Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

Nemesis

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account of Nemesis at Rhamnous enables us to decide in favour
of the latter alternative: 'On the head of
the goddess is a crown decorated with stags
and small figures of Victory; in her left hand
she carries an apple-branch, and in her right
a bowl, on which are wrought Aithiopes
(pi. xxiii, i)V Thus Nemesis at Rhamnous
had the same insignia as Diana at Nemi, to
wit, an apple-branch2 and stags; and pre-
sumably for the same reason, because the
Greek, like the Italian, goddess was a wood-
land3 power controlling both vegetable and
animal life. After this we are not surprised
to find that Nemesis was in Roman times identified with Artemis
or Diana4. Of their identification we have both literary and
monumental evidence. A metrical inscription found in 1607 on
the Appian Road and commemorating the munificence of Herodes
Attikos invokes Nemesis in the following hexameter line:

Thou too that watchest the works of men, Rhamnusian Oupish.
Oiipis, as Dr Farnell remarks6, ' was an ancient and half-forgotten
name of Artemis...resuscitated by later poetry' and interpreted
by the Greeks as the ' Watcher' {ppizesthai). The cult-image at
Rhamnous is described by Pomponius Mela as ' Pheidias'
Nemesis'7'' and by Julius Solinus as 1 Pheidias' statue of Diana8'\
Adjoining the amphitheatre at Aquincum (Alt-Ofen) in Lower
Pannonia was a chapel to Nemesis. Here a dedication ' To the

1 Paus. 1. 33. 3. PL xxiii, i is a restoration of the statue based on the extant fragment of
the head (iaand ib, Brit. Mus. Cat. Sculpture i. 264 f. no. 460) and on the coin described
infra p. 281. See further O. Rossbach in Roscher Lex. Myth. iii. [47—155 with fig. 2.

2 Nemesis lifting her drapery in one hand and holding an apple-branch in the other
occurs on Graeco-Roman gems {Brit. Mus. Cat. Gems p. 138 nos. 1140—1142, H.
Posnansky op. cit. p. 161 f., 166 pi. 1 figs. 23, 24, 27, 40). Quasi-autonomous bronze
coins of Smyrna show a somewhat similar figure lifting her drapery in one hand and
holding a filleted branch in the other : she is recognized as Nemesis by H. Posnansky op.
cit. p. 133 pi. 1 fig. 21, but is called Demeter (?) by B. V. Head Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins
Ionia p. 249 pi. 26, 6.

Mr F. M. Cornford points out to me (May 10, 1911) that, according to Hes. 0. d.
223 cp. 215 f., Nemesis was of the same family as the apple-guarding Hesperides.

3 Diana was often paired with Silvanus {e.g. Dessau Inscr. Lat. set. nos. 3266—3268 :
see further A. v. Premerstein in Philologus 1894 liii. 409). So on occasion was Nemesis
(Dessau op. cit. no. 3747 a> b).

4 See A. v. Premerstein loc. cit. p. 407 ff., who has collected most of the relevant facts.

5 Inscr. Gr. Sic. It. no. 1389 ii 2 = Cougny Anth. Pal. Append. 1. 263. 2 77 7 eiri gpya
(UpoTwv opdas, 'PafAvovaias O871-1. 6 Farnell Cults of Gk. States ii. 488.

7 Mel. 2. 3. 46 Rhamnus parva, inlustris tamen, quod in ea fanum est Amphiarai et
Phidiaca Nemesis.

s Solin. 7. 26 Ramne quoque, in qua Amphiarai fanum et Phidiacae signum Dianae.

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