In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Adrasteia (; , ), also spelled Adrastia, Adrastea, Adrestia, Adrestea, Adastreia or Adrasta, originally a Phrygian mountain goddess, probably associated with Cybele, was later a Cretan nymph, and daughter of Melisseus, who was charged by Rhea with nurturing the infant Zeus in secret, to protect him from his father Cronus. By at latest the fifth century BC, she became identified with Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution.Fries, pp. 246–247; Graf, "Adrastea"; Farnell, pp. 499–500; Tripp, s.v. Adrasteia; Parada, s.v. Adrastia 1; Smith, s.vv. Adrasteia 1 (Cretan nymph), Adrasteia 2 (epithet of Nemesis).
Cult Adrasteia was the goddess of "inevitable fate",Farnell, p. 499; Munn, p. 333. representing "pressing necessity", and the inescapability of punishment.Graf, s.v. Adrastea ("[Adrasteia] is understood as 'pressing necessity', as the demands of fate (Aesch. PV 936), as iron law (Pl. Phdr. 248cd), but above all as inescapable punishment"); Munn, p. 333 ("Adrasteia ... represents the inescapability of justice, however administered. ... Adrasteia, the "Relentless One," was destiny or doom, the fate in store for all, for better or worse."). She had a cult at Cyzicus (with nearby temple), and on the Phrygian Mount Ida.Graf, "Adrastea"; Hasluck, p. 220; Farnell, p. 499. For Cyzicus see Strabo, 12.8.11, 13.1.13 (which reports "a temple of Adrasteia near Cyzicus"), for Mount Ida, see Aeschylus, Niobe fr. 158 Radt [= Strabo, 12.8.21. Adrasteia was also the object of public worship in Athens from at least as early as 429 BC.Parker, pp. 172, 195, 197; Fries, p. 246. Her name appears in the "Accounts of the Treasurers of the Other Gods", associated with the Thracian goddess Bendis, with whom she seems to have shared a treasury or accounts, indicating that in Athens her cult was supported by public funds.Parker, p. 195; Graf, "Adrastea"; Inscriptiones Graecae I3 383.142–143; cf. I3 369.67.
Adrasteia was also worshipped, together with Nemesis, at Kos.Munn, p. 333 n. 63; Hasluck, p. 220; Graf, "Adrastea"; Farnell, p. 499; Paton and Hicks, pp. 51–52, no. 29.9. The 2nd-century geographer Pausanias reports seeing a statue of Adrasteia in a temple of Apollo, Artemis, and Leto at Cirrha, near Delphi.Munn, p. 333 n. 63; Pausanias, 10.37.8.
Mythology Adrasteia came to be associated with the birth of Zeus.Graf, "Adrastea"; Tripp, s.v. Adrasteia, p. 13; Smith, s.v. Adrasteia 1; Parada, s.v. Adrastia 1. In this context she was said to be a nymph of Cretan Mount Ida. The Titaness Rhea gave her son, the infant Zeus, to the Curetes and the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida, daughters of Melisseus, to nurse, and they fed Zeus on the milk of the goat Amalthea.Hard, p. 75; Gantz, pp. 2, 42, 743; Apollodorus, 1.1.6–7. Compare with Callimachus, Hymn 1 (to Zeus) 44–48; Hyginus, Fabulae 182 (Smith and Trzaskoma, p. 158); Plutarch, Moralia, Table Talk 3.9.2 (657e); Orphic frr. 105, 151 Kern. Tripp, s.v. Adrasteia, p. 13, suggests that Adrasteia might also have been supposed to have fed Zeus on 'honey as well, to judge from the fact her father's name means "Bee-Man"'. Adrasteia gave Zeus a wondrous toy ball to play with, later used by Aphrodite to bribe her son Eros.Hard, p. 197; Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 3.132–136.
In the Euripidean Rhesus, Adrasteia is said to be the daughter of Zeus.Fries, p. 247; Euripides, Rhesus 342–343. Fries, on this line, says that "Our poet presumably created an ad hoc genealogy on the analogy of Dike, who fulfils a similar role as divinely authorised watcher over human affairs". Compare with Plutarch, Moralia, On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance 25 (546e), which makes her the daughter of Ananke (Necessity) and Zeus.
