Online Encyclopedia

NECESSITAS (Gr. 'Avery Ktj )

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Originally appearing in Volume V19, Page 335 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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NECESSITAS (Gr. 'Avery Ktj )  , in Orphic
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theology, the personification of absolute necessity . She appears as the
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mother of the Moerae (Fates), as the wife of Demiurgus (Fashioner of the
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World) and mother of Heimarmene (Destiny) . Her power is irresistible, even greater than that of the gods; to her was due the strife (battles with Titans, Giants) that raged amongst them of old, before the
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rule of love began; the world revolves round the spindle, which she holds in her
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lap . According to the
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Egyptian theory, she is one of the four deities
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present at the birth of every human being, her companions being the Daemon (
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guardian spirit), Tyche (Fortune) and
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Eros . On the citadel of Corinth there was a temple sacred to her and Bia (Violence), which none were permitted to enter . The
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Roman Necessitas is represented in the well-known ode of Horace (i . 35) as the fore-runner and companion of Fortuna, holding in her brazen hand huge nails, a clamp and molten lead, symbolical of fixedness and tenacity . See
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Plato, Rep . 616 c, Symp . 195 c, 197 B; Macrobius, Saturnalia, I . 19;
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Pausanias ii . 4 .

End of Article: NECESSITAS (Gr. 'Avery Ktj )
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