Athena Parthenos

Athena Parthenos is a forty-feet-tall statue of the goddess Athena which was once the central figure in the Parthenon. The Parthenos had the figure of Athena carved from ivory, wearing a gold toga and holding a statue of the goddess Nike on her palm. The statue's other hand held a shield, with a snake emerging from behind it. Annabeth Chasethought that the Parthenos was a perfect likeness of Athena, and that the sculptor must have met her.

History
When the Roman Empire conquered Greece, they took the Parthenos as a way of breaking Greece's spirit. As Athena became Minerva, she lost her status as a war goddess; the capture of the Parthenos was seen as an act of belittlement to Athena, and the source of the seemingly eternal conflict between Greek and Roman demigods. According to legends among the Romans, every civil war between the Greeks and the Romans was started by children of Athena. In every subsequent generation after the Parthenos's capture, Athena charged some of her children to recover the statue, by following the Mark of Athena through the city of Rome. The Parthenos itself was protected by Arachne, who wove spider webs around it to contain its power, though the Parthenos was still powerful enough that monsters burrowed up under the floor, leaving only a thin layer of tile and spider webs between Arachne's chamber and a pit straight to Tartarus. All of Athena's children, up to Annabeth Chase, had failed retrieving the statue.

The Mark of Athena
Annabeth Chase finally succeeds where generations of her siblings have failed. She successfully followed the Mark of Athena to Arachne's chamber. Even though she injured her ankle, she outwitted and trapped the spider in it's own woven prison, relating to a line in a prophecy. The Argo II arrives, blasting open the ceiling, and sending debris down the chamber, ruining the floors where Arachne believes leads to Tartarus, and the spider falls into the pit. As Leo Valdez, Frank Zhang, and Jason Grace secure the Athena Parthenos, just barely fitting it inside the ship. However, Annabeth and Percy Jackson are dragged into the pit leading to Tartarus by Arachne.

Trivia

 * Athena Parthenos means "Athena the Virgin."