Themis

• 1. Introduction

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  Themis, the Greek goddess of divine law, had a name the scholar Moses Finley called "untranslatable." Writing about Homer's use of the word in the 8th century BCE, Finley found it could mean "right custom, proper procedure, social order." He said it sometimes meant "merely the will of the gods." He described it as carrying the enormous power of "it is (or is not) done." These were not competing definitions. They pointed at something the Greeks took seriously: an order woven into the world before any human law was written.

  She was one of the twelve Titan children of Gaia and Uranus. Her name came from the Greek verb títhēmi, meaning "to put," and translated roughly as "that which is put in place." She was not invented by any lawgiver. She was understood as already present in the structure of things.

  Judges throughout the Greek world called themselves "themistopóloi," her servants.

• 2. The Order She Held

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  In the Hymn to Apollo, Themis bears the epithet "Ichnaea," meaning "Tracker." Classical descriptions depict her as sober-looking, sometimes holding scales and sometimes a sword. She was understood as an earth goddess, closely related in nature to the earth. In Prometheus Bound, attributed to Aeschylus, Prometheus states that she bore many names, including that of Gaia.

  Themis presided over what the Greeks called "the communal affairs of humans, particularly assemblies." She also governed the proper relation between man and woman, which the Greeks saw as the foundation of the family. The family, in turn, was the pillar of the deme, the civic unit. When a distraught Hera returned to Olympus after quarreling with Zeus, Themis was the first to offer her a cup. Hera called her "Lady Themis." Ancient texts also describe her as "of the lovely cheeks."

  When Themis was disregarded, Nemesis brought wrathful retribution in her place. The two shared a small temple at Rhamnous. Themis herself was not wrathful; that quality belonged to Nemesis.

  Hesiod's Theogony placed her at the center of his cosmic genealogy as the first recorded personification of Justice as a divine being.

• 3. Divine Lineage

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  By Zeus, Themis became the mother of the Horae, the Seasons, whom Hesiod named as Eunomia (Law), Dike (Justice), and Eirene (Peace). She also bore the Moirai, the Fates: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos.

  Hesiod's account gives detail to her daughter Dike's role. Dike handled temporal justice: the execution of judgments and sentences. Together, Dike and Themis carried out the final decisions of the Moirai.

  Hesiod placed her as the second wife of Zeus. A fragment of Pindar offers a different placement. In that version, the Moirai themselves brought Themis from the springs of Oceanus to Olympus. There she became the first wife of Zeus, not the second.

  Hyginus, in his Fabulae, made her the daughter of Aether and Terra rather than of the Titans. He still named Zeus as the father of her divine children. In Prometheus Bound, she appears as the mother of Prometheus. The scholion on Euripides's Hippolytus adds the Hesperides to her children by Zeus. In Euripides's Medea, she is called a daughter of Zeus and "keeper of men's oaths."

  She was oracular as well as maternal; the prophetic traditions surrounding her led to Delphi, the greatest oracle site in Greece.

• 4. Oracle of Delphi

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  One tradition held that Themis built the Oracle at Delphi herself and was herself oracular. According to another legend, she received it from Gaia and later gave it to Phoebe. Phoebe then gave the oracle to her grandson Apollo as a birthday gift. Ephorus recorded a third account: Themis helped Apollo find the oracle site, with the intent of helping mankind.

  Themis was present at Delos when Apollo was born there. She nursed the infant god with nectar and ambrosia.

  Hyginus, in his De astronomia, records a parallel role: she was listed as a foster-mother of the young Zeus, alongside the nymph Amalthea.

  Her prophetic authority extended far beyond Delphi, reaching into the stories of Deucalion, Thetis, and the Trojan War itself.

• 5. Prophecies and Visions

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  Homer's Iliad assigns Themis the task of summoning all the gods to assembly on Olympus by Zeus's command.

  According to Ovid, Themis rather than Zeus gave Deucalion the instruction to regenerate the human race after the great deluge. She told him to throw the bones of "his Mother" over his shoulder. From those bones, a new race of humankind arose. Ovid also records her prophecy that a son of Zeus would steal golden apples from the orchard of Atlas.

  She warned both Zeus and Poseidon not to marry the sea-nymph Thetis. Thetis's son, she said, would be more powerful than his father. In the story of Dryope in Ovid's Metamorphoses, she also warned the gods of an oncoming civil war in Thebes.

  The lost epic Cypria, attributed to Stasinus of Cyprus, names Themis and Zeus together as the architects of the Trojan War. After the construction of the Trojan Horse, the gods defied Zeus's orders and began fighting each other. Quintus Smyrnaeus records that Themis stopped them by warning of Zeus's wrath.

  The Orphic Rhapsodic Theogony, dated to the first century BC or AD, records a prophecy about Themis rather than by her. Nyx, the goddess of Night, prophesied that Themis would remain a virgin until Rhea gave birth to a child of Cronus.

  Porphyry records that Aphrodite came to Themis worried that her son Eros remained perpetually small, unable to grow. Themis told her to give Eros a brother, explaining that he was not growing because of his solitude. Aphrodite then gave birth to Anteros, meaning "counter-love." Eros grew whenever Anteros was nearby but shrank whenever he left.

  Four Cretan men, named Aegolius, Celeus, Cerberus, and Laius, broke into the sacred cave in Crete where Rhea had given birth to Zeus. They sought to steal honey from the sacred bees kept there. Themis and the Fates persuaded Zeus not to kill the men inside the holy cave, arguing it would be impious. Zeus agreed and transformed each of the four into a different bird.

  Temples dedicated to her stood from Dodona to Athens.

• 6. Temples and Worship

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  Pausanias described Themis's sanctuary at Thebes in more detail than he gave most of her other shrines. Along the road from the Neistan gate, he identified three sanctuaries placed in sequence. One was for Themis, with an image of white marble. The second was for the Moirai; the third for Zeus Agoraios, Zeus of the marketplace.

  At Dodona, the oracular shrine of Zeus, her temple was tetrastyle pronaos in antis, with an entrance facing north. Its columns were Ionic, made from local sandstone, and a large altar stood outside.

  Her temple in Athens stood west of the theater of Dionysus. Other temples stood at Tanagra and at Phthiotis in Thessalia, where she was honored under the epithet Ikhnaia.

  At Olympia, her altar was built on a site called the Stomion, meaning "the Mouth." Within the sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidauros, she shared a temple with Aphrodite. She was also depicted in the sanctuaries of other gods and may have shared temples with them on other occasions.

  Her name outlasted the temples themselves, finding its way into the titles of buildings far beyond the Greek world.

• 7. Lady Justice Today

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  In modern depictions, Themis is most often called "Lady Justice." Statues of her figure can be found outside courthouses around the world.

  In 2022, the building hosting the main courtroom of the Court of Justice of the European Union's General Court was renamed the Themis Building.