NEMESIS

NEMESIS.

Nemesis, the daughter of Nyx, represents that power which adjusts the
balance of human affairs, by awarding to each individual the fate which
his actions deserve. She rewards, humble, unacknowledged merit, punishes
crime, deprives the worthless of undeserved good fortune, humiliates the
proud and overbearing, and visits all evil on the wrong-doer; thus
maintaining that proper balance of things, which the Greeks recognized as
a necessary condition of all civilized life. But though Nemesis, in her
original character, was the distributor of rewards as well as
punishments, the world was so full of sin, that she found but little
occupation in her first capacity, and hence became finally regarded as
the avenging goddess only.

We have seen a striking instance of the manner in which this divinity
punishes the proud and arrogant in the history of Niobe. Apollo and
Artemis were merely the instruments for avenging the insult offered to
their mother; but it was Nemesis who prompted the deed, and presided over
its execution.

Homer makes no mention of Nemesis; it is therefore evident that she
was a conception of later times, when higher views of morality had
obtained among the Greek nation.

Nemesis is represented as a beautiful woman of thoughtful and benign
aspect and regal bearing; a diadem crowns her majestic brow, and she
bears in her hand a rudder, balance, and cubit;—fitting emblems of
the manner in which she guides, weighs, and measures all human events.
She is also sometimes seen with a wheel, to symbolize the rapidity with
which she executes justice. As the avenger of evil she appears winged,
bearing in her hand either a scourge or a sword, and seated in a chariot
drawn by griffins. [142]

Nemesis is frequently called Adrastia, and also Rhamnusia, from
Rhamnus in Attica, the chief seat of her worship, which contained a
celebrated statue of the goddess.

Nemesis was worshipped by the Romans, (who invoked her on the
Capitol), as a divinity who possessed the power of averting the
pernicious consequences of envy.