"Eunomia is extremely popular in Greek literature (Rudhardt, 1999: 97-104; Ostwald, 1969: 62-65). Her earliest appearance is as one of the Horai (Seasons), along with Dike and Eirene, in Hesiodos’ Theogonia (901-902). While several fifth century lyric poets followed this genealogy (Bakkhylides 14.59; Pindaros, Olympionike 9.22-24, 13.6-8), in the sixth century, Alkmanos referred to Eunomia (along with Peitho and Tykhe) as the daughter of Promatheia (Forethought) (Alkmanos fr. 64 Davies, PMGF). The noun eunomia, εὐνομία, stems from the verb εὐνομέομαι, meaning to have good laws (LSJ9 s.v. εὐνομέομαι; Rosler 2005, 233-236). Eunomia refers not just to the condition of having good laws, but adherence to those laws. In Sophokles’ Aias, for example, eunomia means loyalty to divine law (Sophokles, Aias 713; see also Homeros, Odysseia 487). In the seventh century, the elegiac poet Tyrtaios of Sparta connected this divine law with human law, when he eulogised eunomia as the divine right by which kings rule (Tyrtaios frs. 1-4 West, IE2).

In a democratic polis, such as Athens, eunomia also refers to the citizen’s obeisance to the laws (nomos), which creates good order (Ostwald, 1969: 62-65; Andrewes, 1938: 90). At the beginning of the sixth century, the Athenian statesman Solon (fr. 4.31-38 West, IE2) eulogised Eunomia as a civic virtue: My soul calls on me to teach these things to the Athenians: that Disnomia (Lawlessness) brings countless evils to the city, while Eunomia makes all things appear well ordered and proper, and often locks up the feet of criminals. She softens the rough, shrinks excess, lessens pride, withers the budding flowers of sin, sets straight crooked judgments, and soothes the actions of the arrogant. She shrinks the effects of discord and the troubling wrath of quarrel; it is through her that all affairs of men are proper and prudent.

Perhaps as a result of her Spartan roots, eunomia retained an aristocratic connotation at Athens. Pindaros invoked her as the guardian of Aitna (Pindaros, Nemeonike 9.29) , Korinthos (Olympionike 13.6), Opos (Olympionike 9.16, where Eunomia Soteira [Saviour] is connected with Themis), and Aigina (Isthmionike 5.22), all cities in which oligarchic systems prevailed. The fifth century Athenian conception of aristocratic eunomia as the opposite of democratic isonomia (equality of rights: Raaflaub, 1996) may have also derived from Eunomia’s monarchical Spartan background, through the influence of the pro-Spartan oligarchs at Athens (Ostwald, 1969: 65). … Yet the role of Eunomia as a virtue that gave rise to civic prosperity is equally applicable to monarchic and democratic poleis. This nonpartisan virtue is invoked in the 7th-century Hymnos Homerikos eis Gen (30.11-15): Such men with Eunomia command a city of beautiful women. Much prosperity and Ploutos (Wealth) accompany them; their sons bear themselves proudly with youthful joy; and their daughters, with cheerful hearts in blossoming dances, play and frisk over soft flowers.In the early fifth century Bakkhylides said that Eunomia received Thaleia (Bounty) as her lot (Bakkhylides 13.186-187).

Not surprisingly, it is this prosperous Eunomia who is found on Meidian vases. On a squat lekythos, once in Paris, VP 43, dated to the last decade of the fifth century, Eunomia is actually shown with Thaleia. The hope for prosperity and other joys that come with good order is also reflected in Meidian vase paintings that picture Eunomia with Eudaimonia or Eutykhia (both of whom represent Prosperity) as well as Paidia (Play): … One might have expected Eunomia, who brings prosperity, to have been connected here with Eirene (Peace) and Opora (Harvest), personifications of (agricultural) prosperity in the circle of Dionysos. Hesiodos had joined Eunomia and Eirene together as Horai, along with Dike (Hesiodos, Theogonia 901-902). … Eunomia and Eirene never appear together, however, in the last quarter of the fifth century. In the fourth century, however, Eunomia and Dike shared an altar with Aidos (Reverence) (Pseudo-Demosthenes 25.35). The law court speech that mentions this altar emphasises Eunomia’s importance to the polis: “You must magnify Eunomia who loves what is right and preserves every city and every land” (Pseudo-Demosthenes 25.10-11). This speech is, in fact, the earliest evidence for the cult of Eunomia at Athens."

