ant
The ant: myrmex is simply the Greek word for one, the root of 'myrmecology', the study of ants, so the boastful girl kept her own name.
Q 29Athena saved Perdix, the nephew Daedalus hurled from a height out of jealousy, by turning him into which bird?
A partridge
A partridge, perdix in Greek and Latin: Ovid says the bird still nests low in the hedges and shuns the heights, remembering its fall.
Q 30Athena saved the maiden Corone from Poseidon by turning her into what?
A crow
A crow, korone in Greek: in Ovid the bird tells the story herself, and complains that she later lost her place at Athena's side for carrying tales.