Adrasteia

For other uses, see Adrasteia (mythology) and Adrasteia (Mysia).

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Adrasteia (/ˌædrəˈstiːə/; Ancient Greek: Ἀδράστεια, Ionic Greek: Ἀδρήστεια), also spelled Adrastia, Adrastea, Adrestea, Adastreia or Adrasta, originally a Phrygian mountain goddess, probably associated with Cybele, was later a Cretan nymph, and daughter of Melisseus, who was charged by Rhea with nurturing the infant Zeus in secret, to protect him from his father Cronus. By at latest the fifth century BC, she became identified with Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution.

Cult

Adrasteia was the goddess of "inevitable fate", representing "pressing necessity", and the inescapability of punishment. She had a cult at Cyzicus (with nearby temple), and on the Phrygian Mount Ida. Adrasteia was also the object of public worship in Athens from at least as early as 429 BC. Her name appears in the "Accounts of the Treasurers of the Other Gods", associated with the Thracian goddess Bendis, with whom she seems to have shared a treasury or accounts, indicating that in Athens her cult was supported by public funds.

Adrasteia was also worshipped, together with Nemesis, at Kos. The 2nd-century geographer Pausanias, reports seeing a statue of Adrasteia in a temple of Apollo, Artemis, and Leto at Cirrha, near Delphi.

Mythology

Adrasteia came to be associated with the birth of Zeus. In this context she was said to be a nymph of Cretan Mount Ida. The Titaness Rhea gave her son, the infant Zeus, to the Curetes and the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida, daughters of Melisseus, to nurse, and they fed Zeus on the milk of the goat Amalthea. Adrasteia gave Zeus a wondrous toy ball to play with, later used by Aphrodite to bribe her son Eros.

In the Euripidean Rhesus, Adrasteia is said to be the daughter of Zeus.

Associations with other goddesses

Cybele

Adrasteia seems to have originally been a Phrygian mountain goddess, probably associated with Cybele, the mountain mother goddess of Anatolia. Priapus, Cyzicus, and the Troad, where Adrasteia's cult was established, were also areas where Cybele was especially worshipped. The two earliest mentions of Adrasteia both suggest an association with Cybele. Adrasteia's description, in a fragment from the lost epic poem Phoronis as a Phrygian mountain goddess served by the Idaean Dactyls, is hardly distinguishable from Cybele herself, while Aeschylus locates Adrasteia in the "Berecynthan land", also the home of the "Mother of the Gods" (i.e. Cybele).

Nemesis

Although apparently of independent origin, Adrasteia also came to be associated with Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution. Nemesis and Adrasteia were worshipped together at Kos. In the fifth century BC the two goddesses were often identified, with Adrasteia becoming merely an epithet of Nemesis. The explicit identification of the two goddesses is first found in the writings of the late fifth-century BC poet and grammarian Antimachus of Colophon.

Artemis

Adrasteia, like Nemesis, was also associated with Artemis. The land of the Berecyntians, where a fragment of Aeschylus' lost play Niobe locates the cult of Adrasteia, was also the home of Ephesian Artemis. According to the second-century-BC Greek grammarian Demetrius of Scepsis, a certain Adrastus established Adrasteia as another name for Artemis. As noted above Pausanias saw a statue of Adrasteia in a temple of Artemis near Delphi.

Others

Adrasteia was also sometimes associated with other goddesses, including the Titan Rhea (who was herself associated with Mother goddess Cybele), Ananke (Necessity), the personification of inevitability, and the Egyptian mother goddess Isis.

Name

The name Adrasteia can be understood as meaning "Inescapable". Several ancient writers, regarding 'Adrasteia' as an epithet for the goddess Nemesis, derived the epithet from the name 'Adrastus'. Adrasteia was the name of a city and a plain in the Troad, a name known to Homer; and according to Strabo, the city and plain were said to have been named after a certain "King Adrastus", of Hellespontine Phrygia, who was said to have built the first temple of Nemesis. Strabo tells us that according to Antimachus, Adrastus "was the first to build an altar to [Nemesis] beside the stream of the Aesepus River", and that according to the fourth-century BC historian Callisthenes (FGrHist 124 F 28), "Adrasteia was named after King Adrastus, who was the first to found a temple of Nemesis". Other ancient writers derived the epithet from the Greek διδράσκω ("run away"), interpreting the epithet to mean the goddess "whom none can escape", connecting the epithet with the fate of the mythical Argive King Adrastus, leader of the doomed Seven against Thebes.

