Dike (mythology)

Dike
Goddess of justice and the spirit of moral order and fair judgement
Member of The Horae
An 1886 bas-relief figure of Dike Astraea in the Old Supreme Court Chamber at the Vermont State House
AbodeMount Olympus
SymbolScales / Balance
Genealogy
ParentsZeus and Themis
SiblingsHorae, Eirene, Eunomia, Moirai and several paternal half-siblings
Equivalents
RomanJustitia

In Greek mythology, Dike or Dice[1] (/ˈdk/ or /ˈds/;[2] Greek: Δίκη, Díkē, 'justice, custom') 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 (Theogony, l. 901), she was fathered by Zeus 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 epithets, 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.

  1. ^ Smith, William (1880). A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: John Murray. p. 1002. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  2. ^ Gardner, Dorsey (1887). Webster's Condensed Dictionary. George Routledge and Sons. p. 719. Retrieved 10 April 2018.