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NEMESIS

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Originally appearing in Volume V19, Page 369 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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NEMESIS , the personification of divine See also:

justice. This is the only sense in which the word is used in See also:Homer, while See also:Hesiod (Theog. 223) makes Nemesis a goddess, the daughter of See also:Night (some, however, regard the passage as an See also:interpolation); she appears in a still more See also:concrete See also:form in a fragment of the Cypria. The word Nemesis originally meant the distributor (Gr. ;4gal') of See also:fortune, whether See also:good or See also:bad, in due proportion to each See also:man according to his deserts; then, the resentment caused by any disturbance of this proportion, the sense of justice that could not allow it to pass unpunished. Gruppe and others prefer to connect the name with vela aav, veµev4'eaOat (" to feel just resentment "). In the tragedians Nemesis appears chiefly as the avenger of See also:crime and the punisher of arrogance, and as such is akin to See also:Ate and the See also:Erinyes. She was sometimes called Adrasteia, probably meaning " one from whom there is no See also:escape "; the epithet is specially applied to the Phrygian See also:Cybele, with whom, as with See also:Aphrodite and See also:Artemis, her cult shows certain See also:affinities. She was specially honoured in the See also:district of Rhamnus in See also:Attica, where she was perhaps originally an See also:ancient Artemis, partly confused with Aphrodite. A festival called Nemeseia (by some identified with the Genesia) was held at See also:Athens. Its See also:object was to avert the nemesis of the dead, who were supposed to have the See also:power of punishing the living, if their cult had been in any way neglected (See also:Sophocles, See also:Electra, 792; E. Rohde, See also:Psyche, 1907, i.

236, See also:

note 1). At See also:Smyrna there were two divinities of the name, more akin to Aphrodite than to Artemis. The See also:reason for this duality is hard to explain; it is suggested that they represent two aspects of the goddess, the kindly and the See also:malignant, or the goddesses of the old and the new See also:city. Nemesis was also worshipped at See also:Rome by victorious generals, and in imperial times was the patroness of See also:gladiators and venatores (fighters with See also:wild beasts) in the See also:arena and one of the tutelary deities of the drilling-ground (Nemesis campestris). In the 3rd See also:century A.D. there is See also:evidence of the belief in an all-powerful Nemesis-See also:Fortuna. She was worshipped by a society' called Nemesiaci. In See also:early times the representations of Nemesis resembled Aphrodite, who herself sometimes bears the epithet Nemesis. Later, as the goddess of proportion and the avenger of crime, she has as attributes a measuring See also:rod, a bridle, a See also:sword and a See also:scourge, and rides in a See also:chariot See also:drawn by griffins. Sec C. \Valz, De Nemesi Graecorum (See also:Tubingen, 1852) ; E. Tournier, Nemesis (1863), and H. Posnansky, " Nemesis and Adrasteia," in Breslauer philologische Abhandlungen, v. heft 2 (1890), both exhaustive monographs; an See also:essay, ` Nemesis, or the Divine Envy," by P.

E. More, in The New See also:

World (N. Y., Dec. 1899) ; L. R. Farnell, Cults of the See also:Greek States, ii.; and A. Legrand in Daremberg and Saglio's Dictionnaire See also:des antiquites. For the See also:Roman Nemesis, see G. Wissowa, See also:Religion and Kultus der Romer (See also:Munich, 1902).

End of Article: NEMESIS

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NEMESIUS (fl. c. A.D. 390)

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