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Nemesis was the goddess of divine indignation
and retribution, who punished excessive pride, evil deeds, undeserved happiness
or good fortune, and the absence of moderation. She was the
personification of the resentment aroused in both gods and mortals
by those who committed crimes with impunity, or who enjoyed
undeserved luck.
True to her name, which variously may be translated
as 'she who distributes or deals out'; 'due
enactment'; or 'divine
vengeance', Nemesis was a feared and revered
goddess. With a discriminating eye she directed human affairs in
such a way as to maintain equilibrium on earth. Happiness and
unhappiness were measured out by her, with firm care being taken
that happiness was not too frequent or too excessive. If this
happened, Nemesis could bring about abrupt and catastrophic losses
and suffering.
As one who kept extravagant favors by Tyche (Luck, Fortune) in
check, Nemesis was regarded as an avenging or punishing divinity.
Tyche was often irresponsible in handing out Luck and Fortune,
indiscriminately heaping gifts from her horn of plenty, or
depriving others of what they had.
But woe be to the individual favored by Tyche who failed to give
proper dues to the gods, became too full of himself and boasted of
his abundant riches, or refused to improve the lot of his fellow
humans by sharing his luck! Indignant Nemesis would step in and
snap the fool back to reality, in short order humiliating him and
causing his downfall.
Along with Dike and Themis, wise goddesses of Justice, Nemesis was
one of the assistants of Zeus, the king of the Olympian gods who
was regarded as the founder of law and order. Her home was at
Attic Rhamnus, site of a magnificent sanctuary dedicated to the
feared goddess of divine vengeance.
About sixty stades from Marathon as you go along the road by the
sea to Oropus stands Rhamnus. The dwelling houses are on the
coast, but a little way inland is a sanctuary of Nemesis, the most
implacable deity to men of violence. It is thought that the wrath
of this goddess fell also upon the foreigners who landed at
Marathon. For thinking in their pride that nothing stood in the
way of their taking Athens, they were bringing a piece of Parian
marble to make a trophy, convinced that their task was already
finished.
Of this marble Pheidias made a statue of Nemesis, and on the head
of the goddess is a crown with deer and small images of Victory.
In her left hand she holds an apple branch, in her right hand a
cup on which are wrought Aethiopians. As to the Aethiopians, I
could hazard no guess myself, nor could I accept the statement of
those who are convinced that the Aethiopians have been carved upon
the cup because of the river Ocean. For the Aethiopians, they say,
dwell near it, and Ocean is the father of Nemesis.
Pausanias, Description of Greece
Beautiful Nemesis initially was portrayed without wings,
but in later descriptions she appeared as a winged goddess. In her
left hand she held an apple-branch, rein, lash, sword, or balance.
Her symbols and attributes were like those of Tyche: a wheel and a
ship's rudder.
Her parents were said to be either Nyx (Night) alone without a
father, or the Titans Oceanus and Tethys:
"Also deadly Nyx bare Nemesis to afflict mortal men."
-Hesiod, Theogony 223
“Alexandros [the Great] was hunting on Mount Pagos [near Smyrna],
and that after the hunt was over he came to a sanctuary of the
Nemeseis, and found there a spring and a plane-tree in front of
the sanctuary, growing over the water. While he slept under the
plane-tree it is said that the Nemeses appeared and bade him found
a city there and remove into it the Smyranians from the old city …
So they migrated of their own free will, and believe in two
Nemeses instead of one, saying their mother is Nyx, while the
Athenians say that the father of the goddess in Rhamnos is Okeanos.”
-Pausanias, Description
of Greece 7.5.3
Nemesis was also known as Adrasteia, which means 'inescapable', or 'Tracing
Goddess'. You could say that Nemesis/Adrasteia
was the ancient Greeks' conscience, for the
goddess of retribution personified moral reverence for the natural
order of things and provided a deterrence to wrongful action.
