In ancient Greek culture, Dikē (Greek: Δίκη, English translation: "justice") was the spirit of moral order and fair judgement based on immemorial custom.
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Depiction
The sculptures of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia have as their unifying iconographical conception the dikē of Zeus,[1] and in poetry she is often the attendant (paredros) of Zeus.[2] In the philosophical climate of late fifth century Athens, dikē could be anthropomorphised[3] as a goddess of moral justice.[4] She was one of the three second-generation Horae, along with Eunomia ("order") and Eirene ("peace"):
"Eunomia and that unsullied fountain Dikē, her sister, sure support of cities; and Eirene of the same kin, who are the stewards of wealth for mankind — three glorious daughters of wise-counselled Themis."[5]
She ruled over human justice, while her mother Themis ruled over divine justice. Her opposite was adikia ("injustice"): in reliefs on the archaic Chest of Cypselus preserved at Olympia,[6] a comely Dikē throttled an ugly Adikia and beat her with a stick.
The later art of rhetoric treated the personification of abstract concepts as an artistic device, which devolved into the allegorizing that Late Antiquity bequeathed to patristic literature. In a further euhemerist interpretation, Dikē was born a mortal and Zeus placed her on Earth to keep mankind just. He quickly learned this was impossible and placed her next to him on Mount Olympus.
See also
Notes
- ^ Jeffrey M. Hurwit, "Narrative Resonance in the East Pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia' The Art Bulletin 69.1 (March 1987:6-15).
- ^ For example, in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonna, 1377, or in Plutarch's Life of Alexander 52, or, in yet another tradition, in the Orphic hymn 61. 2.
- ^ See Walter Burkert, "The special character of Greek anthropomorphism", in Greek Religion III.4 (Harvard University Press) 1985:182-89.
- ^ She is already given a genealogy, as daughter of Themis, in Hesiod, Theogony 901, and approaches the throne of Zeus with lamentation at human injustices, Works and Days, 239f, both poems ca. late seventh century BCE.
- ^ Pindar, Thirteenth Olympian Ode 6 ff (Conway, tr.).
- ^ Minutely described by Pausanias in the later second century CE (Pausanias, Description of Greece, v.18.2.
External links
- Theoi Project: Dike Excerpts from Greek literature in translation.
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