Nemesis

Nemesis, in Greek mythology, was the goddess of divine retribution. Hesiod calls her a daughter of Night and a “bane to mortal men”, and her main sanctuary stood at Rhamnus in Attica, where she was worshipped as a deity who punished arrogance and violence. She is also named in some stories as the mother of Helen.

Divine Justice and Wrath

The word nemesis means righteous indignation, the anger felt at undeserved fortune or at wrongdoing, and the goddess personifies it. In Hesiod’s Works and Days the last two divinities to leave the earth in the Iron Age are Aidos (shame, reverence) and Nemesis; they go up to Olympus wrapped in white robes, and nothing is left to mortals but grievous pain with no defense against evil (Works and Days 197–201). In the Theogony, Night bears the Fates and the Keres, who pursue the transgressions of gods and men and never cease from their anger until the offender has paid, and then she bears Nemesis (Hesiod, Theogony 217–223).

Herodotus uses the same idea of Croesus, king of Lydia: after Solon had left, “a great retribution from the god” (nemesis) fell on Croesus because, as Herodotus guesses, he thought himself the most blessed of men (Herodotus 1.34.1). Pausanias calls the Nemesis of Rhamnus the most implacable of gods to men of violence, and says her anger was thought to have fallen on the Persians who landed at Marathon: in their pride, they brought a block of Parian marble to make a trophy, convinced that Athens was already taken (Pausanias 1.33.2).

Nemesis' Role in Literature

Nemesis appears as a goddess in Hesiod and, in Ovid, as the one who answers a prayer (see below). Elsewhere her name stands for the feeling or the act of divine retribution, as in Herodotus. Ovid calls the goddess “Rhamnusia” or “the Rhamnusian”, after her sanctuary at Rhamnus (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.406, 14.694).

The Sanctuary at Rhamnus

About sixty stades from Marathon, along the coast road to Oropus, stood Rhamnus, with the sanctuary of Nemesis a little inland (Pausanias 1.33.2). Pausanias says that Pheidias made her statue from the marble the Persians had brought. The goddess wore a crown with deer and small figures of Victory, held an apple branch in her left hand and a cup with Ethiopians carved on it in her right (Pausanias 1.33.3). Pausanias also says that ancient statues of Nemesis had no wings, and that wings were given to her by later artists (Pausanias 1.33.7). At Smyrna there was a sanctuary of the Nemeses, in the plural, where Alexander was said to have dreamed that he should found the new city (Pausanias 7.5.2).

The Lineage of Nemesis

The parentage of Nemesis is told in more than one way. Hesiod says that deadly Night bore Nemesis (Theogony 223–224), with no father named. Pausanias reports that some say Ocean is the father of Nemesis (Pausanias 1.33.3).

Nemesis and Narcissus

Narcissus is the best known story in which Nemesis acts, and it comes from Ovid. A young man whom Narcissus had scorned raised his hands to the sky and prayed that Narcissus might love, and not possess what he loved. “Rhamnusia” agreed to the just prayer (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.404–406). Narcissus then saw his own reflection in a spring, fell in love with it, and wasted away (Metamorphoses 3.407–510).

The Progeny of Nemesis

Nemesis is also named as the mother of Helen. In the Cypria, quoted by Athenaeus, Nemesis tried to escape Zeus and changed into one creature after another, a fish on the waves of the sea and then animals of the dry land, and Helen was born as the child of this union (Cypria fr. 8, in Athenaeus 8.334b). Apollodorus gives the same story in short form: Nemesis fled Zeus by taking the shape of a goose, Zeus took the shape of a swan, and she laid an egg, which a shepherd found and gave to Leda; Leda kept it in a chest, and when Helen was hatched she brought her up as her own daughter (Apollodorus, Library 3.10.7). In Hyginus, Zeus as a swan took refuge in the lap of Nemesis, and after the egg was laid, Mercury carried it to Sparta and threw it into Leda’s lap (Hyginus, Astronomica 2.8). Pausanias says that the Greeks hold that Nemesis was the mother of Helen, while Leda suckled and nursed her, and that the pedestal of the statue at Rhamnus showed Helen being led to Nemesis by Leda (Pausanias 1.33.7–8).

Homer calls Helen the daughter of Zeus (Iliad 3.199, 3.418) and knows nothing of Nemesis as her mother. In the usual story Leda is her mother: Apollodorus says Leda bore Pollux and Helen to Zeus, and Castor and Clytemnestra to Tyndareus (Apollodorus, Library 3.10.7). In the Nemesis versions only Helen comes from the egg; Clytemnestra and the Dioscuri do not.

Nemesis Sources

Hesiod, Theogony 217–225 and Works and Days 197–201; Cypria fr. 8 (Athenaeus 8.334b); Herodotus 1.34.1; Homer, Iliad 3.199, 3.418; Pausanias 1.33.2–8 and 7.5.2; Apollodorus, Library 3.10.7; Hyginus, Astronomica 2.8; Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.404–510, 14.694.

See Also: Nyx, Erebus, Zeus, Leda, Helen, Narcissus, Hesiod