In
Greek mythologyGreek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
,
Nemesis (
GreekAncient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
, Νέμεσις), also called
Rhamnousia/Rhamnusia ("the
goddessA goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....
of
RhamnousThe site of Rhamnous , the remote northernmost deme of Attica, lies 39 km NE of Athens and 12.4 km NNE of Marathon, Greece overlooking the Euboean Strait. Rhamnous was strategically significant enough to be fortified and receive an Athenian garrison of ephebes...
") at her sanctuary at
RhamnousThe site of Rhamnous , the remote northernmost deme of Attica, lies 39 km NE of Athens and 12.4 km NNE of Marathon, Greece overlooking the Euboean Strait. Rhamnous was strategically significant enough to be fortified and receive an Athenian garrison of ephebes...
, north of
MarathonMarathon is a town in Greece, the site of the battle of Marathon in 490 BC, in which the heavily outnumbered Athenian army defeated the Persians. The tumulus or burial mound for the 192 Athenian dead that was erected near the battlefield remains a feature of the coastal plain...
, was the spirit of divine
retributionRetributive justice is a theory of justice that considers that punishment, if proportionate, is a morally acceptable response to crime, with an eye to the satisfaction and psychological benefits it can bestow to the aggrieved party, its intimates and society....
against those who succumb to
hubrisHubris , also hybris, means extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power....
(arrogance before the gods). The Greeks personified vengeful
fateDestiny or fate refers to a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual...
as a remorseless goddess: the goddess of revenge. The name
Nemesis is related to the
GreekGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
word νέμειν [némein], meaning "to give what is due". She was associated with the
RomanAncient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
InvidiaIn Latin, invidia is the sense of envy or jealousy, a "looking upon" associated with the evil eye, from invidere, "to look against, to look at in a hostile manner." Invidia is one of the Seven Deadly Sins in Christian belief....
.
Background
Inexorable divine retribution is a major theme in the Hellenic world view, providing the unifying theme of the tragedies of
SophoclesSophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
and many other literary works.
HesiodHesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...
states: "Also deadly Nyx bore Nemesis an affliction to mortals subject to death." (
TheogonyThe Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins and genealogies of the gods of the ancient Greeks, composed circa 700 BC...
, 223, though perhaps an interpolated line). Nemesis appears in a still more concrete form in a fragment of the epic
Cypria.
She is implacable justice: that of
ZeusIn the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
in the
OlympianThe Twelve Olympians, also known as the Dodekatheon , in Greek mythology, were the principal deities of the Greek pantheon, residing atop Mount Olympus. Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Hestia, and Hades were siblings. Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus, Athena, Apollo, and Artemis were children of Zeus...
scheme of things, but it is clear she existed prior to him, as her images look similar to several other goddesses, such as
CybeleCybele , was a Phrygian form of the Earth Mother or Great Mother. As with Greek Gaia , her Minoan equivalent Rhea and some aspects of Demeter, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth...
,
RheaRhea was the Titaness daughter of Uranus, the sky, and Gaia, the earth, in Greek mythology. She was known as "the mother of gods". In earlier traditions, she was strongly associated with Gaia and Cybele, the Great Goddess, and was later seen by the classical Greeks as the mother of the Olympian...
,
DemeterIn Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, who presided over grains, the fertility of the earth, and the seasons . Her common surnames are Sito as the giver of food or corn/grain and Thesmophoros as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society...
and
ArtemisArtemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...
.
As the "Goddess of Rhamnous", Nemesis was honored and placated in an archaic sanctuary in the isolated district of Rhamnous, in northeastern
AtticaAttica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea...
. There she was a daughter of
OceanusOceanus ; , Ōkeanós) was a pseudo-geographical feature in classical antiquity, believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to be the world-ocean, an enormous river encircling the world....
, the primeval river-ocean that encircles the world.
PausaniasPausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...
noted her iconic statue there. It included a crown of stags and little
NikesIn Greek mythology, Nike was a goddess who personified victory, also known as the Winged Goddess of Victory. The Roman equivalent was Victoria. Depending upon the time of various myths, she was described as the daughter of Pallas and Styx and the sister of Kratos , Bia , and Zelus...
and was made by Pheidias after the
Battle of MarathonThe Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC, during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It was fought between the citizens of Athens, aided by Plataea, and a Persian force commanded by Datis and Artaphernes. It was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia, under King Darius I, to subjugate...
(
490 BCYear 490 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Camerinus and Flavus...
), crafted from a block of
ParianParos is an island of Greece in the central Aegean Sea. One of the Cyclades island group, it lies to the west of Naxos, from which it is separated by a channel about wide. It lies approximately south-east of Piraeus. The Municipality of Paros includes numerous uninhabited offshore islets...
marbleMarble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
brought by the over-confident Persians, who had intended to make a memorial
steleA stele , also stela , is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living — inscribed, carved in relief , or painted onto the slab...
after their expected victory.
