The Achaeans can look to support from Hera and Athena, who still smart from the insult of being spurned, as they see it, by Paris. Besides this, Athena has always had a special fondness for Diomedes and Odysseus and will always watch over them. Hermes favors Odysseus too,116 but the slippery messenger god’s first loyalty is always to his father Zeus. Poseidon, ruler of the sea, takes the Achaean side, as does Hephaestus, god of fire and forge—perhaps for no other reason than that his unfaithful wife Aphrodite and her lover Ares prefer Troy. Naturally Thetis, for the sake of her son Achilles,
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