Adrasteia was the goddess of "inevitable fate",[2] representing "pressing necessity", and the inescapability of punishment.[3] She had a cult atCyzicus (with nearby temple), and on thePhrygian Mount Ida.[4] Adrasteia was also the object of public worship in Athens from at least as early as 429 BC.[5] Her name appears in the "Accounts of the Treasurers of the Other Gods", associated with theThracian goddessBendis, with whom she seems to have shared a treasury or accounts, indicating that in Athens her cult was supported by public funds.[6]
Adrasteia was also worshipped, together with Nemesis, atKos.[7] The 2nd-century geographerPausanias reports seeing a statue of Adrasteia in a temple of Apollo, Artemis, and Leto atCirrha, nearDelphi.[8]
Adrasteia came to be associated with the birth ofZeus.[9] In this context she was said to be a nymph ofCretan Mount Ida. TheTitanessRhea gave her son, the infant Zeus, to theCuretes and the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida, daughters ofMelisseus, to nurse, and they fed Zeus on the milk of the goatAmalthea.[10] Adrasteia gave Zeus a wondrous toy ball to play with, later used byAphrodite to bribe her sonEros.[11]
In the EuripideanRhesus, Adrasteia is said to be the daughter of Zeus.[12]
Adrasteia seems to have originally been a Phrygian mountain goddess, probably associated withCybele, the mountain mother goddess ofAnatolia.[13]Priapus,Cyzicus, and theTroad, where Adrasteia's cult was established, were also areas where Cybele was especially worshipped.[14] The two earliest mentions of Adrasteia both suggest an association with Cybele. Adrasteia's description, in a fragment from the lost epic poemPhoronis as a Phrygian mountain goddess served by theIdaean Dactyls, is hardly distinguishable from Cybele herself,[15] whileAeschylus locates Adrasteia in the "Berecynthan land", also the home of the "Mother of the Gods" (i.e. Cybele).[16]
Although apparently of independent origin, Adrasteia also came to be associated withNemesis, the goddess of divine retribution.[17] Nemesis and Adrasteia were worshipped together atKos.[18] In the fifth century BC the two goddesses were often identified, with Adrasteia becoming merely an epithet of Nemesis.[19] The explicit identification of the two goddesses is first found in the writings of the late fifth-century BC poet and grammarianAntimachus ofColophon.[20]
Adrasteia, like Nemesis, was also associated withArtemis.[21] The land of the Berecyntians, where a fragment ofAeschylus' lost playNiobe locates the cult of Adrasteia, was also the home of Ephesian Artemis.[22] According to the second-century-BC Greek grammarianDemetrius of Scepsis, a certain Adrastus established Adrasteia as another name for Artemis.[23] As noted abovePausanias saw a statue of Adrasteia in a temple of Artemis nearDelphi.[8]
Adrasteia was also sometimes associated with other goddesses, including theTitanRhea (who was herself associated with Mother goddess Cybele),[24]Ananke (Necessity), the personification of inevitability,[25] and the Egyptian mother goddessIsis.[26]
The name Adrasteia can be understood as meaning "Inescapable".[27] Several ancient writers, regarding 'Adrasteia' as an epithet for the goddessNemesis, derived the epithet from the name 'Adrastus'. Adrasteia was the name of a city and a plain in theTroad, a name known toHomer; and according toStrabo, the city and plain were said to have been named after a certain"King Adrastus", ofHellespontinePhrygia, who was said to have built the first temple of Nemesis.[28] Strabo tells us that according toAntimachus, Adrastus "was the first to build an altar to [Nemesis] beside the stream of theAesepus River",[29] and that according to the fourth-century BC historianCallisthenes (FGrHist 124 F 28), "Adrasteia was named after King Adrastus, who was the first to found a temple of Nemesis".[30] Other ancient writers derived the epithet from the Greekδιδράσκω ("run away"), interpreting the epithet to mean the goddess "whom none can escape", connecting the epithet with the fate of the mythicalArgive KingAdrastus, leader of the doomedSeven against Thebes.[31]
The name Adrasteia (perhaps in connection with the Argive Adrastus) also has geographical associations withArgolis.[32]Pausanias mentions a spring called Adrasteia atNemea,[33] andPseudo-Plutarch, mentions a root called Adraseia produced on a mountaintop in Argolis.[34]
The earliest surviving references to Adrasteia appear in a fragment from theepic poem thePhoronis (c. sixth century BC), and in a fragment from the lost playNiobe (c. early 5th century BC), by the tragedianAeschylus. In both she is aPhrygian mountain goddess associated withMount Ida.[35]