The name Adrasteia (perhaps in connection with the Argive Adrastus) also has geographical associations with Argolis. Pausanias mentions a spring called Adrasteia at Nemea, and Pseudo-Plutarch, mentions a root called Adraseia produced on a mountaintop in Argolis.

Sources

Early

The earliest surviving references to Adrasteia appear in a fragment from the epic poem the Phoronis (c. sixth century BC), and in a fragment from the lost play Niobe (c. early 5th century BC), by the tragedian Aeschylus. In both she is a Phrygian mountain goddess associated with Mount Ida.

The Phoronis describes Adrasteia as a mountain goddess, whose servants were the Idaean Dactyls, Phrygian "wizards (γόητες) of Ida", who were the first to discover iron and iron working:

... where the wizards of Ida, Phrygian men, had their mountain homes: Kelmis, great Damnameneus, and haughty Akmon, skilled servants of Adrastea of the mountain, they who first, by the arts of crafty Hephaestus, discovered dark iron in the mountain glens, and brought it to the fire, and promulgated a fine achievement.

Aeschylus' Niobe fragment mentions the "territory of Adrasteia" associating it with the Berecyntians, a Phrygian tribe, and Mount Ida:

The land I [Tanatalus] sow extends for twelve days’ journey: the country of the Berecyntians, where the territory of Adrasteia and Mount Ida resound with the lowing and bleating of livestock, and all of the Erechthean plain.

Once in the Aeschylean Prometheus Bound, and twice in the Euripidean Rhesus, Adrasteia is invoked as a ward against the consequences of boastful speech (perhaps here being identified with Nemesis as the punisher of boasts). In Prometheus Bound, after Prometheus foretells the fall of Zeus, the chorus warns Prometheus that the wise "bow to Adrasteia", a formulaic expression meaning to apologize for a remark which might offend some divinity. In the Rhesus, the chorus, because of the praise they are about to give Rhesus, invoke the goddess saying:

May Adrasteia, daughter of Zeus

shield my words from divine hostility!

In a subsequent passage the hero Rhesus invokes her ("may Adrasteia not resent my words") before boasting to the Trojan hero Hector that he will defeat the Greeks at Troy and sack all of Greece.

Adrasteia was explicitly identified with Nemesis by Antimachus of Colophon (late fifth century BC). The geographer Strabo quotes Antimachus as saying:

There is a great goddess Nemesis, who has obtained as her portion all these things from the Blessed. Adrestus was the first to build an altar to her beside the stream of the Aesepus River, where she is worshipped under the name of Adresteia.

In a similar vein to the Aeschylean and Euripidean invocations, Plato, in his Republic (c. 375 BC), has Socrates invoke Arasteia (i.e. Nemesis?) as a ward against divine retribution for—not a boast—but rather an eccentric idea:

I bow myself down before Adrasteia, Glaucon, because of what I am about to say. You see, I really do suppose it a lesser misdemeanor to become the involuntary murderer of someone than to lead people astray about principles of what is fine and good and just.

Plato (followed by the early Stoics) also equates Adrasteia with Fate, as the judge of reincarnating souls:

And this is a law of [Adrasteia], that the soul which follows after God and obtains a view of any of the truths is free from harm until the next period, and if it can always attain this, is always unharmed;

Late

Both the early 3rd-century BC poet Callimachus, and the mid 3rd-century BC poet Apollonius of Rhodes, name Adrasteia as a nurse of the infant Zeus. According to Callimachus, Adrasteia, along with the ash-tree nymphs, the Meliae, laid Zeus "to rest in a cradle of gold", and fed him with honeycomb, and the milk of the goat Amaltheia. Apollonius of Rhodes, describes a wondrous toy ball which Adrasteia gave the child Zeus, when she was his nurse in the "Idean cave".

According to Apollodorus, Adrasteia and Ida were daughters of Melisseus, who nursed Zeus, feeding him on the milk of Amalthea. Hyginus says that Adrasteia, along with her sisters Ida and Amalthea, were daughters of Oceanus, or that according to "others" they were Zeus's nurses, "the ones that are called Dodonian Nymphys (others call them the Naiads)".