She was also called Rhamnusia or Rhamnusis, in honor of her
sanctuary in Rhamnos.
Nobody wanted to be hounded by Nemesis, and even to this day her
name means:
1.A source of harm or ruin: "Uncritical trust is my nemesis."
2.Retributive justice in its execution or outcome: "To follow the
proposed course of action is to invite nemesis."
3.An opponent that cannot be beaten or overcome.
4.One that inflicts retribution or vengeance.
(source: http://dictionary.com )
Thus, you'll often read or hear quotes such as:
"This is that ancient doctrine of nemesis who keeps watch in the
universe, and lets no offense go unchastised." --Emerson.
A famous example of the retribution of Nemesis is the story of
Narcissus. This man was the beautiful son of the River Cephissus
and the nymph Liriope. He was so handsome that all women who
beheld him at once fell in love with him. The vain Narcissus,
however, only had eyes for himself (you could say he suffered from
"I" strain...) and rebuffed all admirers.
One such admirer was the nymph Echo, who saw Narcissus and at once
fell in love with him. But the beautiful youth couldn't be
bothered with the smitten one, who slowly pined away, leaving just
the echo of her voice.
Nemesis saw this and condemned the vain Narcissus to spend the
rest of his days admiring his own reflection in the waters of a
pool. Eventually Narcissus died and was transformed into the
flower that bears his name.
Nemesis is considered by some to be the mother of Helen and the
twins called the Dioscuri. It's said that Zeus once fell in love
with Nemesis (she had quite a bit of Aphrodite's beauty, and some
said she was just as gorgeous) and relentlessly pursued her on
land and sea. Leery of his intentions, Nemesis avoided Zeus by
constantly changing forms, finally transforming into a goose. Not
to be outdone, Zeus in turn took the form of a swan, and from the
egg she laid came Helen, the ultimate cause of the famous Trojan
War.
But some say that Helen was a daughter of Nemesis and Zeus; for
that she, flying from the arms of Zeus, changed herself into a
goose, but Zeus in his turn took the likeness of a swan and so
enjoyed her; and as the fruit of their loves she laid an egg, and
a certain shepherd found it in the groves and brought and gave it
to Leda; and she put it in a chest and kept it; and when Helen was
hatched in due time, Leda brought her up as her own daughter.
Apollodorus, Library and Epitome (ed. Sir James George Frazer)
Harry Thurston Peck, in Harpers Dictionary of
Classical Antiquities (1898), tells us that
Nemesis was:
A post-Homeric personification of the moral indignation felt at
all derangements of the natural equilibrium of things, whether by
extraordinarily good fortune or by the arrogance usually attendant
thereon. According to Hesiod (Theog. 223) she is the daughter of
Night (Nyx), and with Aidos, the goddess of Modesty, left the
earth on the advent of the Iron Age. A legend makes her to have
been by Zeus the mother of Helen and the Dioscuri. As goddess of
due proportion she hates every transgression of the bounds of
moderation, and restores the proper and normal order of things.
As, in doing this, she punishes wanton boastfulness, she is a
divinity of chastisement and vengeance.
She enjoyed special honor in the Attic district of Rhamnus (where
she was believed to be the daughter of Oceanus), and is often
called the Rhamnusian goddess. Her statue there (of which
fragments were found in 1890) was said to have been executed by
Phidias out of a block of Parian marble which the Persians had
brought with them in presumptuous confidence to Marathon, to erect
a trophy of victory there. She was also called Adrasteia, that
name appropriate only to the Phrygian Rhea-Cybelé, being
interpreted as a Greek word with the meaning, “She whom none can
escape.” She was also worshipped at Rome, especially by victorious
generals, and was represented as a meditative, thoughtful maiden
with the attributes of proportion and control (a measuring-rod, a
bridle, and a yoke), of punishment (a sword and scourge), and of
swiftness (wings, a wheel, and a chariot drawn by griffins).
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