Editing Nemesis (section)

==Local cult==
[[File:RO HD Sarmizegetusa Nemesis temple.jpg|thumb|right|Temple of Nemesis in [[Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa]]]]
A festival called '''Nemeseia''' (by some identified with the '''Genesia''') was held at [[Athens]]. Its object was to avert the nemesis of the dead, who were supposed to have the power of punishing the living, if their cult had been in any way neglected ([[Sophocles]], ''[[Electra (Sophocles)|Electra]],'' 792; [[E. Rohde]], ''Psyche,'' 1907, i. 236, note I).

===Rhamnous===
As the "Goddess of Rhamnous", Nemesis was honored and placated in an archaic sanctuary in the district of [[Rhamnous]], in northeastern [[Attica]]. There she was a daughter of [[Oceanus]], the primeval river-ocean that encircles the world. [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] noted her iconic statue there. It included a crown of stags and little [[Nike (mythology)|Nikes]] and was made by [[Pheidias]] after the [[Battle of Marathon]] (490 BC), crafted from a block of [[Parian marble]] brought by the overconfident Persians, who had intended to make a memorial [[stele]] after their expected victory.<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], ''[[Description of Greece]]'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D33%3Asection%3D2 1.33.2–3].</ref>

===Smyrna===
At [[Smyrna]], there were two manifestations of Nemesis, more akin to [[Aphrodite]] than to Artemis. The reason for this duality is hard to explain. It is suggested that they represent two aspects of the goddess, the kindly and the implacable, or the goddesses of the old city and the new city refounded by Alexander. The martyrology ''Acts of [[Pionius]]'', set in the "[[Decius|Decian persecution]]" of AD 250–51, mentions a lapsed Smyrnan Christian who was attending to the sacrifices at the altar of the temple of these Nemeses.

===Rome===
[[File:HadrianNemesis.jpg|thumb|''Nemesis'' on a brass [[sestertius]] of [[Hadrian]], struck at [[Rome]] AD 136]]
Nemesis was one of several [[tutelary deity|tutelary deities]] of the drill-ground (as ''Nemesis campestris''). Modern scholarship offers little support for the once-prevalent notion that arena personnel such as [[gladiator]]s, ''venatores'' and ''bestiarii'' were personally or professionally dedicated to her cult. Rather, she seems to have represented a kind of "Imperial [[Fortuna]]" who dispensed Imperial retribution on the one hand, and Imperially subsidized gifts on the other; both were functions of the popular gladiatorial [[Ludi]] held in Roman arenas.<ref>Nemesis, her devotees and her place in the Roman world are fully discussed, with examples, in Hornum, Michael B., ''Nemesis, the Roman state and the games'', Brill, 1993.</ref> She is shown on a few examples of Imperial coinage as ''Nemesis-Pax'', mainly under [[Claudius]] and [[Hadrian]]. In the third century AD, there is evidence of the belief in an all-powerful ''Nemesis-Fortuna''. She was worshipped by a society called Hadrian's freedmen.

[[Ammianus Marcellinus]] includes her in a digression on Justice following his description of the death of [[Constantius Gallus|Gallus Caesar]].<ref name="auto">Ammianus Marcellinus 14.11.25</ref>