Of Pallas Athena, protectress of the city I begin to sing;
the dreadful one, who with Ares looks after war-like affairs:
the sacking of cities, the cries of battle and the strife.
She protects the populace, wherever they might venture to or from.
Hail goddess, and may you give us good fortune and happiness.
-Hymn to Athena

My mother was a titaness known as Metis. She ruled, as one might expect, over wisdom and knowledge. My father, Zeus, seduced her and so I was conceived. However, during this conception, my father heard from the oracle that my mother's second child by him would end up overthrowing him and becoming ruler as he did with his father. Zeus was not about to allow this and so the next time he greeted my mother, he swallowed her whole. Sadly, from this, my mother was no more and so I really never did know her except those few moments I was in her womb. However I was not about to lie down and admit defeat. I had already gained my spirit and, thanks to my mother, the great intelligence and wisdom for which I am known today. I continued to grow in my father's head, where I had settled as it was clearly the best place for me to grow. After a few months, I decided that it was time for me to get out and enter the world for myself. Through the conception process, I had forged my own armor and weapons out of nothing so that I would not be bare when I first made my appearance. With my created shield, I started to pound rather steadily on my father's head. Eventually he couldn't take it anymore and so he had Hephaestus crack open his head to find out just what was the problem. This is what I had been waiting for, and through that opening, I exited my father's mind and was born into the world. Many were shocked at my sudden appearance, especially since I was born already clad in armor and carrying my favored weapon, the spear. There was one I noticed, however, who seemed to hold absolutely no interest at all in my birth. I somehow knew that he would end up being a rival of sorts. This was Ares, th other god of warfare, if you can call it that. He and I never really did get along very well, and we were always competing against each other in order to gain the upper hand. Where I ended up coming to favor Athens, he came to favor Sparta.

Speaking of Athens, I will come to that. Athens started out as a nameless city in need of a god or goddess to be its patron. The offer was made and, as I had not gained a city, I quickly made accepted the offer. I was not the only one who wished to be the patron of Athens, however. Poseidon also wanted the city. So it was decided that a contest would be hold in order to see who would gain the city. The contest was that both Poseidon and I would grant a single gift to the city, and the granter of the more useful gift, would win the city. I allowed Poseidon to go first as he's always been a more ambitious god, and so he threw down his trident and up sprang a spring of water. Now this gift might well have been more useful if Poseidon could have gotten over his love of the sea. But he couldn't manage it this time, or any other time I can remember for that matter, and so the spring of water was of salt water. This gift proved rather useless to the Athenians as all they had to do for salt water was walk five miles to the sea where they could gather all the salt water they wanted. It was then my turn. Now upon my earlier wanderings, I had come across a certain tree that I had come to favor very much. This tree produced a most interesting fruit known as the olive. I knew that the olive would become very desirable to not only Athenians, but the world through an oil that could be created through it. So I ended up planting a tree on the acropolis, where one still stands to this very day, and it quickly grew. I told the Athenians of the time that I would see to it that they would have this tree to plant as they so wished as long as they took care of them and allowed them the proper time needed for them to grow naturally. My gift was quickly accepted as the most useful and so I was granted the city and the city was granted its name.

Now Poseidon never did seem to really get over the fact that I had beaten him in this competition. He occasionally would, and still will, take little turns to try and pester me. The first of these, and the most bothersome, happened at the beginning of the Trojan war. I had gone to Hephastus and there asked if he would forge me a new set of armor. Hephastus happily accepted this and went to doing it, free of charge. Poseidon decided that he would get involved and so told Hephastus that when I returned for the armor, I would be expecting him to make love to me. I don't know how this got into Hephaestus' head, especially since I have never made love to any man, but it did. The next day, as I was getting my armor, he leaped onto me. I quickly threw him off, not exactly willing to have such a bond with him or any other. He, however, ended up... spilling, as we might call it, onto my leg. I quickly wiped it off onto the Earth, accidentally impregnating Gaia in the process. From this union, Erichthonius was born. Erichthonius was a man who wasalso half snake, and due to his horrid appearance, Gaia would not accept him. Because of this, I took him under my own personal care. Under that care, he grew wise, and so when he came of age, I placed him as the first king of my city so that I could stand beside him and advise to his death.

Getting back to the actual war, it started when Eris, Ares' sister of course, got angry because she was not invited to a wedding. She ended up throwing in a golden apple that was marked "to the fairest" among those at the wedding. Now here three of us got into a bit of an arguement as to just who the apple was truly addressed to. We all have moments in our lives that we are not overly fond of, and here is one of mine. It ended up coming down to a man named Paris as to who he though was the lovliest of Hera, Aphrodite, and myself. What it really came down to however, was what Paris saw as the fairest trait, beauty, wedded bliss, or wisdom. Well Paris ended up chosing beauty and so chose Aphrodite. Neither Hera nor I were pleased with the decision, and so when Paris was given Helen and the Greeks waged war with the Trojans, we were right there helping the Greeks to get Helen back to destroy the gift that Aphrodite had give Paris as Aphrodite no longer really cared what happened in the affair. She had the apple, and her part of the deal was completed. Well this all proved to be poor Paris' luck. The seige of Troy caused the downfall of the Trojans as the Greeks made the offer of a horse to them in my name and they accepted it. But then that is a common story, even on Earth still, so I won't go into it much more than that.

