In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Adrasteia (; Ancient Greek: Ἀδράστεια, Ionic Greek: Ἀδρήστεια), 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.
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Cult
Adrasteia was the goddess of "inevitable fate", representing "pressing necessity", and the inescapability of punishment. She had a cult at Cyzicus (with nearby temple), and on the Phrygian Mount Ida. Adrasteia was also the object of public worship in Athens from at least as early as 429 BC. 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.
Adrasteia was also worshipped, together with Nemesis, at Kos. The 2nd-century geographer Pausanias reports seeing a statue of Adrasteia in a temple of Apollo, Artemis, and Leto at Cirrha, near Delphi.
Mythology
Adrasteia came to be associated with the birth of Zeus. 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. Adrasteia gave Zeus a wondrous toy ball to play with, later used by Aphrodite to bribe her son Eros.
In the Euripidean Rhesus, Adrasteia is said to be the daughter of 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. Priapus, Cyzicus, and the Troad, where Adrasteia's cult was established, were also areas where Cybele was especially worshipped. 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, while Aeschylus locates Adrasteia in the "Berecynthan land", also the home of the "Mother of the Gods" (i.e. Cybele).
Nemesis
Although apparently of independent origin, Adrasteia also came to be associated with Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution. Nemesis and Adrasteia were worshipped together at Kos. In the fifth century BC the two goddesses were often identified, with Adrasteia becoming merely an epithet of Nemesis. 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.
Artemis
Adrasteia, like Nemesis, was also associated with Artemis. 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. According to the second-century-BC Greek grammarian Demetrius of Scepsis, a certain Adrastus established Adrasteia as another name for Artemis. 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), Ananke (Necessity), the personification of inevitability, and the Egyptian mother goddess Isis.
Name
The name Adrasteia can be understood as meaning "Inescapable". 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. Strabo tells us that according to Antimachus, Adrastus "was the first to build an altar to [Nemesis] beside the stream of the Aesepus River", 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". Other ancient writers derived the epithet from the Greek διδράσκω ("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.
The name Adrasteia (perhaps in connection with the Argive Adrastus) also has geographical associations with Argolis. Pausanias mentions a spring called Adrasteia at Nemea, and Pseudo-Plutarch, mentions a root called Adraseia produced on a mountaintop in Argolis.