Existing comment:
Greek
Black-Figure Amphora (Storage Vessel), ca 540 BC
"Athena sprang quickly from the immortal head and stood shaking her sharp spear before aegis-bearing Zeus."
-- Homeric Hymn to Athena, 28
The goddess Athena was miraculously born out of the head of Zeus, king of the gods. In the 7th century, the poet Hesiod wrote that Zeus swallowed his first consort, Metis, wisest of gods and men, because of a prophecy that she would bear a son who would overthrow him. Metis was already pregnant with Athena, who sprang fully grown and armed from Zeus's head. In many versions of the story, Zeus's headache is so severe that he asks the blacksmith god Hephaistos to split his skull open with an ax. |