Hellas or Ellada is the personification of the nation of Greece, dating back to Ancient Greece. There was a desire for unification in Greece, and Hellas is the only national personification known from that period. She is mentioned frequently in literature but only appears once in the arts of late classical Athens. [1]
Hellas is usually depicted as a woman who wears simple clothes similar to ancient Greek clothes. On her head she wears a crown or an olive wreath.
Dodona in Epirus in northwestern Greece was the oldest Hellenic oracle, possibly dating to the second millennium BCE according to Herodotus. The earliest accounts in Homer describe Dodona as an oracle of Zeus. Situated in a remote region away from the main Greek poleis, it was considered second only to the Oracle of Delphi in prestige.
In Greek mythology the Horae or Horai or Hours were the goddesses of the seasons and the natural portions of time.
In Greek mythology, Epione is the wife of Asclepius. Her name derives from the word ηπιος, and she was probably a personification of the care needed for recovery. With Asclepius, she had two sons, Machaon and Podalirius, who are mentioned in the Iliad of Homer as well as Telesphoros. She also had five daughters Aceso, Aglaea, Hygieia, Iaso, and Panacaea as listed in the Suda.
In Greek mythology, Peitho is the goddess who personifies persuasion and seduction. Her Roman equivalent is Suada or Suadela. She is the goddess of charming speech. She is typically presented as an important companion of Aphrodite. Her opposite is Bia, the personification of force. As a personification, she was sometimes imagined as a goddess and sometimes an abstract power with her name used both as a common and proper noun. There is evidence that Peitho was referred to as a goddess before she was referred to as an abstract concept, which is rare for a personification. Peitho represents both sexual and political persuasion. She is associated with the art of rhetoric.
Tyche was the presiding tutelary deity who governed the fortune and prosperity of a city, its destiny. In Classical Greek mythology, she is the daughter of Aphrodite and Zeus or Hermes, and at this time served to bring positive messages to people, relating to external events outside their control.
Libertas is the Roman goddess and personification of liberty. She became a politicised figure in the Late Republic, featured on coins supporting the populares faction, and later those of the assassins of Julius Caesar. Nonetheless, she sometimes appears on coins from the imperial period, such as Galba's "Freedom of the People" coins during his short reign after the death of Nero. She is usually portrayed with two accoutrements: the rod and the soft pileus, which she holds out, rather than wears.
In ancient Roman religion, Roma was a female deity who personified the city of Rome and more broadly, the Roman state. She embodied and idealised certain of Rome's ideas about itself, its advancement and its eventual domination of its neighbours. Roman political, moral and religious ideas were portrayed through Roma in different forms: coins, sculptures and architectural designs, even in official games and festivals but seldom in a commonplace or domestic context, as Roma was a construction of Roman state patronage. Though her depictions have been influenced by other goddesses at the time, such as Rome's Minerva, her Greek equivalent Athena and the various manifestations of Greek Tyches, Roma stands out as a symbol of "natural" dominance, with her promise of protection to those who obeyed or cooperated with her, and her "manly virtue" (virtus) as fierce mother of a warrior race.
Hellas may refer to:
There are related mythological figures named Porus or Poros in Greek classical literature.
In Greek mythology, Pontus was an ancient, pre-Olympian sea-god, one of the Greek primordial deities. Pontus was Gaia's son and has no father; according to the Greek poet Hesiod, he was born without coupling, though according to Hyginus, Pontus is the son of Aether and Gaia.
Personification occurs when a thing or abstraction is represented as a person, in literature or art, as an anthropomorphic metaphor. The type of personification discussed here excludes passing literary effects such as "Shadows hold their breath", and covers cases where a personification appears as a character in literature, or a human figure in art. The technical term for this, since ancient Greece, is prosopopoeia. In the arts many things are commonly personified. These include numerous types of places, especially cities, countries and the four continents, elements of the natural world such as the months or Four Seasons, Four Elements, Four Winds, Five Senses, and abstractions such as virtues, especially the four cardinal virtues and seven deadly sins, the nine Muses, or death.
In Greek mythology, Orseïs was the water-nymph (Naiad) of a spring in Thessalia, Greece, and the mythical ancestor of the Greeks. In some accounts, she was described as a mountain nymph (oread) of Mt. Othrys and named as Othryis.
In Greek mythology, Dysnomia was the daemon of "lawlessness", who shares her nature with Atë ("ruin"). She was a companion of the latter deity, Adikia (Injustice), and Hybris (Violence). Dysnomia makes a rare appearances among other personifications in poetical contexts that are marginal in ancient Greek religion but become central to Greek philosophy: see Plato's Laws.
Aidos was the Greek goddess of shame, modesty, respect, and humility. Aidos, as a quality, was that feeling of reverence or shame which restrains men from wrong. It also encompassed the emotion that a rich person might feel in the presence of the impoverished, that their disparity of wealth, whether a matter of luck or merit, was ultimately undeserved. Ancient and Christian humility share common themes: they both reject egotism, self-centeredness, arrogance, and excessive pride; they also recognize human limitations. Aristotle defined it as a middle ground between vanity and cowardice.
In Greek mythology, Adicia or Adikia was the goddess and personification of injustice and wrong-doing.
In Greek mythology, Eucleia or Eukleia was the female personification of glory and good repute.
Clothing in ancient Greece primarily consisted of the chiton, peplos, himation, and chlamys. Ancient Greek civilians typically wore two pieces of clothing draped about the body: an undergarment and a cloak.
Lady Justice is an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems. Her attributes are a blindfold, scales, and a sword. She often appears as a pair with Prudentia.
The status and characteristics of ancient and modern-day women in Greece evolved from the events that occurred in the history of Greece. According to Michael Scott, in his article "The Rise of Women in Ancient Greece", "place of women" and their achievements in ancient Greece was best described by Thucidydes in this quotation: that "The greatest glory [for women] is to be least talked about among men, whether in praise or blame." However, the status of Greek women has undergone charge and more advancement upon the onset of the twentieth century. In 1952, they received their right to vote, which led to their earning places and job positions in businesses and in the government of Greece; and they were able to maintain their right to inherit property, even after being married.
Emma Stafford is Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Leeds. Her work focuses on Heracles/Hercules and his reception.