Nemesis
Nemesis | |
---|---|
Goddess of retribution | |
Member of the Rhamnousia | |
Venerated in | Ancient Greece |
Animals | goose |
Symbol | Sword, lash, dagger, measuring rod, scales, bridle |
Festivals | Nemeseia |
Parents | Nyx and Erebus or Oceanus or Zeus |
Consort | Zeus Tartarus |
Offspring | Helen of Troy (disputed) the Telchines |
In
Etymology
The name Nemesis is derived from the
Family
According to
Mythology
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.[citation needed] Later, Nemesis came to suggest the resentment caused by any disturbance of this right proportion, the sense of justice that could not allow it to pass unpunished.[citation needed]
Divine retribution is a major theme in the Greek world view, providing the unifying theme of the
She is implacable justice: that of Zeus in the Olympian scheme of things, although it is clear she existed prior to him, as her images look similar to several other goddesses, such as Cybele, Rhea, Demeter, and Artemis.[9]
In the
Nemesis and Zeus
In some rare traditions, it is Nemesis, rather than the mortal Spartan queen
Narcissus
Nemesis enacted divine retribution on Narcissus for his vanity. After he rejected the advances of the nymph Echo, Nemesis lured him to a pool where he caught sight of his own reflection and fell in love with it, eventually dying.[15]
Aura
In Nonnus' epic Dionysiaca, Aura, one of Artemis' virgin attendants, questioned her mistress' virginity due to the feminine and curvaceous shape of her body; Aura claimed that no goddess or woman with that sort of figure would be a virgin, and asserted her own superiority over the goddess thanks to her own lean and boyish silhouette. Artemis, enraged, went to Nemesis and asked for revenge. Nemesis promised to the goddess that Aura would have her punishment, and that the punishment would be to lose the virginity she took such pride in. Nemesis then contacted Eros, the god of love, and he struck Dionysus with one of his arrows. Dionysus fell madly in love with Aura, and when she rebuffed his advances, he got her drunk, tied her up and raped her as she lay unconscious, bringing Nemesis' plan to a success.[16]
Iconography
She is portrayed as a winged goddess wielding a whip or a dagger.[citation needed] In early times the representations of Nemesis resembled Aphrodite, who sometimes bears the epithet Nemesis.[citation needed]
As the goddess of proportion and the avenger of crime, she has as attributes a measuring rod (tally stick), a bridle, scales, a sword, and a scourge, and she rides in a chariot drawn by griffins.
The poet Mesomedes wrote a hymn to Nemesis in the early second century AD, 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".
Local cult
A festival called Nemeseia (by some identified with the Genesia) was held at
Rhamnous
As the "Goddess of Rhamnous", Nemesis was honored and placated in an archaic sanctuary in the district of
Smyrna
At
Rome
Nemesis was one of several tutelary deities of the drill-ground (as Nemesis campestris). Modern scholarship offers little support for the once-prevalent notion that arena personnel such as gladiators, venatores and bestiarii were personally or professionally dedicated to her cult. Rather, she seems to have represented a kind of "Imperial Fortuna" who dispensed Imperial retribution on the one hand, and Imperially subsidized gifts on the other; both were functions of the popular gladiatorial Ludi held in Roman arenas.[18] She is shown on a few examples of Imperial coinage as Nemesis-Pax, mainly under Claudius and Hadrian. In the third century AD, there is evidence of the belief in an all-powerful Nemesis-Fortuna. She was worshipped by a society called Hadrian's freedmen.
Ammianus Marcellinus includes her in a digression on Justice following his description of the death of Gallus Caesar.[19]
See also
- (Goddesses of Justice): Prudentia
- (Goddesses of Injustice): Adikia
- (Aspects of Justice): (see also: Triple Goddess (neopaganism))
- (Justice) Justitia (Lady Justice), Raguel (the Angel of Justice)
- (Retribution) Nemesis/Rhamnousia/Rhamnusia/Adrasteia/Invidia
- (Redemption) Eleos/Soteria/Clementia, Zadkiel/Zerachiel (the Angel of Mercy)
- (Justice)
- Sekhmet
- Kali
Notes
- ^ In his translation of the passage, Hugh G. Evelyn-White wrote that Nemesis tried to escape from "her father Zeus", taking the ancient text to imply more than a casual usage of "father Zeus", which would provide an explanation for the shame and anger Nemesis feels. At the same time it has been argued that the impending rape is enough for Nemesis to react in such a manner, and it is rather far-fetched to suggest that incest (and the taboo against it) is the leading theme of the narrative.[10]
References
- ^ Suda, rho, 33
- ^ "Nemesis – Origin and history of nemesis by Online Etymology Dictionary". www.etymonline.com.
- ^ R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, pp. 1005–06.
- ^ Hesiod, Theogony 223.
- ^
- ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.33.7–8
- ^ Gantz, p. 149; Bacchylides fr. 52 Campbell, pp. 298, 299 [= Tzetzes on Hesiod's Theogony 80–6 (Matranga, p. 580)].
- ^ Examples of Nemesis in Literature, 19 August 2013, retrieved October 12, 2013
- ^ The primeval concept of Nemesis is traced by Marcel Mauss (Mauss, The Gift: the form and reason for exchange in archaic societies, 2002:23: "Generosity is an obligation, because Nemesis avenges the poor... This is the ancient morality of the gift, which has become a principle of justice". Jean Coman, in discussing Nemesis in Aeschylus (Coman, L'idée de la Némésis chez Eschyle, Strasbourg, 1931:40–43) detected "traces of a less rational, and probably older, concept of deity and its relationship to man", as Michael B. Hornum observed in Nemesis, the Roman State and the Games, 1993:9.
- ISBN 978-3-89754-260-0.
- ^ Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3.10.7
- ^ (Apollodorus) R. Scott Smith, Stephen Trzaskoma, and Hyginus. Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 2007:60.
- Hyginus, Astronomica 2.8.1
- ^ Lamari, Montanari & Novokhatko 2020, pp. 110–112.
- ^ "Metamorphoses (Kline) 3, the Ovid Collection, Univ. of Virginia E-Text Center". virginia.edu. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
- ^ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 48.258–942 (III pp. 442–491).
- ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.33.2–3.
- ^ Nemesis, her devotees and her place in the Roman world are fully discussed, with examples, in Hornum, Michael B., Nemesis, the Roman state and the games, Brill, 1993.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus 14.11.25
Bibliography
- Bonanno, Daniela (2023). Nemesis: rappresentazioni e pratiche cultuali nella Grecia antica. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. ISBN 9783515134927.
- Campbell, David A., Greek Lyric, Volume IV: Bacchylides, Corinna, .
- ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3(Vol. 2).
- Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
- Lamari, Anna A.; Montanari, Franco; Novokhatko, Anna (2020). Fragmentation in Ancient Greek Drama. ISBN 978-3-11-0621020.
- Matranga, Pietro, Anecdota Graeca, Volume II, Typis C. A. Bertinelli, Rome, 1850. Google Books.
- Pausanias, Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
External links
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Nemesis". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 369. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the