According to Greek mythology, Zeus was the father of Athena.
Athena is commonly described as the daughter of Zeus, with no mother in the usual version of her birth story. Zeus swallowed Metis, a goddess associated with wisdom, after learning a prophecy about their future child. Athena later emerged fully armed from Zeus’s head, often after Hephaestus split it open with an axe.
The myth presents Athena as a powerful Olympian deity connected with wisdom, strategic warfare, crafts and civic protection. She became the patron goddess of Athens, the city that bears her name.
Different ancient sources preserve variations in divine genealogies and details, but Zeus’s fatherhood of Athena is the standard account. Athena’s unusual birth is why questions about her family sometimes distinguish her father from her mother or describe her as “motherless” in the conventional narrative.