ThePhoronis describes Adrasteia as a mountain goddess, whose servants were theIdaean Dactyls, Phrygian "wizards (γόητες) of Ida", who were the first to discover iron and iron working:[36]
... 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.[37]
Aeschylus'Niobe fragment mentions the "territory of Adrasteia" associating it with the Berecyntians, a Phrygian tribe, and Mount Ida:[38]
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.[39]
Once in the AeschyleanPrometheus Bound, and twice in the EuripideanRhesus, Adrasteia is invoked as a ward against the consequences of boastful speech (perhaps here being identified with Nemesis as the punisher of boasts).[40] InPrometheus 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.[41] In theRhesus, the chorus, because of the praise they are about to give Rhesus, invoke the goddess saying:[42]
In a subsequent passage the hero Rhesus invokes her ("may Adrasteia not resent my words") before boasting to the Trojan heroHector that he will defeat the Greeks atTroy and sack all of Greece.[44]
Adrasteia was explicitly identified with Nemesis byAntimachus ofColophon (late fifth century BC).[45] The geographerStrabo 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.[46]
In a similar vein to the Aeschylean and Euripidean invocations,Plato, in hisRepublic (c. 375 BC), hasSocrates invoke Arasteia (i.e. Nemesis?) as a ward against divine retribution for—not a boast—but rather an eccentric idea:[47]
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.[48]
Plato (followed by the earlyStoics) also equates Adrasteia with Fate, as the judge of reincarnating souls:[49]
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;
Both the early 3rd-century BC poetCallimachus, and the mid 3rd-century BC poetApollonius of Rhodes, name Adrasteia as a nurse of the infantZeus.[50] According to Callimachus, Adrasteia, along with the ash-tree nymphs, theMeliae, laid Zeus "to rest in a cradle of gold", and fed him with honeycomb, and the milk of the goat Amaltheia.[51]Apollonius of Rhodes, describes a wondrous toy ball which Adrasteia gave the child Zeus, when she was his nurse in the "Idean cave".[52]
According toApollodorus, Adrasteia andIda were daughters ofMelisseus, who nursed Zeus, feeding him on the milk of Amalthea.[53]Hyginus says that Adrasteia, along with her sisters Ida andAmalthea, were daughters ofOceanus, or that according to "others" they were Zeus's nurses, "the ones that are called Dodonian Nymphys (others call them the Naiads)".[54]
The story of Adrasteia as one of the nurses of Zeus possibly originated as early as a late-fifth-centuryOrphic theogony (the Eudemian Theogony).[55] Several possible Orphic sources contain accounts of Zeus being nursed by Adrasteia and Ida (here the daughters of Mellissos and Amalthea) and guarded by theCuretes.[56] These have Adrasteia clashing bronze cymbals in front of the cave of Night (Nyx) where the infant Zeus was being concealed, from his fatherCronus, so that the infant's cries would not be heard.[57] In one she is said to be a "lawgiver" (νομοθετοῦσα) outside the cave's entrance.[58]
Another later Orphic theogony (the Hieronyman Theogony, c. 200 BC?) has Adrasteia (or Necessity)[59] united with ageless Time (Chronos) at the beginning of the cosmos.[60]
^Graf,s.v. Adrastea ("[Adrasteia] is understood as 'pressing necessity', as the demands of fate (Aesch. PV 936), as iron law (Pl. Phdr. 248cd), but above all as inescapable punishment"); Munn,p. 333 ("Adrasteia ... represents the inescapability of justice, however administered. ... Adrasteia, the "Relentless One," was destiny or doom, the fate in store for all, for better or worse.").
^Hard,p. 75; Gantz, pp. 2, 42, 743;Apollodorus,1.1.6–7. Compare withCallimachus,Hymn 1 (to Zeus)44–48;Hyginus,Fabulae 182 (Smith and Trzaskoma,p. 158);Plutarch,Moralia, Table Talk3.9.2 (657e); Orphic frr.105,151 Kern. Tripp, s.v. Adrasteia, p. 13, suggests that Adrasteia might also have been supposed to have fed Zeus on 'honey as well, to judge from the fact her father's name means "Bee-Man"'.
^Fries,p. 247;Euripides,Rhesus342–343. Fries, on this line, says that "Our poet presumably created an ad hoc genealogy on the analogy of Dike, who fulfils a similar role as divinely authorised watcher over human affairs". Compare withPlutarch,Moralia, On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance25 (546e), which makes her the daughter ofAnanke (Necessity) and Zeus.
