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Dike (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Dike or Dice[1] (/ˈdaɪkiː/ or /ˈdaɪsiː/;[2] Greek: Δίκη, díkē, '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.

Dike

Mount Olympus

Scales / Balance

Zeus and Themis

Horae, Eirene, Eunomia, Moirai and several paternal half-siblings

Justitia

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.

Lady Justice

and Benjamin M. Wolkow, The Orphic Hymns, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-1-4214-0882-8. Internet Archive. Google Books.

Athanassakis, Apostolos N.

Brill’s New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. Antiquity, Volume 4, Cyr-Epy, editors: Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider, , 2004. ISBN 978-90-04-12267-3. Online version at Brill

Brill

(1918). "18.2". Description of Greece. Vol. 5. Translated by W. H. S. Jones; H. A. Ormerod. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann – via Perseus Digital Library.

Pausanias

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.

Smith, William