Dike (mythology)

Dike
Goddess of justice and the spirit of moral order and fair judgement
An 1886 bas-relief figure of Dike Astraea in the Old Supreme Court Chamber at the Vermont State House
Abode	Mount Olympus
Symbol	Scales/ Balance
Parents	Zeus and Themis
Siblings	Horai, Eirene, Eunomia, Moirai,
Roman equivalent	Justitia

In ancient Greek culture, Dikē (English pronunciation: /ˈdiːkeɪ/ or /ˈdɪkiː/; Greek: Δίκη, English translation: "justice") was the goddess of justice and the spirit of moral order and fair judgement 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 were both personifications of justice. She is depicted as a young, slender woman carrying a physical balance scale and wearing a laurel wreath while her Roman counterpart (Justitia) appears in a similar fashion but blind-folded. She is represented in the constellation Libra which is named for the Latin name of her symbol (Scales). 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.

The sculptures of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia have as their unifying iconographical conception the dikē of Zeus, and in poetry she is often the attendant (paredros) of Zeus. In the philosophical climate of late 5th century Athens, dikē could be anthropomorphised as a goddess of moral justice. She was one of the three second-generation Horae, along with Eunomia ("order") and Eirene ("peace"):