NEMESIS

in Greek religion, two divine conceptions, the first an Attic goddess and the second an abstraction of indignant disapproval, later personified. Nemesis the goddess (perhaps of fertility) was worshiped at Rhamnus in Attica and was very similar to Artemis (a goddess of wild animals, vegetation, childbirth, and the hunt). In post-Homeric mythology, she was pursued by Zeus, the chief god, who eventually turned himself into a swan and caught her in the form of a goose. Nemesis then laid an egg from which Helen was hatched. That Nemesis the abstraction was worshiped, at least in later times, is beyond doubt. She signified particularly the disapproval of the gods at human presumption, and her first altar was said to have been erected in Boeotia by Adrastus, leader of the Seven Against Thebes. In Rome, especially, her cult was very popular, particularly among soldiers, by whom she was worshiped as patroness of the drill ground (Nemesis Campestris).