Associations with other goddesses Cybele Adrasteia seems to have originally been a Phrygian mountain goddess, probably associated with Cybele, the mountain mother goddess of Anatolia.Graf, "Adrastea" ("Goddess related to the mountain mother of Asia Minor, Cybele"); Hasluck, p. 220, ("Adrasteia has since Marquardt's time been generally acknowledged as a form of Cybele"); Farnell, pp. 499–500 ("There is no doubt that [Adrasteia] was a cult-name and probably a local title of Cybele detached at an early period"); Fries, p. 246 ("Originally a Phrygian mountain goddess"). See also Munn's discussion of Adrasteia, pp. 332–336, as one of the "Names of the Mother". However, note Leaf, p. 78, which says that: "It is commonly assumed ... that Adresteia was originally a form of the Great Mother of Asia Minor transported to Greece. The grounds for such an idea are very feeble." Priapus, Cyzicus, and the Troad, where Adrasteia's cult was established, were also areas where Cybele was especially worshipped.Golann, p. 44; Farnell, p. 499. The two earliest mentions of Adrasteia both suggest an association with Cybele. Adrasteia's description, in a fragment from the lost epic poem Phoronis as a Phrygian mountain goddess served by the Idaean Dactyls, is hardly distinguishable from Cybele herself,Golann, p. 44; Farnell, pp. 499–500; Hasluck, p. 221. For the Idaean Dactyls as servants of the "Mother", see Fowler, p. 43; Strabo, 10.3.22 (which says that of the various sources which describe the Idaean Dactyls, "all have assumed that they were ... attendants of the Mother of the gods"); Apollonius of Rhodes, 1.1125–1127; Diodorus Siculus, 17.7.5. while Aeschylus locates Adrasteia in the "Berecynthan land", also the home of the "Mother of the Gods" (i.e. Cybele).Munn, pp. 2, 333; Aeschylus, Niobe fr. 158 Radt [= Strabo, 12.8.21. For the association of the "Mother of the Gods" with the "Berecynthan land", see Pseudo-Plutarch De Fluviis 10.4-5 [= Agatharchides FGrHist 284 F 3].
Nemesis Although apparently of independent origin, Adrasteia also came to be associated with Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution.Farnell, p. 499; Golann, pp. 43–44; Munn, p. 333; Fries, pp. 246–247, on lines 342–3; Smith, s.v. Adrasteia 2. Nemesis and Adrasteia were worshipped together at Kos.Munn, p. 333 n. 63; Hasluck, p. 220; Graf, "Adrastea"; Farnell, p. 499; Paton and Hicks, pp. 51–52, no. 29.9. In the fifth century BC the two goddesses were often identified, with Adrasteia becoming merely an epithet of Nemesis.West, p. 195 ("In the fifth century Adrastea is equivalent to Nemesis"); Munn, p. 333; Golann, p. 43; Smyth, Prometheus Bound 936, n. 2; Murray, note to Rhesus 342; Smith, s.v. Adrasteia 2. The explicit identification of the two goddesses is first found in the writings of the late fifth-century BC poet and grammarian Antimachus of Colophon.Fries, pp. 246–247, on lines 342–3; Golann, p. 43; Hornum, p. 7; Strabo, 13.1.13 [= Antimachus, fr. 131 Matthews = 53 Wyss]. Compare with Aeschylus (?), Prometheus Bound 936; Euripides, Rhesus 342–343, 468–473; Plato, Republic 451a; Demosthenes, 25.37; Menander, Perikeiromene 304; Greek Anthology, 9.405, 12.300; Ammianus Marcellinus, History 14.11.25.
Artemis Adrasteia, like Nemesis, was also associated with Artemis.Munn, p. 333; Graf, "Adrastea"; Farnell, p. 499; For the association of Nemesis with Artemis see, Farnell, pp. 487–493; Hornum, p. 7. According to Farnell, "We need not look further than [Adrasteia's association with Nemesis] for an explanation of the statement in Harpocration that Demetrius of Scepsis identified Adrasteia with Artemis, and for the presence of the statue of the former in the temple of Artemis Lerto and Apollo at Cirrha, the divinities who brought down due 'nemesis' on the Cirrhaeans." While according to Hasluck, p. 220 n. 1, "Demetrius of Scepsis' identification of Adrasteia with Artemis only shows the essential identity of the Asiatic, Artemis and the Mother." The land of the Berecyntians, where a fragment of Aeschylus' lost play Niobe locates the cult of Adrasteia, was also the home of Ephesian Artemis.Munn, p. 333; Callimachus, Hymn 3, to Artemis 3.242–247. According to the second-century-BC Greek grammarian Demetrius of Scepsis, a certain Adrastus established Adrasteia as another name for Artemis.Munn, p. 333 n. 63; Graf, "Adrastea"; Harpocration, s.v. Ἀδράστειαν. As noted above Pausanias saw a statue of Adrasteia in a temple of Artemis near Delphi.