- Polis and personification in classical Athenian art by Amy C. Smith

"Eukleia represents the personal qualities that brought a person a good reputation, as well as the reputation itself. Mythic genealogies for her come late: Ploutarkhos (Aristides 20.5) mentions she was the child of Herakles and Myrto, but Euripides notes that Ponos (Labour) was her father (fr. 474 N2): … In earlier Greek literature, eukleia refers to the glory and fame that results from military victories (Homeros, Ilias 8.285 and Odysseia 14.402). Eukleia’s meaning as the good reputation of private individuals becomes more prominent in the literature of the second half of the fifth century, and is particularly prominent in the works of Euripides (for eukleia in Hippolytos see Braund, 1980: 84-85). She is personified in Classical Athenian literature to the degree that she owns, holds, or bestows a wreath or crown, as in Sophokles’ Aias (462-465), produced in 442 or 441, when Aias bemoans his bad fortune: And how shall I present myself and appear to the eye of my father, Telamon? How will he bear it when he sees me naked, without the prize of the best and the bravest, for which he himself held the great crown of Eukleia? Sophokles’ ‘crown of Eukleia’ (στέφανος εὐκλείας), also worn by Theseus (Euripides, Hiketides 315), is recalled in the words of Bakkhylides, who calls Eukleia’ φιλοστεφάνος, ‘lover of the wreath’ (Bakkhylides, Epinikoi 13.183; see also Bakkhylides, Epinikoi 1.184 and Dithyramboi 15.54; and Pindaros, Isthmionike 5.22). With or without a wreath, Eukleia could bestow a good reputation on someone, through birth and/or marriage, as well as victory. In regard to ancestry, eukleia therefore takes on aristocratic connotations (Metzler, 1980). She was involved in marriage preparations, at least in Boiotia, Athens’ neighbour and long-term rival, where she was worshipped as an epithet of Artemis (Shapiro, 72 chapter six 1993: 70-78; Kossatz-Deissmann, 1988c). Ploutarkhos notes that Artemis Eukleia had an altar in each Boiotian marketplace (see also Sophokles, Oidipous Tyrannos 161; Schachter, 1981: 102), and that boys and girls who had become engaged would make sacrifices to Eukleia in preparation for their weddings (Ploutarkhos, Aristides 20.5-6)."

- Polis and personification in classical Athenian art by Amy C. Smith

Greek cults of deified abstractions - UCL Discovery

“The comparative mythologists of the second half of the nineteenth century expended extraordinary energy and learning on the attempt to reduce, or , as they thought, elevate, the Greek gods to natural forces or phenomena: Zeus was the sky, Hermes the winds, Athena the rosy bloom of the sky before dawn, and so on. Early man worshipped nature, they thought, because the majesty of nature brought him closer than anything else to an experience of the absolute. We smile now at their efforts, and have done ever since L. R. Farnell observed that they reduced Greek mythology to "highly figurative conversation about the weather." But it is in fact the case that Greeks paid cult to such natural forces as rivers and winds, not heavily disguised as mythological deities but under their own names. . . .

