“Furthermore, the paternal genealogy of Nemesis is rather ambiguous. The link between Nemesis and Adrasteia remains interesting for another reason, because the later men of Troy are told to have worshiped the apotheosized Helen as “Adrasteia.” This identification perfectly balances Helen’s association with the word νέμεσις (literally meaning “retribution” or, more specifically, “righteous anger”) in the Iliad, or the attribution of the word πῆμα (“misery”) to both figures (Nemesis [e.g. Theog. 592] and Helen [e.g. Il. 3,50-51]) in epic poetry. Another indication of a confluence in the cult of the two figures is the characterization of Helen as “Rhamnousian” in Callimachus (Hymn to Artemis 232), which echoes the cult of Nemesis at Rhamnous in Attica. In their mutual roles as instruments or manifestations of divine retribution, Nemesis and Helen were probably not genealogically associated before the emergence of the Cyclic tradition, and it is therefore plausible that such epic reinterpretations were preceded by traditions that had a different shape as regards the identity of mother and daughter. This assumption could partly explain inconsistencies in the epic and post-epic renderings of Helen’s parentage.
Footnote: The Attic tragedians evidently used “Adrasteia” as an epithet of Nemesis (cf. also Aeschylus, Prom. 935: οἱ προσκυνοῦντες τὴν Ἀδράστειαν σοφοί “those who do obeisance to Adrasteia (lit. ‘that-which-cannot-be-run-away-from’) are wise” (J. E. Harry 1905: 292). Cf. the expression προσκυνῶ δὲ τὴν Νέμεσιν at the end of a letter (Alciphron, Ep. 1,33).”
- The Transformations of Helen: Indo-European Myth and the Roots of the Trojan Cycle, by Peter Jackson (2006)
This topic caught my attention because of this recent post I made. Could Helen and her mom (not you, Leda) have been worshipped together? Were they syncretized/conflated in certain areas? Idk, very interesting stuff
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