_Minerva or Athene_ is the goddess of wisdom. She was born in a very strange way. One day Jupiter had a terrible headache--what we call a “splitting” headache. It got worse and worse, until at last he could stand it no longer, but he took a very strange way to cure it. He called Vulcan, the lame blacksmith, and told him to hit him on the head with his hammer. Though Vulcan must have thought this a funny request, of course he had to obey the father god. So he struck Jupiter a terrible blow on the head, whereupon there sprang forth Minerva in all her armor, and the headache, of which she had been the cause, had gone. So she was born from his brain, that is why she is the goddess of wisdom. Minerva’s Greek name is Athene, and she founded a great city in Greece and named it after herself, Athens. She is supposed to look out for this city as a mother does for her child. _Venus or Aphrodite_ is the goddess of love and beauty. She is the most beautiful of the goddesses as Apollo is the most beautiful of the gods. She is said to have been born from the sea-foam. Cupid, her son, is a little chubby boy with a quiver of arrows on his back. He goes about shooting his invisible arrows into the hearts of human beings, but instead of dying when they are hit they at once fall in love with some one. That is why we put hearts with arrows through them on valentines. _Vesta_ is the goddess of the home and fireside, who looks out for the family. _Ceres or Demeter_ is the goddess of the farmer. These are the twelve gods of the Olympian family. _Pluto_ is a brother of Jupiter. He rules the world underground and lives down there. There are many other less important gods and goddesses as well as some gods that are half human, such as the three Fates and three Graces and the nine Muses. Some of the planets in the sky which look like stars are still called by the names of these Greek gods. Jupiter is the name of the largest planet. Mars is the name of one that is reddish--the color of blood. Venus is the name of one that is very beautiful. There is also a Mercury and a Neptune. It is hard for us to understand how the Greeks could have prayed to such gods as these, but they did. Their prayers, however, were not like ours. Instead of kneeling and closing their eyes as we do, they stood up and stretched their arms straight out before them. They did not pray to be forgiven for their sins and to be made better. They prayed for victory over their enemies or to be protected from harm.