Justice Goddess

Statue of Themis. Handmade of alabaster,and painted in museum patina.

Justice goddess Themis (Ancient Greek: Θέμις) is an ancient Greek Titaness. She is described as “[the Lady] of good counsel,” and is the personification of divine order, fairness, law, natural law, and custom. Her symbols are the Scales of Justice, tools used to remain balanced and pragmatic. Themis means “divine law” rather than human ordinance, literally “that which is put in place”. To the ancient Greeks she was originally the organizer of the “communal affairs of humans.

Description of Themis

The personification of abstract concepts is characteristic of the Greeks. The ability of the goddess Themis to foresee the future enabled her to become one of the Oracles of Delphi, which in turn led to her establishment as the goddess of divine justice.

Some classical representations of Themis showed her holding a sword, believed to represent her ability to cut fact from fiction; to her there was no middle ground^[(depictions of Lady Justice wearing a blindfold are modern and not classical.) Themis built the Oracle at Delphi and was herself oracular. According to another legend, Themis received the Oracle at Delphi from Gaia and later gave it to Apollo.  When Themis is disregarded, Nemesis brings just and wrathful retribution; thus Themis shared the Nemesion temple at Rhamnous. Themis is not wrathful; she, “of the lovely cheeks,” was the first to offer Hera a cup when she returned to Olympus distraught over threats from Zeus.

Themis presided over the proper relation between man and woman, the basis of the rightly ordered family (the family was seen as the pillar of the deme.) Judges were often referred to as “themistopóloi” (the servants of Themis.) Such was also the basis for order upon Olympus. Even Hera addressed her as “Lady Themis.” The name of Themis might be substituted for Adrasteia in telling of the birth of Zeus on Crete. Themis was present at Delos to witness the birth of Apollo. According to Ovid, it was Themis rather than Zeus who told Deucalion to throw the bones of “his Mother” over his shoulder to create a new race of humankind after the deluge.