When Athena burst from her father’s head she looked just like a hoplite warrior, with armor and a helmet.  Dr. Kate Birney tells us about this fierce aspect of the goddess as well as the civilized attributes of the patron goddess of Athens.  No wonder she’s Danae’s favorite goddess – and maybe yours too? Visit our pages on social media or search #livefrommountolympus to find images of Athena made by the residents of the city that bears her name with pride. 

Live from Mount Olympus is a production of the Onassis Foundation, and co-produced by The TEAM. The podcast is directed by Tony Award-winner Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown) and Zhailon Levingston (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical) and created by Peabody Award-winning producer Julie Burstein. Karen Brooks Hopkins is the executive producer.

Live from Mount Olympus is presented by TRAX from PRX with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Find out more at Onassis.link/Olympus

Our actors include Vinie Burrows, Jill Frutkin, Divine Garland, Amber Gray, Adrienne Hopkins, Natalie Hopkins, Modesto "Flako" Jimenez, Libby King, Ian Lassiter, Zhailon Levingston, Christina Liberus, Nehemiah Luckett, Jake Margolin, James Harrison Monaco, Kristen Sieh, Jillian Walker, Baby Perseus is played by Calvin Samuel Blanch and Whit Vega Margolin-Vaughan, and André De Shields is Hermes.

Our production team includes: sound designer David Schulman; production assistant Tessa Zitter; writer Nathan Yungerberg; music composed and performed by Magda Giannikou with Luca Bordonaro; and illustrations by Jason Adam Katzenstein.

Our guest today, Dr. Kate Birney, is Chair of the Archaeology Department at Wesleyan University. Our mythlets are written and produced by Tessa Zitter and mastered by John Melillo.