Others Adrasteia was also sometimes associated with other goddesses, including the Titan Rhea (who was herself associated with Mother goddess Cybele),Apollonius of Rhodes, 1.1114–1127; Strabo, 10.3.12 (Rhea associated with Cybele). Ananke (Necessity), the personification of inevitability,West, pp. 194–198, which calls this identification a "Hellenistic embellishment" (p. 195). and the Egyptian mother goddess Isis.Graf, "Adrastea".
Name The name Adrasteia can be understood as meaning "Inescapable".Graf, "Adrastea", which says: "the original—probably non-Grecian—name is understandable as 'Inescapable'"; West, p. 196 n. 63; Smyth, Prometheus Bound 936 n. 2; White, p. 233 n. 11 ("Ineluctable"); Sommerstein 2019b, p. 547 n. 116 ("inescabability"). See also translations of the name as "Necessity" (Smyth, Prometheus Bound 936; Sommerstein 2019b, Prometheus Bound p. 936) and "the Relentless One" (Munn, p. 333). Several ancient writers, regarding 'Adrasteia' as an epithet for the goddess Nemesis, derived the epithet from the name 'Adrastus'. Adrasteia was the name of a city and a plain in the Troad, a name known to Homer; and according to Strabo, the city and plain were said to have been named after a certain "King Adrastus", of Hellespontine Phrygia, who was said to have built the first temple of Nemesis.Munn, p. 333; Hasluck, p. 220; Smith, s.v. Adrasteia 2; Leaf, p. 78; Homer Iliad 2.828; Strabo, 13.1.13; Suda α 523 Adler, α 524 Adler. Hasluck suggests that "the existence of this ancient temple was probably seized upon eagerly as a link between Cyzicus and the Homeric cycle, though it may have no connection with the city on the Granicus any more than the Adrastus the Archive. The existence of the temple would be held tangible evidence for the legend that King Cyzicus married a lady of Homeric descent instead of a mere Thessalian." In addition, as Hasluck notes (n. 1), the fate of the Argive Adrastus, the famous mythical leader of the disastrous expedition of the Seven against Thebes, would also have suggested an association of the name Adrasteia with Nemesis. Strabo tells us that according to Antimachus, Adrastus "was the first to build an altar to [Nemesis] beside the stream of the Aesepus River",Munn, p. 333 n. 63; Farnell, p. 499; Antimachus, fr. 131 Matthews = 53 Wyss in Strabo, 13.1.13. and that according to the fourth-century BC historian Callisthenes (FGrHist 124 F 28), "Adrasteia was named after King Adrastus, who was the first to found a temple of Nemesis".Munn, p. 333 n. 63; Callisthenes, FGrHist 124 F 28 in Strabo, 13.1.13. Compare with Harpocration s.v. Ἀδράστειαν (per Munn, p. 333 n. 63), which says that Demetrius of Scepsis also associated the name Adrasteia (here an epithet of Artemis) with a certain Adrastus (Ἀδράστου τινός), and that "some" said that "Nemesis got the name Adrasteia from 'a certain King Adrastus [παρὰ Ἀδράστου τινός βασιλέως], or from Adrastus the son of Talaus'", i.e. the Archive Adrastus, leader of the Seven against Thebes. Other ancient writers derived the epithet from the Greek ("run away"), interpreting the epithet to mean the goddess "whom none can escape", connecting the epithet with the fate of the mythical Argive King Adrastus, leader of the doomed Seven against Thebes.West, p. 196 n. 63; Hasluck, p. 220, with n. 1, which call this a "false etymology"; Smith, s.v. Adrasteia 2; LSJ, s.v. διδράσκω; Suda α 523 Adler, α 524 Adler. Fries, p. 247, says that "the popular etymology of her name as ἀναπόδραστος ('not to be escaped') ... is not attested before the Hellenistic age, when the early Stoics equated her with Fate".