InGreek mythology,Dysnomia (Ancient Greek:Δυσνομία,lit. 'Lawlessness, Bad Government, Anarchy')^[1] is thepersonification oflawlessness. According to Hesiod'sTheogony, Dysnomia was the offspring ofEris (Strife), with no father mentioned.^[2] Like all of the children of Eris given by Hesiod, Dysnomia is a personified abstraction, allegorizing the meaning of their name, and representing one of the many harmful things which might be thought to result from discord and strife, with no other identity.^[3]

Hesiod associates Dysnomia withAtë [Recklessness]. He names both as offspring of Eris, on the same line (230) of hisTheogony, and says that the two are "much like one another".^[4]

TheAthenian statesmanSolon contrasted Dysnomia withEunomia, the personification of the ideal government:^[5]

This is what my heart bids me teach the Athenians, that Lawlessness [Dysnomia] brings the city countless ills, but Lawfulness [Eunomia] reveals all that is orderly and fitting, and often places fetters round the unjust.^[6]

Solon makes Dysnomia the cause of the "countless" evils besetting Athens: greed, the injustice of the city's leaders, the slavery of the poor, and civil war.^[7]

In 2005, Dysnomia was chosen asthe name for the moon of the dwarf planetEris.^[8]

• Caldwell, Richard,Hesiod's Theogony, Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company (June 1, 1987).ISBN 978-0-941051-00-2.Internet Archive.
• Doyle, Richard E.,Atē, Its Use and Meaning : A Study in the Greek Poetic Tradition from Homer to Euripides, New York,Fordham University Press, 1984.ISBN 0-8232-1062-6.Internet Archive.
• 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).
• Gerber, Douglas E.,A Companion to the Greek Lyric Poets, BRILL, 1997.ISBN 9789004099449.
• Hard, Robin,The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004,ISBN 9780415186360.Google Books.
• Liddell, Henry George,Robert Scott,A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie,Clarendon Press Oxford, 1940.Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Most, G.W.,Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, Testimonia, Edited and translated by Glenn W. Most,Loeb Classical Library No. 57, Cambridge, Massachusetts,Harvard University Press, 2018.ISBN 978-0-674-99720-2.Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Rose, Herbert Jennings, and B. C. Dietrich,s.v. Ate, published online 22 December 2015, in theOxford Classical Dictionary, edited byTim Whitmarsh, digital ed, New York, Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-938113-5.
• Siewert, Peter,s.v. Nomos, inBrill’s New Pauly Online, Antiquity volumes edited by: Hubert Cancik and, Helmuth Schneider, English Edition by: Christine F. Salazar, Classical Tradition volumes edited by: Manfred Landfester, English Edition by: Francis G. Gentry, published online: 2006.
• Solon inGreek Elegiac Poetry: From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC, edited and translated by Douglas E. Gerber,Loeb Classical Library No. 258, Cambridge, Massachusetts,Harvard University Press, 1999.ISBN 978-0-674-99582-6.Online version at Harvard University Press.

• Personifications in Greek mythology
• Children of Eris (mythology)
• Eris (dwarf planet)

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text