^Graf,"Adrastea" ("Goddess related to the mountain mother of Asia Minor, Cybele"); Hasluck,p. 220, ("Adrasteia has since Marquardt's time been generally acknowledged as a form of Cybele"); Farnell,pp. 499–500 ("There is no doubt that [Adrasteia] was a cult-name and probably a local title of Cybele detached at an early period"); Fries,p. 246 ("Originally a Phrygian mountain goddess"). See also Munn's discussion of Adrasteia, pp. 332–336, as one of the "Names of the Mother". However, note Leaf,p. 78, which says that: "It is commonly assumed ... that Adresteia was originally a form of the Great Mother of Asia Minor transported to Greece. The grounds for such an idea are very feeble."
^Munn,p. 333; Graf,"Adrastea"; Farnell,p. 499; For the association of Nemesis with Artemis see, Farnell,pp. 487–493; Hornum,p. 7. According to Farnell, "We need not look further than [Adrasteia's association with Nemesis] for an explanation of the statement in Harpocration that Demetrius of Scepsis identified Adrasteia with Artemis, and for the presence of the statue of the former in the temple of Artemis Lerto and Apollo at Cirrha, the divinities who brought down due 'nemesis' on the Cirrhaeans." While according to Hasluck,p. 220 n. 1, "Demetrius of Scepsis' identification of Adrasteia with Artemis only shows the essential identity of the Asiatic, Artemis and the Mother."
^Graf,"Adrastea", which says: "the original—probably non-Grecian—name is understandable as 'Inescapable'"; West, p. 196 n. 63; Smyth,Prometheus Bound936 n. 2; White,p. 233 n. 11 ("Ineluctable"); Sommerstein 2019b,p. 547 n. 116 ("inescabability"). See also translations of the name as "Necessity" (Smyth,Prometheus Bound936; Sommerstein 2019b,Prometheus Boundp. 936) and "the Relentless One" (Munn,p. 333).
^Munn,p. 333; Hasluck,p. 220; Smith,s.v. Adrasteia 2; Leaf,p. 78;HomerIliad2.828;Strabo,13.1.13;Sudaα 523 Adler,α 524 Adler. Hasluck suggests that "the existence of this ancient temple was probably seized upon eagerly as a link between Cyzicus and the Homeric cycle, though it may have no connection with the city on the Granicus any more than the Adrastus the Archive. The existence of the temple would be held tangible evidence for the legend that King Cyzicus married a lady of Homeric descent instead of a mere Thessalian." In addition, as Hasluck notes (n. 1), the fate of theArgive Adrastus, the famous mythical leader of the disastrous expedition of theSeven against Thebes, would also have suggested an association of the name Adrasteia with Nemesis.
^Munn,p. 333 n. 63;Callisthenes,FGrHist 124 F 28 inStrabo,13.1.13. Compare withHarpocration s.v.Ἀδράστειαν (per Munn, p. 333 n. 63), which says thatDemetrius of Scepsis also associated the name Adrasteia (here an epithet ofArtemis) with a certain Adrastus (Ἀδράστου τινός), and that "some" said that "Nemesis got the name Adrasteia from 'a certain King Adrastus [παρὰ Ἀδράστου τινός βασιλέως], or from Adrastus the son of Talaus'", i.e. the Archive Adrastus, leader of the Seven against Thebes.
^West, p. 196 n. 63; Hasluck,p. 220, with n. 1, which call this a "false etymology"; Smith,s.v. Adrasteia 2;LSJ,s.v. διδράσκω;Sudaα 523 Adler,α 524 Adler. Fries,p. 247, says that "the popular etymology of her name as ἀναπόδραστος ('not to be escaped') ... is not attested before the Hellenistic age, when the early Stoics equated her with Fate".
^Pseudo-Plutarch,De Fluviis18.13. Compare withNonnus,Dionysiaca48.463 which calls Adrasteia "Argive", where Nonnus is probably drawing on the association of Adrasteia with the Archive Adrastus, see Rouse'snotea.
^Fries,p. 247; West, pp. 72, 122, 131. For the Eudemian Theogony (named after the Peripatetic Eudemus who described it) as the possible (indirect) source for the story of Adrasteia as Zeus' nurse in Callimachus, Apollonius of Rhodes, and Apollodorus, see West, pp. 121–128, 131–132; 158.
^Graf,s.v. Adrastea; Orphicfr. 105b Kern [=Hermias,On Plato's Phaedrus 248c]. West, p. 132, taking note of Adrasteia's original associations with the Phyrigian Mount Ida, sees in the clashing of the bronze cymbals, a probable "reflection of Asiatic practice".
^As noted by White,p. 233 n.11, whether Adrasteia and Necessity (Ananke) are here considered to be distinct, or different names for the same goddess is unclear.
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