Like the nymphs, major gods could be manifested through and as natural forces, though not as them alone. "Zeus rains", "the god rains", and "it rains" are interchangeable forms of expression, and Zeus both hurls and is the thunderbolt, "thundering Zeus", or "Zeus Thunderbolt" or "Zeus who comes down" (Zeus Kataibates) and many other such titles; As "the cloud-gatherer" he perches on the peak of most major mountains. The line between the god as the cause of a natural phenomenon and as the natural phenomenon itself is a fine one doubtless not worth agonizing over. Poseidon, strictly speaking, is perhaps the cause of storms at sea, not the storm itself, but, were there a single physical manifestation of the storm analogous to the lightning bolt, Poseidon would also be that; he also caused earthquakes. Other gods have a non-personal substratum of a different type: when the sophist Prodicus announced that Demeter was grain and Dionysus wine, he was only giving one-sided expression to general perception (but Demeter was also identified with earth, while several terms in common use for sexual intercourse derive directly from the name Aphrodite). On the other hand, the association of Apollo and Artemis with natural phenomena is secondary (if we disallow their early roles as senders of, respectively, plague and death in childbed), and Hermes, Athena, and Hera have none. The identifications of Apollo with the sun and Artemis with the moon that begin in the fifth century can be taken, at most, as indicating a potentiality inherent in the Greek conception of deity, a shape into which a god could be molded. Conversely, sun and moon received no significant worship in early Greece.

So much for the divine as manifested in the world of nature. But these physically based gods consorted cheerfully with others whom we would describe—it is, however, important that the description is ours, not theirs—as personifications of abstract qualities or ideas. Greek art and literature (starting with Hesiod’s Theogony) is full, not just of rivers and sea nymphs and so on, but also of groups such as Graces and Seasons and Destinies and individuals such as Love (Eros), Persuasion, Fair Fame, Peace, Strife, Fear, Blind Madness, Rumor, and many others. Substantial numbers of these figures acquired some role in cult, if usually in a small way, and though positive (Health, Peace, Concord) or neutral (Persuasion) qualities were normally chosen, the admiral of Philip V who established altars to Impiety and Lawlessness wherever he landed was working within the idiom; the list of such cults that can be established for Sparta, apparently a special case, includes Death, Laughter, and Hunger. A few quotations may help to illuminate the world of thought. Hesiod writes that “no rumor ever perishes that many men speak; she too is a goddess”; Themistocles sought to extort money from the Andrians, backed by what he called “two great gods, Persuasion and Compulsion,” but was told that, since two useless gods never left their island, Poverty and Helplessness, they could not pay; while expressions such as “to recognize one’s friends is a god” or “[if you are moved by shame], you will achieve nothing: that goddess is ineffectual” are quite common in tragedy. All the forces that are powerful within human life are in a sense divine; in Wilamowitz’s famous formula, “god” is a predicate, a special power recognized in certain phenomena.

In cult, the personifications tend to be tucked in with major deities, Persuasion, for instance, with Aphrodite or Health with Asclepius or Virtue (Arete) with Heracles, just as in poetry and genealogy they are often born of a major god or appear in his or her train. They thus extend or clarify the scope of a major divine figure, in a way somewhat comparable to the cult epithet system; sometimes they become epithets, as in Athena Victory or Aphrodite Persuasion. But figures such as the Graces and Eros can stand on their own; they are indeed such familiar components of Greek cult that we tend to forget that they are abstractions no less than is, say, the goddess Democracy. And the cult of Nemesis at Rhamnus in Attica is a remarkable example of a major freestanding cult of an abstract quality, “Righteous Anger/Indignation”; Themis, “Divinely Sanctioned Order,” may have had similar prominence in Thessaly.”

 - On Greek Religion, by Robert Parker

“A handful of personifications, however, are more fully realized within epic poetry and also appear in art. Archaic art lags a little behind literature in its portrayal of (recognizable) personifications because the practice of inscribing characters’ names does not become widespread until the late seventh century. The earliest personified figures to be identified in this way are those on the Chest of Cypselus, an extraordinarily ornate cedar-wood chest decorated with carving and inlaid ivory and gold which was made around 600 BC. This is preserved for us in Pausanias’ detailed description (5.17.5–19.10) and provides a directory of the most popular mythological characters of the time, which include a number of personifications. Night holds the children Sleep and Death, one white and one black, asleep in her arms; Justice is a beautiful woman throttling and beating the ugly Injustice; Strife, ‘‘most ugly in appearance,’’ stands between the dueling Hector and Ajax; Fear, ‘‘with a lion’s head,’’ appears on the shield of Agamemnon. All of these figures can also be seen in extant vase-painting of the later sixth century. Most frequently depicted are Sleep and his brother Death, in a scene inspired by their role in Iliad 16, where they are tasked to carry the hero Sarpedon’s body home to Lycia. The character of Sleep (Hypnos) is more fully developed in Iliad 14 (231–90, 352–62), when Hera visits him on Lemnos to seek his assistance in her plot to distract Zeus’ attention while she helps the Greeks: Sleep is initially reluctant, because he only narrowly avoided Zeus’ wrath when he helped on a previous occasion, but, though unmoved by Hera’s initial bribe of a golden throne, he is won over by her offer of marriage to one of the Graces. This highly personalized figure bears comparison with Hesiod’s Sleep, child of Night, who shares a dark home with his brother Death (Theogony 211–12, 755–66). The evidence for Sleep actually being worshiped is thinly scattered and mostly of hellenistic or later date, but the substantialness of the character established by Homer and Hesiod and reflected in art shows that he can already be conceived of as a fully personalized god in the archaic period.