Origins
Nemesis has been described as the daughter of
OceanusOceanus ; , Ōkeanós) was a pseudo-geographical feature in classical antiquity, believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to be the world-ocean, an enormous river encircling the world....
or
ZeusIn the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
, but according to
HesiodHesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...
she was a child of
ErebusIn Greek mythology, Erebus , also Erebos , was often conceived as a primordial deity, representing the personification of darkness; for instance, Hesiod's Theogony places him as the first five beings to come into existence from Chaos...
and
NyxIn Greek mythology, Nyx was the primordial goddess of the night. A shadowy figure, Nyx stood at or near the beginning of creation, and was the mother of personified gods such as Hypnos and Thánatos...
. She has also been described as the daughter of Nyx alone. Her cult may have originated at
SmyrnaSmyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...
.
In some metaphysical mythology, Nemesis produced the egg from which hatched two sets of twins: Helen of Troy and
ClytemnestraClytemnestra or Clytaemnestra , in ancient Greek legend, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Mycenae or Argos. In the Oresteia by Aeschylus, she was a femme fatale who murdered her husband, Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess...
, and the Dioscuri,
Castor and PolluxIn Greek and Roman mythology, Castor and Pollux or Polydeuces were twin brothers, together known as the Dioscuri . Their mother was Leda, but Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, king of Sparta, and Pollux the divine son of Zeus, who visited Leda in the guise of a swan...
. While many myths indicate
ZeusIn the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
and
LedaIn Greek mythology, Leda was daughter of the Aetolian king Thestius, and wife of the king Tyndareus , of Sparta. Her myth gave rise to the popular motif in Renaissance and later art of Leda and the Swan...
to be the parents of Helen of Troy, the author of the compilation of myth called
Bibliotheke notes the possibility of Nemesis being the mother of Helen; Nemesis, to avoid Zeus, turns into a goose, but he turns into a swan and mates with her. Nemesis in her bird form lays an egg that is discovered in the marshes by a shepherd, who passes the egg to
LedaIn Greek mythology, Leda was daughter of the Aetolian king Thestius, and wife of the king Tyndareus , of Sparta. Her myth gave rise to the popular motif in Renaissance and later art of Leda and the Swan...
. It is in this way that
LedaIn Greek mythology, Leda was daughter of the Aetolian king Thestius, and wife of the king Tyndareus , of Sparta. Her myth gave rise to the popular motif in Renaissance and later art of Leda and the Swan...
comes to be the mother of Helen of Troy, as she kept the egg in a chest until it hatched.
The origin of Nemesis in the context of comparative jurisprudence is discussed by David Granfield in Chapter 3 titled "Nemesis: The Avenging Goddess" of his book titled
The Inner Experience of Law published in 1988 by the Catholic University of America Press.
Fortune and retribution
The word
Nemesis originally meant the distributor of fortune, neither good nor bad, simply in due proportion to each according to what was deserved; then,
nemesis came to suggest the resentment caused by any disturbance of this right proportion, the sense of justice which could not allow it to pass unpunished. O. Gruppe (1906) and others connect the name with "to feel just resentment". From the 4th century onwards, Nemesis, as the just balancer of
FortuneFortuna was the goddess of fortune and personification of luck in Roman religion. She might bring good luck or bad: she could be represented as veiled and blind, as in modern depictions of Justice, and came to represent life's capriciousness...
's chance, could be associated with
TycheIn ancient Greek city cults, Tyche was the presiding tutelary deity that governed the fortune and prosperity of a city, its destiny....
.
In the Greek tragedies Nemesis appears chiefly as the avenger of crime and the punisher of
hubrisHubris , also hybris, means extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power....
, and as such is akin to
AtëAtë or Aite a Greek word for "ruin, folly, delusion", is the action performed by the hero, usually because of hubris, that leads to his or her death or downfall. There is also a goddess by that name in Greek mythology, a personification of the same.In Homer's Iliad she is called eldest daughter...
and the
ErinyesIn Greek mythology the Erinyes from Greek ἐρίνειν " pursue, persecute"--sometimes referred to as "infernal goddesses" -- were female chthonic deities of vengeance. A formulaic oath in the Iliad invokes them as "those who beneath the earth punish whosoever has sworn a false oath"...
. She was sometimes called "Adrasteia", probably meaning "one from whom there is no escape"; her epithet
Erinys ("implacable") is specially applied to Demeter and the
PhrygiaIn antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges , changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the...
n mother goddess,
CybeleCybele , was a Phrygian form of the Earth Mother or Great Mother. As with Greek Gaia , her Minoan equivalent Rhea and some aspects of Demeter, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth...
.
