Bia

Q: Who was Bia?

Bia was the Greek personification of force or violence, a daughter of the Titan Pallas and the Oceanid Styx. With her brothers and sister, Zelus, Nike and Kratos, she lived beside Zeus and served him, and in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound she is present as Zeus’ enforcer when Prometheus is chained to the rock (Hesiod, Theogony 383–388.

Bia was the Greek personification of force or violence, a daughter of the Titan Pallas and the Oceanid Styx. With her brothers and sister, Zelus, Nike and Kratos, she lived beside Zeus and served him, and in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound she is present as Zeus’ enforcer when Prometheus is chained to the rock (Hesiod, Theogony 383–388; Apollodorus, Library 1.2.4).

Parents and Siblings

Hesiod says that Styx, daughter of Oceanus, lay with Pallas and bore Zelus (Emulation or Zeal) and Nike (Victory) with her beautiful ankles, and then Kratos (Strength or Dominion) and Bia (Force), glorious children (Theogony 383–385). Apollodorus gives the same four children: Victory, Dominion, Emulation and Violence (Library 1.2.4). Pallas was a Titan, a son of Crius and Eurybia, and a brother of Astraeus and Perses (Theogony 375–377). Styx was the foremost of the daughters of Oceanus and Tethys (Theogony 361–363), so Bia was a granddaughter of Oceanus on her mother’s side and of Crius on her father’s. She was not a Titan herself, though she is the child of a Titan. Her name is the ordinary Greek word bia, meaning force or violence, and the same word is used of acts of force throughout Greek literature.

Family of Bia

Parents: Pallas, Styx
Siblings: Kratos, Nike, Zelus

See the full family tree

Bia and Zeus

Companions of Zeus

Hesiod tells how Bia and her siblings came to live with Zeus. When Zeus called the immortal gods to Olympus and declared that any god who fought with him against the Titans would keep his privileges, and that anyone dishonoured under Cronus would receive the honour that was his due, Styx was the first to come to Olympus, bringing her children, on the advice of her father Oceanus. Zeus honoured her with great gifts. He made her the great oath of the gods, and he made her children live with him for ever (Theogony 389–403). Hesiod adds that Zeus has no house, seat or road without them, and that they always sit beside Zeus who thunders on high (Theogony 386–388).

Prometheus Bound

The one story in which Bia appears as an actor is the opening of Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound. Kratos opens the play by saying that they have come to the farthest edge of the earth, to a trackless desert in Scythia, and orders Hephaestus to bind the offender to the high rocks with unbreakable chains of adamant, as punishment for stealing the fire for mortals (Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 1–11). Hephaestus then turns to Kratos and Bia and says that the command of Zeus has been fulfilled as far as they are concerned (Prometheus Bound 12–13). He is reluctant to bind a god who is his kinsman, but admits that he cannot disobey his father (Prometheus Bound 14–17). Of the two, Kratos does the talking, urging Hephaestus on and ordering him to drive the adamant wedge through Prometheus’ chest, and Bia has no spoken lines in the scene (Prometheus Bound 12–87).