Progression from a minor role in epic and archaic art to later cult status can be further demonstrated in the cases of Fear (Phobos) and of Youth (Hebe). We have already touched on Fear as a participant in battle, but elsewhere in the Iliad he very briefly takes on a more substantial character as ‘‘dear son’’ of Ares (13.299), whose chariot he and Terror yoke at the war-god’s command (15.119–20). The two brothers become Ares’ actual charioteers in the sixth-century poem the Shield of Heracles (463–5), when the god goes into battle against Heracles to avenge the death of his son Kyknos. Fear (alone) is identified by an inscription as Ares’ charioteer in this context on an Attic black-figure oinochoe of 540–530 BC attributed to Lydos (Berlin F1732), on analogy with which he can be recognized in half a dozen more versions of the scene from the last third of the sixth century. Fear completely vanishes from the visual arts after this, but is certainly attested as a figure of cult around 450 BC, when he is one of the gods thanked in an inscription from Selinous (IG xiv 268) for victory in battle, and sacrifices to Fear on the eve of a battle are mentioned, for example, by Plutarch (Theseus 27; Alexander 31). The same author attests a sanctuary of Fear at Sparta, commenting that the Spartans had established it ‘‘near to the ephors’ dining room, when they elevated this office nearly as high as a monarchy’’ (Cleomenes 9), which helps to date the cult as early as the mid-sixth century.

A sixth-century date could also be suggested for the cult of Youth, though the evidence is not conclusive. Like Fear, she has Olympian parentage, as daughter of Zeus and Hera, and she plays a minor part in the Iliad, performing such menial tasks on Olympus as pouring nectar, preparing Hera’s chariot, and bathing the wounded Ares (Iliad 4.2–3, 5.722, 5.905). She acquires a more significant role, however, when she becomes part of Heracles’ story as the wife with whom ‘‘he lives happily in the fine seat of snowy Olympus’’ after completing his labors (Homeric Hymn 15.7–8). There is some debate over the earliest literary attestations of the story, but the marriage is unambiguously depicted in art from ca. 600 BC, with examples from Paros and Samos, as well as the Peloponnese and Attica, demonstrating the wide dissemination of the story during the first half of the sixth century. There is later evidence for Youth’s presence in the cult of Heracles and his family in Attica: she had an altar in Heracles’ sanctuary at Cynosarges (Pausanias 1.19.3), while the main sanctuary of the deme of Aixone was dedicated to Youth, with a priest of the Children of Heracles, a priestess of Youth and Alcmene, and a sacrifice for Youth ‘‘and the other gods’’ (Jameson 2005:18–19). A good case can also be made for rituals celebrating Heracles’ and Youth’s hieros gamos (‘‘sacred marriage’’) at Thespiae in Boeotia and on the island of Kos, where the sanctuary they shared with Hera was used for human wedding celebrations. The one area where Youth appears independently of Heracles in cult is the Argolid. In the Argive Heraion, the chryselephantine statue of Hera by the fifth-century sculptor Polyclitus was accompanied by a statue of Youth by his pupil Naukydes, ‘‘this too of gold and ivory’’ (Pausanias 2.17.5); the costly materials involved suggest that Youth had an important role in the sanctuary. A cult of Youth alone, which certainly sounds ancient, is also attested for nearby Phlious. Pausanias (2.13.3–4) describes a grove of cypress trees on the acropolis, ‘‘and a very holy sanctuary of ancient date’’ belonging to a goddess whom ‘‘the most ancient people of Phlious’’ used to call Ganymeda but was later called Youth. The sanctuary functioned as a place of asylum, released prisoners dedicated their shackles by hanging them from the cypress trees, and there was an annual festival called ‘‘Ivy-Cutters’’ (Kissotomoi).”