Time wore on and I watched proudly as my city started to get on its feet. Though the main event that got things going for Athens was the Persian Wars. The wonderful wars when finally, Persia decided that it would come to rule over Greece. The poor fools just had no idea what was in store for them. Up to this point, Sparta had always been the only city-state to turn to when one got in trouble that they needed military help for. But then that makes a great deal of sense as Ares has always been far more blunt and impatient than I am. The Persian Wars are what finally proved to the world that Sparta was not the only city-state with a good military. In fact I remember it very clearly. Darius was not very pleased with Athens for having helped a revolt in the area that was then known as Asia Minor, and he was very determined to get revenge. He even appealed to the Spartans to try and get them to attack us while we were focused on Persia, but luckily even Sparta could think a rational thought or two at times and threw the ambassador in a well. Darius was furious and so he decided he was going to try and attack, and try he did only to meet with failure at the northern end of Greece when a storm struck his fleet. It was the second attempt he made however, that truly gave Athens a name in the world.

Darius came across the sea again and this time landed at a place known as Marathon. Miltaides was truly a brilliant man. The Persians had actually made a good move. Either the Athenians had to sit and wait in Athens for the Persians to come to them while the Persians ransacked Marathon and others on the other side of the mountains, or they had to go help, allowing the Persians the time to get to Athens where it was left undefended by ship. Well just letting the Persians do as they will was not to be tolerated, and so the Athenians started off for Marathon. There they held their ground at the top of a hill where they could watch the Persians. Then finally, the Persians decided for some reason to move north towards a more marshlike area and that's when the Miltaides knew that he had the Persians. The company went down the hill the next morning and at the base of the hill, the two enemies met. It was a glorious battle, the most glorious the Athenians had ever seen and ever had. Not only because they managed to defeat the Persians, but because when they saw the Persian fleet leaving for Athens, they managed to turn right around and run back to Athens, making it there before the fleet. It was then the fllet gave up and decided to go home. Athens had had her first victory that she could truly call her own. They had even gone to Sparta for help, but it was the wrong phase of the moon and they were stuck in the festival. Ares... stuck in a festival more important than fighting. That would be the Aphrodite influence, I'm quite sure. Men. Anyway, they showed up within the next few days all ready for fighting and everything. Wouldn't you imagine their surprise when they saw the bodies of the Persians. Ares was quite upset that he had missed the entire battle. He was even more upset, I think, that I and my own had managed to pull off such a marvelous feat. He's supposed to be the god of war after all. Eventually the Spartans went back home and things returned to normal for a time.

It was not too long after this that the man known as Xerxes came to power in Persia. He decided that he too would go about in trying to conquer all of Greece. Despite how much I do not like the man, Ares is a good fighter. I must grant him that. When you decide that you are going to take up an operation that will have you facing both of us in warfare, well I highly doubt there is really anything that could take the two of us down when we stand together. The occasions are exceedingly rare, but it has happened and Xerxes met with defeat. It was at this time that one person from Sparta and Athens each was called over to Persia to take a look at the armies and report back to their city-states. It was merely Xerxes trying to flex a muscle to scare us off. Sadly for the ambassadors, it worked on them and they were both properly executed when they said that the Persian army was far too large for the Greeks to beat, and that they should just give in. We were both ready to fight and there was no way that we were going to turn down the war. Another brilliant Athenian, Themistocles, was in charge of the Athenian side of the battle. The city-states that put up a resistance put Sparta in charge of most of the warfare. After all, they did have to most experience at this sort of thing. Athens was just starting to sprout as a power. The first battle to mention is the famous battle of Thermopylae, and here I must give Ares his due credit. We had set up to block them at this narrow passage and it actually worked very well. The battle went on for days and the Persians, despite their great number, could not get through us. It was then due to some shepherd who Ares and I dealt rather... properly with afterwards... that the Persians were able to get through to the Greeks, surprise them, and basically slaughter many of them. It was then that the Greek line broke and we started to fall back. The Spartans were rather noble for once, and they told the Athenians to get back. The Thebians thought this meant they were going to leave as well, but no, they were forced to stay and fight. We did not take kindly to the lack of wanting to fight for one's own city-state. All of them ended up dying as the Persians pushed through, but they put up one hell of a fight. And for that, I grant my blessings to them.

