Themis

Zeus married Themis and fathered six daughters by her. Three were the Horae, or Seasons: Eirene, Eunomia, and Dike, who was also called Dice. Their names meant Peace, Good Order, and Justice. They were linked with the seasons of growth and with the conditions that allowed agriculture and communal life to prosper. Their birth placed these powers beside Zeus in the ordering of divine and human affairs.

The other three daughters were the Moirai, or Fates: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. They regulated the duration and destiny of human lives. Clotho wound the flax around her distaff. Lachesis spun out the thread of life. Atropos held her scissors and cut the thread when a person's life came to an end. Through these three, each human being received a measured portion of life.

Themis embodied the divine laws of justice and order that governed the well-being of communities. She presided over assemblies and the laws of hospitality, summoned the assembly of the gods, and kept the rules of ritual and ceremony. Her daughters gave these concerns divine form. The Horae marked the order that supported growth, peace, justice, and good government, while the Moirai fixed the span allotted to each mortal. When that span ended, Atropos severed the thread.

Gaia entrusted the oracle at Delphi to Themis, who took her place at the prophetic seat and presided over the sacred site. The oracle had first belonged to Gaia, and Delphi was held to lie at the centre of the world. Zeus had released an eagle from each end of the earth, and their flight paths converged there. For this reason, Delphi was called the world’s omphalos, the Greek word for “navel”. A large sculpted omphalos stood in the temple of Apollo.

Themis held the oracle before its authority passed to Apollo. In the account attributed to Aeschylus, she received it from Gaia and later transferred it to Phoebe, who then ceded it to Apollo. The prophetic power linked with Themis also belonged to her role as a deity of order and divine law. She was closely connected with Gaia and with Zeus, who was regarded as the guarantor of righteousness and good governance.

Apollo’s arrival brought a change to the Delphic oracle. The site had previously been called Pytho, after Python, the serpent who guarded Gaia’s oracle. Apollo slew Python and took control of the prophetic seat. His priestess became known as the Pythia because of the serpent’s name. Another tradition connects the name Delphi with the Greek word delphis, meaning “dolphin”, since Apollo was said to have taken the form of a dolphin before boarding a ship from Crete and making its crew his priests. Apollo then established his shrine, with one account stating that its first temple was made from laurel branches brought from the Vale of Tempe.

Themis taught the first mortals how their communities were to live. She gave them the customs and sacred laws that governed conduct, worship, and the proper order of communal life. These laws came from divine authority rather than from human legal proceedings. They were not written down. Mortals understood them through sacred custom, omens, oracles, and wisdom believed to come from the gods.

Themis presided over the assemblies of the people and directed the rules of hospitality. She was mistress of ritual and ceremony, so the proper performance of religious acts also formed part of the order she gave to mortals. Her teaching allowed people to live together as a community. Without access to such law, communities could not maintain their relationships with one another.

Her authority extended among the gods as well as among mortals. Themis could summon the assembly of the gods, and Zeus often sought her counsel. He acted on her advice in his role as guarantor of righteousness and good government. In the world of epic, divine law came from Zeus and was understood in the circumstances of each moment. Themis represented the established rules and norms that maintained fair shares, honours, and laws within the community.

Themis also possessed prophetic power. One tradition placed her oracle near the river Cephissus in Boeotia. Another said that Gaia first held the oracle at Delphi, then gave it to Themis, who passed it to Phoebe, and Phoebe passed it to Apollo. Through this prophetic power, Themis later helped Deucalion and Pyrrha, the survivors of the Great Flood, learn how to repopulate the world. The sources differ over her parentage and family. She is called the daughter of Cronus and Rhea in one account, and the daughter of Uranus and Gaia in another. She is described as Zeus’s wife in some accounts, while another tradition makes her the wife of Iapetus.