 - Emma Stafford, Personification in Greek Religious Thought and Practice

“Anthropomorphism is a fundamental characteristic of the Greek pantheon: in both literature and art the Olympian gods are consistently represented as human in form, with human emotions and character traits. In this context it makes sense that the human form should have served as the standard vehicle for representing anything felt to have the slightest claim to divine power. What is striking is the range of things this includes: celestial phenomena, places, divisions of time, states of the body, emotions, abstract qualities, and political concepts. Personifications of all these types can be found in literature from Homer onwards, and in art they are clearly recognizable from at least the beginning of the sixth century; some make only brief appearances, as one-off creations of poet or painter to suit a particular purpose, but others can be found in a variety of contexts, suggesting that they were widely recognized. The fact that these figures are often represented in the company of Olympian gods, and exercising power over mortals, shows that they were held to embody some level of divine power. In a number of cases, however, we can be quite sure of a personification’s divine status, because we have evidence that she (or he) was in receipt of prayers, dedications, even sacrifices – exactly the same elements which constitute worship of the Olympian gods. ......

We cannot trace the history of personification in Greece before the advent of epic poetry in the late eighth century BC, but there is precedent for the phenomenon in earlier eastern Mediterranean cultures. Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hittite texts inform us of personifications of Order and Right, companions of the great sun-god Shamash; in Egypt, Order is daughter of the sun-god Ra; the major Indo-Iranian god Mithras is Treaty or Contract personified; Zarathustra, the high god of Zoroastrianism, is supported by six powers who personify Good Sense, Truth, Sovereignty, Order, Health, and Immortality. The many personifications which appear in Hesiod’s Theogony are, therefore, further witness to the eastern influences on the poem discussed earlier in this volume. Hesiod’s cosmogony gives a fundamental role to Eros, personification of the generative principle which drives the entire poem, and to Earth, who bears first Heaven and then, with him as consort, the first generation of gods. A whole host of elements of the natural world appear mixed in with the divine family, personified by their place in the genealogy: Hills, Ocean, two dozen named rivers, the Sun, the Moon, Dawn, Night and Day, various winds and stars. A number of abstract qualities are also included: Destiny, Doom, Dreams, Blame, Woe, Indignation, Deceit, Affection, Old Age, and Strife; Suffering, Forgetfulness, Hunger, Pain, Combat, Battles, Murder, Manslaughter, Quarrels, Lies, Disputes, Lawlessness, Folly, and Oath; Persuasion, Fortune, Emulation, Victory, Strength, and Force. A few even play a slightly more substantial role as consorts to Zeus: Cunning thus becomes mother of Athene, and Memory mother of the Muses. Personifications also appear in Homer’s works, often in contexts where the poet can exploit the ambiguity between abstraction and personification, as when Terror, Fear, and Strife take to the battlefield (Iliad 4.440–3). That Homer is quite capable of inventing personifications for didactic purposes is clear from the allegory of Folly and Prayers (Iliad 9.502–12) which Phoenix uses in his attempt to persuade Achilles to be reconciled with Agamemnon. In the Works and Days (11–24) Hesiod likewise can introduce the good Strife – something like ‘‘Competition’’ or ‘‘Ambition’’ – purely as a rhetorical device to support the argument that his brother Perses should work harder. It must often remain debatable, then, whether any one of Homer’s or Hesiod’s personifications is a ‘‘proper’’ god or simply a literary device invented to fill a genealogical gap or to make a point.”

 - Emma Stafford, Personification in Greek Religious Thought and Practice, in A Companion to Greek Religion