Pheme

Pheme (Greek Phēmē, Latin Fama) was the goddess of rumour and report in Greek and Roman tradition: the public voice that carries news, true or false, from mouth to mouth until everyone knows it. Hesiod calls a widely repeated report a god in her own right, and the Athenians gave her an altar (Hesiod, Works and Days 760–764; Pausanias 1.17.1).

Pheme in Greek Literature

In Greek the word phēmē means a spoken report, and it is often a message sent by the gods. In the Odyssey Odysseus prays at Ithaca for a phēmē from someone awake in the house; Zeus thunders, and a woman grinding grain at the mill speaks a wish against the suitors, which Odysseus takes as the sign he asked for (Odyssey 20.100–121). Athena sends Telemachus to ask for news of his father, from a mortal or from ossa, the voice that comes from Zeus and “most of all carries tidings among men” (Odyssey 1.281–283). In the Iliad, Ossa blazes among the Greek army as the messenger of Zeus and drives them to the assembly (Iliad 2.93–94), and after the suitors are killed Ossa runs through the city as a messenger, carrying the news of their deaths (Odyssey 24.413–414).

Hesiod treats rumour as a force to be feared: a bad report is light to lift but hard to carry and hard to put down, and no report ever wholly dies once many people have repeated it “for she too is some god” (Works and Days 760–764).

Worship

Pausanias records that in the Athenian market-place, besides the altar of Mercy, the Athenians had altars to Shamefastness, to Rumour and to Effort (Pausanias 1.17.1).

Fama in Roman Poetry

The vivid picture of Pheme as a winged figure comes from Latin poetry, where she is called Fama. In the Aeneid, Fama goes at once through the great cities of Libya; small and timid at first, she soon lifts herself into the air and walks on the ground with her head among the clouds. Virgil makes her a child of Mother Earth, born in anger at the gods as the last sister of Coeus and Enceladus, swift of foot and wing. She is a huge monster with as many watchful eyes, tongues, mouths and ears as she has feathers; by night she flies shrieking between earth and sky, by day she sits as a watcher on a roof-top or tower, and she clings as readily to falsehood as she brings true news (Virgil, Aeneid 4.173–188).

In the same book Fama fills the nations with talk that Aeneas has come to Carthage, that Dido deigns to join herself to him, and that they spend the winter in luxury, forgetful of their kingdoms; then she turns to King Iarbas and inflames him with the story (Aeneid 4.189–197).

Ovid places her house at the centre of the world, between earth, sea and sky, where everything said anywhere can be heard. It is built of echoing bronze, has a thousand openings and no doors, and is always full of a crowd that spreads news half true and half false; each newcomer adds something to what he has heard. Fama herself sees everything that happens in heaven, sea and land (Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.39–63). Ovid sets this description at the start of the Trojan War: it was Fama who made known that the Greek ships were coming with their soldiers, so that the Trojans were armed and waiting on the shore when the fleet arrived (Metamorphoses 12.64–67).

Family

Homer and Hesiod name no parents for Pheme. Virgil makes Fama a daughter of Earth (Gaea) (Aeneid 4.178–180).

Pheme Sources

Homer, Iliad 2.93–94; Homer, Odyssey 1.281–283, 20.100–121, 24.413–414; Hesiod, Works and Days 760–764; Pausanias 1.17.1; Virgil, Aeneid 4.173–197; Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.39–67.

See Also: Gaea, Dido, Aeneas, Zeus, Athena, Odysseus