Arachne

Arachne was a great mortal weaver who was turned into a spider by Athena.

Myth
Arachne was the daughter of Idmon of Colophon, who was a famous wool dyer in Tyrian purple. She was a fine weaver in Hypaepa of Lydia. She was as skillful as the finest artist of the day and much praise was given to her in Hypaepa, where she had her workshop.

This all went to her head and eventually Arachne became so conceited of her skill as a weaver that she began claiming that her skill was greater than that of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war as well as the arts. Athena was angered, but gave Arachne a chance to redeem herself. Assuming the form of an old woman, she warned Arachne not to offend the gods. Arachne scoffed and wished for a weaving contest, so she could prove her skill. Athena dropped her disguise and the contest began.

Athena wove the scene of her victory over Poseidon that had inspired the people of Athens to name their city for her. According to Ovid's Latin narrative, Arachne's tapestry featured twenty-one episodes of the infidelity of the gods, disguised as animals: examples: Zeus being unfaithful with Leda, with Europa, with Danaë.

Even Athena admitted that Arachne's work was immaculate. Athena did win the contest, but she was so outraged that Arachne had disrespected the gods with the images in her tapestry, she turned Arachne into a spider. Some vertions of the stories say that in fact Athena attacked Arachne forcing her to hang herself in protest Athena covered Arachne in Helsbane allowing her to weave forever.

Her name, Arachne, is closely linked with words like Arachnid and Arachnophobia.

The Lightning Thief
While Arachne is never seen it is shown several times that children of Athena have a mortal fear of Arachne's children, spiders (arachnophobia). Annabeth is so scared of spiders that she even has problems with anything that looks like them. When Ares sends Percy, Annabeth, and Grover to Waterland, they were attacked by tiny mechanical spiders made by Hephaestus. Later, when Annabeth is so entranced by a Sim City type game in The Lotus Hotel, Percy has to say the word "spider" to snap her out of her trance.

17:35, August 30, 2012 (UTC)