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Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities o ...
, Dike or Dice ( or ; Greek: ) is the goddess of justice and the spirit of moral order and fair judgement as a transcendent universal ideal or based on immemorial custom, in the sense of socially enforced norms and conventional rules. According to
Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...
(''
Theogony The ''Theogony'' (, , , i.e. "the genealogy or birth of the gods") is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods, composed . It is written in the Epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contain ...
'', l. 901), she was fathered by
Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label= genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label= genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek relig ...
upon his second consort, Themis. She and her mother are both personifications of justice. She is depicted as a young, slender woman carrying a balance scale and wearing a laurel wreath. The constellation Libra (the Scales) was anciently thought to represent her distinctive symbol. She is often associated with Astraea, the goddess of innocence and purity. ''Astraea'' is also one of her
epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...
s, referring to her appearance in the nearby constellation Virgo which is said to represent Astraea. This reflects her symbolic association with Astraea, who, too, has a similar
iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...
.


Depiction

The sculptures of the
Temple of Zeus at Olympia The Temple of Zeus at Olympia was an ancient Greek temple in Olympia, Greece, dedicated to the god Zeus. The temple, built in the second quarter of the fifth century BC, was the very model of the fully developed classical Greek temple of the Do ...
have as their unifying iconographical conception the ''dikē'' of Zeus, and in poetry she is often the attendant (, ''paredros'') of Zeus. In the philosophical climate of late 5th century Athens, ''dikē'' could be anthropomorphised as a goddess of
moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. ...
justice Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...
. She was one of the three second-generation Horae, along with
Eunomia In Greek mythology, Eunomia ( grc, Εὐνομία) was a minor goddess of law and legislation (her name can be translated as "good order", "governance according to good laws"), as well as the spring-time goddess of green pastures (''eû'' mean ...
("order") and Eirene ("peace"): She ruled over human justice, while her mother Themis ruled over divine justice. Her opposite was '' adikia'' ("injustice"); in reliefs on the archaic
Chest of Cypselus The thorax or chest is a part of the anatomy of humans, mammals, and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main divisions of the crea ...
preserved at Olympia, an attractive depiction ''Dikē'' throttled an ugly depiction of ''Adikia'' and beat her with a stick. The later art of rhetoric treated the personification of abstract concepts as an artistic device, which devolved into the allegorizing that
Late Antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English h ...
bequeathed to
patristic literature Patristics or patrology is the study of the early Christian writers who are designated Church Fathers. The names derive from the combined forms of Latin ''pater'' and Greek ''patḗr'' (father). The period is generally considered to run from ...
. In a further euhemerist interpretation, Dikē was born a mortal and
Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label= genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label= genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek relig ...
placed her on Earth to keep mankind just. He quickly learned this was impossible and placed her next to him on
Mount Olympus Mount Olympus (; el, Όλυμπος, Ólympos, also , ) is the highest mountain in Greece. It is part of the Olympus massif near the Thermaic Gulf of the Aegean Sea, located in the Olympus Range on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, be ...
.


Dike Astraea

One of her epithets was '' Astraea'', referring to her appearance as the constellation Virgo. According to Aratus's account of the constellation's origin, Dike lived upon Earth during the Golden and
Silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...
ages, when there were no wars or diseases, men raised fine crops and did not yet know how to sail. They grew greedy, however, and Dike was sickened. She proclaimed: Dike left Earth for the sky, from which, as the constellation, she watched the despicable human race. After her departure, the human race declined into the Bronze Age, when diseases arose and humanity learned how to sail.


In the Bible

The consensus of most biblical scholars is that the book of Acts contains a reference to Dike in its final chapter. In Acts 27, the
Apostle Paul Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
is conducted toward Rome under guard after having appealed his legal case to Caesar. After getting caught in a storm, having their boat ran aground, and narrowly escaped death making it to shore, they discovered they had landed on
Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
and were cared for by the local populace. While helping to fuel the fire, Paul was bitten by snake, and the locals concluded, "No doubt this man is a murderer! Although he has escaped from the sea, Justice herself has not allowed him to live" ( NET)! Ben Witherington III writes of this incident, It was common belief of the time that the sea was a place where the gods could exact vengeance, and the snakebite was likely perceived as Dike pursuing Paul after surviving the shipwreck.Ladouceur, David (1980). "Hellenistic Preconceptions of Shipwreck and Pollution as a Concept for Acts 27–28." in ''Harvard Theological Review'' 73, 435–49.


See also

*
Lady Justice Lady Justice ( la, Iustitia) is an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems. Her attributes are scales, a sword and sometimes a blindfold. She often appears as a pair with Prudentia. Lady Justice originates from the ...


Notes


References

* Athanassakis, Apostolos N., and Benjamin M. Wolkow, ''The Orphic Hymns'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.
Internet ArchiveGoogle Books
* ''Brill’s New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. Antiquity, Volume 4'', Cyr-Epy, editors: Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider, Brill, 2004.
Online version at Brill
* Pausanias, ''
Description of Greece Pausanias ( /pɔːˈseɪniəs/; grc-gre, Παυσανίας; c. 110 – c. 180) was a Greek traveler and geographer of the second century AD. He is famous for his ''Description of Greece'' (, ), a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece ...
, Volume II: Books 3-5 (Laconia, Messenia, Elis 1)'', translated by W. H. S. Jones,
Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a series of books originally published by Heinemann in London, but is currently published by Harvard University Press. The library contains important works of ancient Greek and ...
No. 188, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...
, 1926.
Online version at Harvard University PressOnline version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Smith, William, ''
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' (1849, originally published 1844 under a slightly different title) is an encyclopedia/ biographical dictionary. Edited by William Smith, the dictionary spans three volumes and 3,700 ...
'', London (1873)
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dike (Mythology) Children of Zeus Greek goddesses Horae Justice goddesses Personifications in Greek mythology