Ate (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Ate is the personification of moral blindness and error. She could blind the mind of both gods and men, leading them astray. Ate was banished from Olympus by Zeus for blinding him to Hera's trickery denying Heracles his birthright. Homer calls Ate the daughter of Zeus, while Hesiod has Ate as the daughter of Eris.
Personification
Like all the children of Eris, Ate is a personified abstraction, allegorizing the meaning of her name, and represents one of the many harms which might be thought to result from discord and strife. The meaning of her name, the Greek word atē, is difficult to define. Atē is a verbal noun of the verb aáō. According to The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, aáō means to "lead astray", "befuddle", "blind", or "delude", while ἄτη can mean: the state of "delusion, infatuation ", "reckless behavior... recklessness, folly", and "ruin, calamity, harm". As informed by the meanings and usage of the unpersonified atē, personified Ate can apparently represent any part of the causal sequence: a blinding or clouding of the mind—causing ill-considered and reckless actions—causing the ruin such actions entail. She is thought of as being the instigator of delusion and its resulting destruction.Mythology
Beyond being a mere personification, Ate has little actual identity. In the Iliad, Agamemnon, the leader of Greek expedition against Troy, tells the story of Ate's deception of Zeus, and her subsequent banishment from Olympus, an etiological myth supposedly explaining how Ate entered the world of men. As told by Agamemnon, Hera tricked Zeus into swearing an oath that resulted in Zeus' son Heracles losing the birthright Zeus had intended for him. Zeus blamed Ate for clouding his mind causing him not to see Hera's deception. In great anger Zeus grabbed Ate by the hair and flung her from Mount Olympus, and thereby Ate came to inhabit the "fields of men". According to the mythographer Apollodorus, when Ate was thrown down by Zeus, Ate landed in Phrygia at a place called "the hill of the Phrygian Ate", where the city of Troy was founded. The Hellenistic poet Lycophron, in his Alexandra, also mentions the place calling it "the high Hill of Doom ".Family
's Iliad calls Ate the eldest daughter of Zeus, with no mother mentioned. However, Hesiod's Theogony has Ate as one of the several children of Eris, with no father mentioned. Her siblings include her brothers Horkos, and the Machai, and sisters Limos, and Dysnomia. Aeschylus, in his tragedy Agamemnon, has the Chorus call Peitho "the unendurable child of scheming Ruin ".Zeus
Ate is closely associated with Zeus. In the Iliad, Ate is called the "eldest" daughter of Zeus, an apparent indication of her power and her importance to Zeus. Ate is often referred to as the agent of Zeus' divine retribution. In the Iliad, Zeus is begged to send Ate so that the denier of "Prayers... may fall and pay full recompense." Although Agamemnon blames Ate for blinding him, he also says that it was Zeus who robbed him of his senses. According to Hesiod, Zeus never sends war, nor famine, nor "calamity " to those who honor Justice, while Solon says that "Zeus sends to punish" men.Ate also appears as an agent of Zeus' justice in Aeschylus's tragic trilogy the Oresteia. In Agamemnon, the first play of the trilogy, Ate is linked with Helen of Troy, and Agamemnon's wife Clytemnestra, both of whom act as agents of Zeus' retribution. Helen, who plays an instrumental role in Zeus' punishment of Troy, is likened to a "priest" of Ate, while Clytemnestra, who, by killing Agamemnon, is the direct instrument of Zeus' punishment, says that she did so with the aid of "Ruin ". In the Libation Bearers, the second play of the Oresteia, Aeschylus describes Zeus as one who sends Ate to avenge "reckless human violence!"
Ancient Greek sources
Personified Ate occurs several times in Greek literature, from the Archaic through the Classical periods.Homer
In Homer, atē is something inflicted by the gods; it causes delusion, then folly, then disaster. Ate, as the personification of atē, receives its fullest development in Homer's Iliad, his epic poem about the Trojan War. However, to what extent Homer may have considered Ate to be an actual divinity as opposed to a mere allegory is unclear. The references to the goddess in the Iliad revolve around Agamemnon's folly in having robbed Achilles, the Greeks greatest warrior, of his war prize, the slave Briseis, and Achilles' subsequent refusal to fight, which brought the Greeks to the brink of defeat. While the concept of atē is a central theme in the Iliad, occurring many times, Ate, as the personification of atē, is explicitly found in just two speeches, one in Book 9, and the other in Book 19.Allegory of the Prayers
During the embassy to Achilles in Book 9, Achilles' old tutor Phoenix, trying to persuade Achilles to accept Agamemnon's offer of reparations, and return to battle, tells the following parable in which the "fleet of foot" Ate outruns "halting" Prayers:In this allegory, Ate appears twice. First Ate causes damage to human beings. Then Prayers follow after Ate to repair her damage. But if the repair offered by Prayers is rejected then Ate appears again as the punishment for such rejections. Ate both runs in front of Prayers, and when Prayers are refused, Ate also follows close behind. These two appearances can also be seen as examples of the Homeric Ate's dual role, as both cause and effect. Here Ate is both the cause of the original offense, and the disastrous consequences which would follow from Achilles' refusal of Agamemnon's attempt to make amends.
