Metis

Metis was a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys and the first wife of Zeus. Hesiod says she knew more than any god or mortal. Zeus swallowed her when she was about to bear Athena, so that no child of hers could overthrow him, and Athena was then born from Zeus’s own head.

Who Was Metis?

Lineage and Legacy

In Hesiod’s Theogony, Metis is one of the many daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, the Oceanids (Hesiod, Theogony 337–364, with Metis named at 358). Oceanus was himself one of the Titans, the children of Gaia and Uranus (Theogony 133–136), so Metis belonged to the family of the Titans, but Hesiod lists her as an Oceanid, not as a Titan in the strict sense. Apollodorus likewise calls her “Metis, daughter of Ocean” (Apollodorus, Library 1.2.1). Hesiod describes her as the one who knew most among gods and mortals (Theogony 887). Her name is the ordinary Greek word mêtis, “counsel” or “cunning intelligence”, the quality for which Homer praises Odysseus and which Zeus himself bears in his epithet mêtieta, “counsellor” (Homeric Hymn 28.4).

Metis and the War Against Cronus

Apollodorus says that when Zeus was grown he took Metis to help him, and that she gave Cronus a drug to swallow which made him disgorge first the stone and then the children he had swallowed; with their help Zeus fought the Titans (Apollodorus, Library 1.2.1). Hesiod, in his version of Cronus’s defeat, does not mention Metis in this role and credits Gaia’s plan (Theogony 493–500).

Metis and Zeus

Hesiod says that Zeus, king of the gods, made Metis his first wife (Hesiod, Theogony 886). His second wife was Themis, who bore the Horai and the Moirai (Theogony 901–906), and the Charites were born from his union with the Oceanid Eurynome (Theogony 907–909).

When Metis was about to give birth to the grey-eyed goddess Athena, Zeus deceived her with coaxing words and put her inside his own belly, on the advice of Gaia and Uranus. They had told him that Metis was fated to bear very wise children: first a daughter, Athena, equal to her father in strength and counsel, and then a son who would be king of gods and men with an overbearing heart. Zeus swallowed Metis first so that no one else would hold the kingly honour among the gods (Theogony 886–900).

Apollodorus gives the same reason. He adds that Metis turned into many shapes to avoid the embraces of Zeus, and that Gaia said she would bear, after the maiden, a son who would be lord of heaven (Apollodorus, Library 1.3.6).

The Birth of Athena

Hesiod says that Zeus himself brought forth the grey-eyed Tritogeneia from his head, a goddess who delights in war and battle (Hesiod, Theogony 924–926). The Homeric Hymn to Athena says that Zeus the counsellor bore her himself from his holy head, already wearing her armour of war (Homeric Hymn 28.4–5).

A longer passage attributed to Hesiod, preserved in a later quotation and printed after Theogony 929 in modern editions, adds that Metis, while hidden inside Zeus, made the aegis for her daughter, and that Athena was born with it, in her armour of war, at the banks of the river Triton (Hesiod, Theogony 929a–t).

Apollodorus adds that when the time of the birth came, Prometheus or, as others say, Hephaestus struck the head of Zeus with an axe, and Athena leaped out fully armed beside the river Triton (Apollodorus, Library 1.3.6). So the sources differ on who opened the head, and Hephaestus is only one of the names given.

Athena’s Mother and the Ancient Greek Beliefs

Athena is sometimes said to have had no mother. Hesiod names her mother plainly: it was Metis, whom Zeus had swallowed, and the daughter was born from the head of her father afterwards. Apollodorus agrees that Metis was pregnant with Athena when Zeus swallowed her.

Metis’s Enduring Wisdom

Hesiod ends the passage by saying that Zeus put Metis inside his belly so that the goddess might devise good and evil for him (Hesiod, Theogony 900). The longer Hesiodic passage says that Metis stayed seated inside Zeus, hidden, “mother of Athena, worker of righteousness, who knew more than gods and mortal men” (Theogony 929n–p). So in Hesiod she is not destroyed: she lives on within Zeus as his counsel, and her wisdom passes to her daughter Athena.

Metis Sources

Hesiod, Theogony 133–136, 337–364, 493–500, 886–900, 901–909, 924–926, 929a–t; Apollodorus, Library 1.2.1, 1.3.6; Homeric Hymn 28 to Athena 4–5.

See Also: Titans, Oceanus, Tethys, Zeus, Athena, Themis, Hephaestus