Orphic

The story of Adrasteia as one of the nurses of Zeus possibly originated as early as a late-fifth-century Orphic theogony (the Eudemian Theogony). Several possible Orphic sources contain accounts of Zeus being nursed by Adrasteia and Ida (here the daughters of Mellissos and Amalthea) and guarded by the Curetes. These have Adrasteia clashing bronze cymbals in front of the cave of Night (Nyx) where the infant Zeus was being concealed, from his father Cronus, so that the infant's cries would not be heard. In one she is said to be a "lawgiver" (νομοθετοῦσα) outside the cave's entrance.

Another later Orphic theogony (the Hieronyman Theogony, c. 200 BC?) has Adrasteia (or Necessity) united with ageless Time (Chronos) at the beginning of the cosmos.

See also

• Korybantes

References

• Aeschylus (?), Prometheus Bound in Aeschylus: Persians, Seven against Thebes, Suppliants, Prometheus Bound, edited and translated by Alan H. Sommerstein, Loeb Classical Library No. 145. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-674-99627-4. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Ammianus Marcellinus, History, Volume I: Books 14-19, translated by J. C. Rolfe, Loeb Classical Library No. 300, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1950. ISBN 978-0-674-99331-0. Online version at Harvard University Press. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, edited and translated by William H. Race, Loeb Classical Library No. 1, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-674-99630-4. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Callimachus, Callimachus and Lycophron with an English translation by A. W. Mair; Aratus, with an English translation by G. R. Mair, London: W. Heinemann, New York: G. P. Putnam 1921. Internet Archive.
• Demosthenes, Orations, Volume III: Orations 21-26: Against Meidias. Against Androtion. Against Aristocrates. Against Timocrates. Against Aristogeiton 1 and 2, translated by J. H. Vince, Loeb Classical Library No. 299, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1935. ISBN 978-0-674-99330-3. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Diodorus Siculus, Diodorus Siculus: The Library of History. translated by C. H. Oldfather, twelve volumes, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989. Online version by Bill Thayer.
• Euripides, Rhesus in Euripides: Bacchae, Iphigenia at Aulis, Rhesus, edited and translated by David Kovacs, Loeb Classical Library No. 495. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-674-99601-4. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Farnell, Lewis Richard, The Cults of the Greek States vol 2, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1896. Internet Archive.
• Feibleman, James Kern, Religious Platonism: The Influence of Religion on Plato and the Influence of Plato on Religion, Volume 13, Routledge, 2013 (first published 1959). ISBN 978-0-415-82962-5.
• Fowler, R. L. (2013), Early Greek Mythography: Volume 2: Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0198147411.
• Fries, Almut, Pseudo-Euripides, "Rhesus": Edited with Introduction and Commentary, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2014. ISBN 9783110342253.
• Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: ISBN 978-0-8018-5360-9 (Vol. 1), ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3 (Vol. 2).
• Golann, Cecil Paige, "The Third Stasimon of Euripides' Helena" in Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 1945, Vol. 76 (1945), pp. 31–46. JSTOR 283323.
• Graf, Fritz, "Adrastea" in Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Volume 1, A-ARI, editors: Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider, Brill Publishers, 2002.
• The Greek Anthology, Volume III: Book 9: The Declamatory Epigrams, translated by W. R. Paton, Loeb Classical Library No. 84, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1917. ISBN 978-0-674-99093-7. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• The Greek Anthology, Volume IV: Book 10: The Hortatory and Admonitory Epigrams. Book 11: The Convivial and Satirical Epigrams. Book 12: Strato's Musa Puerilis, translated by W. R. Paton, Loeb Classical Library No. 85, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1918. ISBN 978-0-674-99094-4. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004, ISBN 9780415186360.
• Hasluck, F. W., Cyzicus, Cambridge University Press, 1910.
• Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Hornum, Michael B., Nemesis, the Roman State and the Games, E.J. BRILL, 1993, ISBN 90-04-09745-7
• Hyginus, Gaius Julius, Fabulae in Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, Translated, with Introductions by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Hackett Publishing Company, 2007. ISBN 978-0-87220-821-6.
• Kern, Otto. Orphicorum Fragmenta, Berlin, 1922. Internet Archive.
• Leaf, Walter, Strabo on the Troad: Book XIII, Cap. I, Book 13, The University Press, 1923.
