Source Verification: Arachne and Athena

Every claim below is either what a named ancient source attests, in its own line or section, or a point where the sources themselves disagree.

What the Sources Attest

Why was Arachne changed into a spider?

Because Athena, enraged that she could find no flaw in Arachne's tapestry, punished her. In Ovid, Athena tore the web and struck Arachne, who then hung herself. Athena saved her from that death but sentenced her to dangle on a cord forever, and sprinkled her with a juice from Hecate's herbs that shrank her into a spider.

Source: Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.88-145

How is Arachne related to spiders?

In Ovid's myth she is the first spider: her body shrinks, her fingers become legs and she spins thread from her belly, and Athena says her descendants will follow her example. Arachne is the Greek word for spider, and the class Arachnida, holding spiders, scorpions and mites, takes its name from it.

Source: Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.88-145

Is Arachne Greek or Roman mythology?

Both, in a way. The only full ancient telling is by Ovid, a Roman poet writing in Latin, so the goddess is called Minerva. But the setting and figures are Greek: Arachne lives in Lydia, and Minerva stands for Athena. Virgil, also a Roman poet, mentions the spider as the victim of Minerva's spite. No earlier Greek telling is cited here.

Source: Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.1-87; Virgil, Georgics 4.246-247

Was Arachne a better weaver than Athena?

Ovid says her work had no flaw. Athena looked for a fleck and could not find one, and her rage came because Arachne had such skill. Ovid names no judge and gives no verdict. Athena ends the contest by tearing the web, and the story never says the goddess lost or won on merit.

Source: Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.88-145

Where Accounts Differ

ovid-only-full-telling
roman-names-greek-setting
tapestry-contents
who-won-the-contest

Only one full ancient telling is cited. Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.1-145, is the whole narrative. Virgil, Georgics 4.246-247, mentions the spider as the victim of Minerva's spite without naming Arachne. No Greek source for Arachne is cited on this page, because none was verified.
Ovid writes Roman names: Minerva, Jupiter, Neptune, Bacchus and Saturn. This page uses Athena, Zeus, Poseidon and Dionysus in its own voice and says so where it quotes.
Ovid reports Arachne's own denial of Athena as her teacher but does not say whether it is true: the narrator says every motion showed how much Minerva had taught her, and that Arachne would deny it.
The tapestries are Ovid's own device. Athena's four corner scenes and Arachne's list of divine deceptions appear in Metamorphoses 6.1-145 and are not confirmed by any other source here, so they are not an independent tradition.
The Antigone in Athena's third corner is Laomedon's daughter of Troy, changed into a stork, not the daughter of Oedipus, so the page does not link her to the Theban Antigone.

Sources

Primary sources

Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.1-87
Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.88-145
Virgil, Georgics 4.246-247