Local cult
A festival called
Nemeseia (by some identified with the
Genesia) was held at
AthensAthens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
. Its object was to avert the nemesis of the dead, who were supposed to have the power of punishing the living, if their cult had been in any way neglected (
SophoclesSophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
,
ElectraIn Greek mythology, Electra was an Argive princess and daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra. She and her brother Orestes plotted revenge against their mother Clytemnestra and stepfather Aegisthus for the murder of their father Agamemnon...
, 792; E. Rohde,
Psyche, 1907, i. 236, note I).
At
SmyrnaSmyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...
there were two manifestations of Nemesis, more akin to
AphroditeAphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
than to Artemis. The reason for this duality is hard to explain; it is suggested that they represent two aspects of the goddess, the kindly and the implacable, or the goddesses of the old city and the new city refounded by Alexander. The martyrology
Acts of PioniusSaint Pionius is a Christian saint. He was martyred at Smyrna during the reign of Decius.Pionius, with Sabina, Asclepiades, Macedonia, and Limnos, was arrested on 23 February, the anniversary of St. Polycarp's martyrdom.They had passed the previous night in prayer and fasting...
, set in the "
Decian persecutionTrajan Decius , was Roman Emperor from 249 to 251. In the last year of his reign, he co-ruled with his son Herennius Etruscus until they were both killed in the Battle of Abrittus.-Early life and rise to power:...
" of AD 250–51, mentions a lapsed Smyrnan Christian who was attending to the sacrifices at the altar of the temple of these Nemeses.
Rome
InvidiaIn Latin, invidia is the sense of envy or jealousy, a "looking upon" associated with the evil eye, from invidere, "to look against, to look at in a hostile manner." Invidia is one of the Seven Deadly Sins in Christian belief....
(sometimes called
Pax-Nemesis) was also worshipped at
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
by victorious generals, and in imperial times was the patroness of
gladiatorA gladiator was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their legal and social standing and their lives by appearing in the...
s and of the
venatores, who fought in the arena with wild beasts, and was one of the tutelary deities of the drilling-ground (
Nemesis campestris). Invidia was sometimes, but rarely, seen on imperial coinage, mainly under
ClaudiusClaudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...
and
HadrianHadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
. In the 3rd century AD there is evidence of the belief in an all-powerful
Nemesis-Fortuna. She was worshipped by a society called Hadrian's freedman. The poet
MesomedesMesomedes of Crete was a Greek lyric poet and composer of the early 2nd century.He was a freedman of the Emperor Hadrian, on whose favorite Antinous he is said to have written a panegyric, specifically called a Citharoedic Hymn . Two epigrams by him in the Greek Anthology Mesomedes of Crete was a...
wrote a hymn to Nemesis in the early 2nd century CE, where he addressed her
- Nemesis, winged balancer of life,
- dark-faced goddess, daughter of Justice,
and mentioned her "adamantine bridles" that restrain "the frivolous insolences of mortals."
In early times the representations of Nemesis resembled Aphrodite, who herself sometimes bears the epithet Nemesis. Later, as the maiden goddess of proportion and the
avenger of crimeRetributive justice is a theory of justice that considers that punishment, if proportionate, is a morally acceptable response to crime, with an eye to the satisfaction and psychological benefits it can bestow to the aggrieved party, its intimates and society....
, she has as attributes a
measuring rodA measuring rod is a tool used to physically measure lengths and survey areas of various sizes. Most measuring rods are round or square sectioned, however they can be flat boards. Some have markings at regular intervals...
(
tally stickA tally was an ancient memory aid device to record and document numbers, quantities, or even messages. Tally sticks first appear as notches carved on animal bones, in the Upper Paleolithic. A notable example is the Ishango Bone...
), a
bridleA bridle is a piece of equipment used to direct a horse. As defined in the Oxford English Dictionary, the "bridle" includes both the headstall that holds a bit that goes in the mouth of a horse, and the reins that are attached to the bit....
,
scalesScale armour is an early form of armour sometimes erroneously called scale mail consisting of many individual small armour scales of various shapes attached to each other and to a backing of cloth or leather in overlapping rows. Scale armour was worn by warriors of many different cultures as well...
, a
swordA sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...
and a
scourgeA scourge is a whip or lash, especially a multi-thong type used to inflict severe corporal punishment or self-mortification on the back.-Description:...
, and rides in a
chariotThe chariot is a type of horse carriage used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Ox carts, proto-chariots, were built by the Proto-Indo-Europeans and also built in Mesopotamia as early as 3000 BC. The original horse chariot was a fast, light, open, two wheeled...
drawn by
griffinThe griffin, griffon, or gryphon is a legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle...
s.
Nemesis is also known to have been called by the name "Adrastia". Ammianus Marcellinus includes her in a digression on Justice following his description of the death of Gallus Caesar.
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