• Leeming, David, Oxford Companion to World Mythology, Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 9780195156690.
• Meisner, Dwayne A., Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods, Oxford University Press, 2018. ISBN 978-0-19-066352-0.
• Menander, Heros. Theophoroumene. Karchedonios. Kitharistes. Kolax. Koneiazomenai. Leukadia. Misoumenos. Perikeiromene. Perinthia, edited and translated by W. G. Arnott, Loeb Classical Library No. 459, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0-674-99506-2. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Munn, Mark, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion, University of California Press, 2006. ISBN 9780520243491.
• Nonnus, Dionysiaca; translated by Rouse, W H D, III Books XXXVI–XLVIII. Loeb Classical Library No. 346, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1940. Internet Archive.
• Ovid, Ovid's Fasti, Translated by James G. Frazer. Revised by G. P. Goold, Loeb Classical Library No. 253, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1931 (first published), 1996 (reprinted with corrections). ISBN 978-0-674-99279-5. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Parada, Carlos, Genealogical Guide to Greek Mythology, Jonsered, Paul Åströms Förlag, 1993. ISBN 978-91-7081-062-6.
• Parker, Robert, Athenian Religion: A History, Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-19-815240-X.
• Pausanias, Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Paton, W. R. and E. L. Hicks, The Inscriptions of Cos, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1891.
• Plato, Phaedrus in Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by Harold N. Fowler, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Plato, Republic, Volume I: Books 1-5, edited and translated by Christopher Emlyn-Jones, William Preddy, Loeb Classical Library No. 237, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0-674-99650-2. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Plutarch, Moralia, Volume VII: On Love of Wealth. On Compliancy. On Envy and Hate. On Praising Oneself Inoffensively. On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance. On Fate. On the Sign of Socrates. On Exile. Consolation to His Wife, translated by Phillip H. De Lacy, Benedict Einarson, Loeb Classical Library No. 405. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1959. ISBN 978-0-674-99446-1. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Plutarch, Moralia, Volume VIII: Table-Talk, Books 1-6, translated by P. A. Clement, H. B. Hoffleit, Loeb Classical Library No. 424, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1969. ISBN 978-0-674-99466-9. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Pseudo-Plutarch, About Rivers and Mountains and Things Found in Them, translated by Thomas M. Banchich, with Sarah Brill, Emilyn Haremza, Dustin Hummel, and Ryan Post, Canisius College Translated Texts, Number 4, Canisius College, Buffalo, New York, 2010. PDF.
• Tripp, Edward, Crowell's Handbook of Classical Mythology, Thomas Y. Crowell Co; First edition (June 1970). ISBN 069022608X.
• Tsagalis, Christos, Early Greek Epic Fragments I: Antiquarian and Genealogical Epic, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2017. ISBN 978-3-11-053153-4.
• Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Smyth, Herbert Weir, Aeschylus, with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. in two volumes, Volume 1, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard University Press, 1926.
• Sommerstein, Alan H. (2009a), Aeschylus: Fragments, Edited and translated by Alan H. Sommerstein, Loeb Classical Library No. 505. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-674-99629-8. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Sommerstein, Alan H. (2009b), Aeschylus: Persians, Seven against Thebes, Suppliants, Prometheus Bound, edited and translated by Alan H. Sommerstein, Loeb Classical Library No. 145. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-674-99627-4. Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Strabo, Geography, translated by Horace Leonard Jones; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. (1924). LacusCurtis, Online version at the Perseus Digital Library, Books 6–14.
• Taylor, Thomas (1816), The Six Books of Proclus, the Platonic Successor, on the Theology of Plato, A. J. Valpy, Tooke's Court, Chancery Lane, London, 1816. Online version at Wikisource.
• Taylor, Thomas, (1820), The Commentaries of Proclus on the Timaeus of Plato, London, 1820. Online version at Internet Archive.
• West, M. L., The Orphic Poems, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1983. ISBN 978-0-19-814854-8.
• White, Stephen, "Hieronymus of Rhodes: The Sources, Text and Translation" in Lyco of Troas and Hieronymus of Rhodes: Text, Translation, and Discussion, Volume XII, editors: William Wall Fortenbaugh, Stephen Augustus White, Transaction Publishers, 2004. ISBN 0-7658-0253-8.