After that, Xerxes first tried to march his way to Delphi, but Apollo and I were paying attention, and a large avalanche made it impossible for them to get through to Delphi alive. With that, Xerxes made his way towards Athens. This is where affairs started to get a bit more downheartening. With many Spartan soldiers left dead at Thermopylae, there was no one to help us with the battle. Yes, we put up one hell of a fight and it took days before Xerxes managed to push his way through into Athens. Sadly, it eventually happened. He made his way through and burnt the city, destroying the Acropolis. Many Athenians managed to escape, however, and they were scattered. Themistocles took to the sea with the Athenian fleet which had been weathering out much of the fight in the harbor due to the rough waves of the sea, letting Poseidon have his own fun with the Persian fleet. After the burning of Athens, however, they had created a fleet that had not much of a care in the world, one of the most dangerous kinds of fleets to make. The Persians came up and locked together at one end between the mainland and the island of Salamis. The strait between the two held the Athenian and Spartan fleet. Now Themistocles was not about to just give up. Ares was never much of one for the sea, I personally have always loved it. But the Spartabs shared Ares' views and so wanted to just let the Persians finish their conquest of Attica. Themistocles knew that they could beat the Persians as the Persians had no idea just what the waters of the strait were like and they did not know that there was always a wind that blew off the mainland of Greece during the midmorning. To keep the Spartans from pulling out, Themistocles spoke to Xerxes himself, telling him that it would be a wonderful trap to close up the strait, and when he won, he would surrender to him the Athenian Fleet. Well Xerxes was an idiot and could not see through Themistocles, taking up the plan happily and moving his fleet to do as asked. The next morning, the Spartans found they could not just leave and when the wind hit, they attacked the Persians with the Athenian fleet, wiping out the Persian fleet. With the Persian fleet destoryed, we could focus completely on the land army and shortly after, that too was basically wiped out. The Persians left, and Greece had proven herself to be the most powerful country of the western world. Not only this, but now city-states and other places could turn to Athens for naval assistance. Sparta was obviously no longer the only megapower of Greece. Ares now had competition and I don't know how much he liked that, especially at first. The Athenians returned home and almost left, though they saw the good omen when I had the olive tree granted to me sprout and so decided to stay.

This was our high point, however. Sadly, Athens started to go downhill from here. Yes yes, they ended up rebuilding the acropolis to me, became the culture center of the world, but they started to become too proud, and those with hubris always end up falling. It all started wisely enough. The Delian League was created in case Persia should ever return for another beating. This was all fine of course, it was when the Athenians started to take great advantages of the other city-states that I started to get a little annoyed. I'm not one for simply deciding that I rule over everyone because I'm powerful. I'm here to protect, not dictate. That's what Athens was supposed to have been there for, but the quality of "protection" started to quickly plummet. The league went out to start freeing city-states from the rule of Persia, and they did a very fine job. The Athenians continued to get better, coming closer to demoncracy and freedom for the others, but then in came Pericles. Granted, Pericles was a brilliant man, but I was certainly not one who liked him very much. In fact I rather detested him for what started to happen to Athens after he came into role of basically being leader.

What Pericles started to do was stop comparing Athens might and power to that of Persian and started to compare with Sparta. I don't blame the Spartans for being upset with this. The First Peloponnesian War really didn't have much come out of it. Due to poor luck, the Athenian Fleet was drowned when it went to Egypt to face the Persians. This defeat cut down on Pericles' will to go on for a good while, and so he made a thirty year peace with Sparta. After all, one cannot fight when the backbone of your fighting force is gone. Sadly, that wasn't the end to it. During that peace, the Athenians continued to only get more cocky. I understand being proud, I'm very proud myself, but there is a difference between being proud and being cocky. Many people like to say this was the time of democracy, but no. Oh sure, people got to vote, but it was always Pericles' way. He was extremely popular with the Athenians. During this time, he had the acropolis rebuilt and it was very grand, if only the money had not been drawn out of the other city-states as well. He also had the long walls built. Yes, it was an excellent defensive strategy, but all it really did was make Sparta all the more suspicious of Athens. Athens became all the more powerhungry, and that is when I started to lose my will to support them as mightily as I had done before. I could not abandon them, I would never do that to anyone whose side I was on when they are about to go into a war, but I did not fight with all of my heart, I couldn't. I was especially irritated that they had gone to one of the islands and killed all the men before selling the women and children into slavery because they revolted. Namely, I've always thought they started to act like the Persians then.

The thirty year peace didn't last the entire time. In fact it only lasted a total of 14 years. Sparta picked up the war again, though not much really changed still. The walls built around Athens and her fleet kept Sparta from being able to starve the city. Eventually another peace treaty was signed, but this one didn't even last as long as the treaty signed before. When the war started up again, the Persians, who had probably been laughing the entire time, took a step into it as well. We fought and we fought hard, but the Spartan fleet at one point came across the Athenian fleet while they were at anchor and slaughtered them. That was basically the end of it. After that battle, the walls of Athens were torn down and they were kept from having any sort of fleet at all. What there was of a democracy was thrown out and Athens went under the control of Sparta.