Rome
Sometimes called Pax-Nemesis was also worshipped at Rome by victorious generals, and in imperial times was the patroness of gladiators and of the venatores, who fought in the arena with wild beasts, and was one of the tutelary deities of the drilling-ground (Nemesis campestris). Sometimes, but rarely, seen on imperial coinage, mainly under Claudius and Hadrian. In the 3rd century AD there is evidence of the belief in an all-powerful Nemesis-Fortuna. She was worshipped by a society called Hadrian's freedman. The poet Mesomedes wrote a hymn to Nemesis in the early 2nd century CE, where he addressed her
- Nemesis, winged balancer of life,
- dark-faced goddess, daughter of Justice,
and mentioned her "adamantine bridles" that restrain "the frivolous insolences of mortals."
In early times the representations of Nemesis resembled Aphrodite, who herself sometimes bears the epithet Nemesis. Later, as the maiden goddess of proportion and the avenger of crime, she has as attributes a measuring rod (tally stick), a bridle, scales, a sword and a scourge, and rides in a chariot drawn by griffins.
Nemesis is also known to have been called "Adrastia". Ammianus Marcellinus includes her in a digression on Justice following his description of the death of Gallus Caesar.
Read more about this topic: Nemesis (mythology)
Famous quotes containing the word rome:
“Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man. The nobleness of life
Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair
And such a twain can do ‘t, in which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
We stand up peerless.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to Rome for a subject; the poet will sing it; the historian record it; and, with the Landing of the Pilgrims and the Declaration of Independence, it will be the ornament of some future national gallery, when at least the present form of slavery shall be no more here. We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain Brown. Then, and not till then, we will take our revenge.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“This very Rome that we behold deserves our love ...: the only common and universal city.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)