Today’s date
Your name: Drew Maddox

Citation (title, author, publication, date, URL, etc.)	          Athena:
      Felson, Nancy. "Athena." World Book Student. World Book, 2010. Web. 1 Nov. 2010.
     Downing, Christine, and Paola Ceccarelli. "Athena." Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Lindsay Jones. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 586-588. Gale World History In Context. Web. 1 Nov. 2010.

Subject of notes	Athena, Achilles, Sirens

Notes (important information—paraphrase, avoid copying and pasting huge blocks of text)

Athena,   «uh THEE nuh», in Greek mythology, was the goddess of warfare, wisdom, and arts and crafts. She also was the patron goddess of Athens. The Athenians called Athena Parthenos (Virgin) because of her chosen state of virginity. In the 400's B.C., they dedicated a temple called the Parthenon to Athena. Athena represented strategic war planning rather than the raw violence of war. The Romans identified their goddess Minerva with Athena.
According to some ancient sources, Athena was born full-grown and dressed in armor from the head of Zeus, the king of the gods. Zeus had swallowed the goddess Metis when Metis was pregnant with Athena. From her mother, Athena inherited cunning and, according to some sources, an ability to change shape and assume disguises. Athena also embodied the ancient Greek ideal of self-restraint. Athena assisted and inspired such Greek heroes as Heracles, Odysseus, and Perseus.

As the goddess of arts and crafts, Athena was skilled at weaving, embroidery, and spinning. According to one myth, a woman named Arachne once boastfully challenged Athena to a weaving contest. After the contest, Athena turned Arachne into a spider so she would have to spend the rest of her life spinning.

Athena is depicted in art as a tall, stately woman wearing a crested helmet and carrying a spear and shield. On her shield, called the aegis, was the head of Medusa, which could paralyze Athena's foes (see Medusa). Athena is often shown accompanied by a snake and carrying an owl on her shoulder.

Athena's emblems are the owl (glaux, compare her epithet glaukōpis, "bright-eyed"), and the snake, living among the rocks of the Athenian Acropolis (Herodotos VIII 41.2–3). These have been taken by some modern scholars as signs of the close connection between her, the Minoan snake goddess, and the Mycenaean palace goddess. Athena's main weapon in battle is the aegis (as the name implies, a goat-skin): when she raises it, panic overtakes her enemies. On it, she wears the petrifying head of the Gorgon.

Achilles:

Like many mythological heroes, Achilles was part human and part supernatural being. His parents were Peleus (pronounced pe-LAY-uhs), a king of Thessaly in northern Greece, and a sea nymph named Thetis (pronounced THEE-tis). According to Homer, Thetis raised both Achilles and his closest friend and companion, Patroclus (pronounced pa-TROH-kluhs).

According to legend, Achilles' mother Thetis tried to make her infant son invulnerable (incapable of being wounded, injured, or harmed) by dipping him into the river Styx, which flowed through the underworld, or land of the dead. Afterward, no sword or arrow could pierce Achilles wherever the Styx's water had touched him. However, the water did not touch the heel by which Thetis held Achilles, so this remained the only vulnerable spot on his body. This myth is the source of the term Achilles' heel, which refers to a person's most notable weakness