Agamemnon's apology
In Book 19, Agamemnon attempts to excuse himself for having taken Briseis from Achilles, by blaming the "accursed" Ate for blinding his mind:Phoenix's speech in Book 9 and Agamemnon's in Book 19 reveal different aspects of Ate's nature. The first emphasizes Ate's strength and speed, and her use by Zeus to punish. The second describes Ate's soft feet, walking not on the ground, but above the "heads of men", where, apparently unnoticed, she brings "men to harm".
To further excuse his conduct, Agamemnon tells the story—as an illustration of Ate's great power—of how:
According to Agamemnon, when Alcmene was about to give birth to Zeus's son Heracles, Zeus, in his great pride, boasted that on that day would be born a man, of Zeus's blood, who would be king of the Argives. But Hera tricked Zeus into swearing an unbreakable oath such that whatever man, of Zeus's blood, born that day would be king. Then Hera delayed the birth of Heracles, and caused Eurystheus, the great-grandson of Zeus, to be born prematurely, and thus Heracles lost the birthright Zeus had intended for him. Zeus blamed Ate for blinding him to Hera's trickery. As punishment, an enraged Zeus:
Hesiod
presented Ate as one of the several offspring of Eris, all of whom were personifications representing some of the many harms which can arise out of discord and strife. Hesiod particular associates Ate with her sister Dysnomia. While listing the children of Eris, he lists both on the same line of his Theogony and says they are "much like one another".In a passage in his Works and Days, Hesiod describes various relationships between several personifications, including Ate. The passage, which discusses the superiority of Dike over Hybris, also mentions Eirene, who attends those who "heed" Dike, and Ate's brother Horkos, who "runs along side crooked judgements". In particular Hesiod associates Ate with "war", which might refer to Ate's brothers, the Machai, and her sister Limos as all being punishments for those who "foster" Hybris:
Aeschylus
Among the tragic poets, the use of atē and Ate is somewhat different than it is in the Iliad. In both Homer and tragedy, atē can be used to mean the original delusion as well as the resulting destruction. However, while Homer was more focused on the former, tragedy became more focused on the latter. In tragedy, atē came to be less associated with internal damage: a damaged mind, and more with external damage: ruin, disaster, destruction. Here, Ate can be seen as an avenger of evil actions and a just punisher of evil actors, similar to Nemesis and the Erinyes.Ate was particularly prominent in the plays of Aeschylus, and less so in the later tragedians such as Euripides, where the idea of Dike becomes more fully developed. Personified Ate appears several times in Aeschylus' tragedy Agamemnon, where she is called "scheming", and made the mother of an "unendurable child", the "miserable" Peitho. Aeschylus also associates Ate with divine retribution: Zeus' punishment inflicted on Troy for Paris's abduction of Helen. In a long speech about Helen, the Chorus likens her to a lion cub raised as a loved and loving pet which ends up savagely killing those who raised it, the cub being reared, by divine intent, as a "priest" of Ate. The Chorus goes on to describe Ate as:
In the final scene of the play, Clytemnestra, with bloody sword and clothes, emerges from the palace to reveal that she has killed her husband Agamemnon, in retribution for his having killed their daughter Iphigenia. She describes her act as the "Justice" due for the killing of Iphigenia, and that she was aided by "Ruin" and "Fury" .
In Aeschylus's Libation Bearers, Ate is explicitly said to be the agent of Zeus' justice:
Ate also occurs twice in Aeschylus' Persians. At the beginning of the play, the Chorus of Persian elders voice their foreboding on their war with Greece:
Ate here represents both cause and effect. She begins by deceiving and misleading mortals, and ends by the mortals being caught in her inescapable net. While, at the end of the play, Aeschylus returns to his typical focus of Ate as disastrous consequence, having the Chorus lament their devastating defeat: "What an evil eye Ruin has cast upon us!"
At the end of the battle in Aeschylus's Seven Against Thebes, Ate's "trophy" stands at the gate of Thebes where both of Orestes' sons have died killing each other in battle, representing the final victory of the "powers of destruction" over the cursed House of Laius.