ration of the
process of cooerdination and harmonization that went on continually among
the Greeks. Hekate does not appear in Homer, but in Hesiod she has the
full form of a great deity--she exercises control over heaven, earth,
and sea;[1360] and at a later period she becomes similarly connected
with the Underworld. This variety of functions can be explained only by
the supposition that she also was a local deity, who, like all local
deities, was regarded as universal.[1361] As the meaning of her name is
uncertain and her original region unknown, it can be only surmised that
her cult spread gradually in Greece through the growing unification of
the Hellenic states. Like Artemis she presided over human birth. The
functions of the two goddesses being so nearly the same (they appear to
represent similar conceptions arising at different centers), it was
natural that in the later times they should be identified or closely
associated.

+791+. Athene is said in a late myth (not in the Iliad) to have been
born from the head of Zeus, a representation that has led many recent
scholars to regard her as the goddess of the thunderstorm, the lightning
that cleaves the clouds, the divine warrior that slays the dragon. But
ingenious and attractive as this interpretation is, to determine the
origin of the goddess it is safer to go to the earlier forms of her
cult. At a very early period she is connected with ordinary social
occupations.[1362] She is the patroness of the cultivation of the land;
in Athens, where the olive was important, it was she who bestowed this
tree on the city; here she is the maiden, the genius, the divine patron
of vegetation. She presided over the domestic employments of women,
spinning and weaving--that is, she is the goddess of household
work.[1363] As is the case with so many divine patrons of men's early
simple employments, she grew with the community and became gradually a
great goddess, and necessarily a patroness of cities. In her character
of general patroness she became a goddess of war--a necessity for all
ancient states. On the other hand, in a community (like Athens, for
example) where intellectual insight was highly esteemed she would
naturally become the representative of cleverness and wisdom.

+792+. The peculiar nature of the wisdom that is prized by men depends
on time and place. In the earliest periods what Athene bestows is a high
degree of common sense and skill in devising ways and means,