Ananke

In ancient Greek religion, Ananke, from the common noun ("force, constraint, necessity"), is the personification of inevitability, compulsion and necessity. She is customarily depicted as holding a spindle. One of the Greek primordial deities, the births of Ananke and her brother and consort, Chronos (the personification of time, not to be confused with the Titan Cronus), were thought to mark the division between the eon of Chaos and the beginning of the cosmos. Ananke is considered the most powerful dictator of fate and circumstance. Mortals and gods alike respected her power and paid her homage. Sometimes considered the mother of the Fates, she is thought to be the only being to influence their decisions (according to some sources, excepting Zeus also). According to Daniel Schowalter and Steven Friesen, she and the Fates "are all sufficiently tied to early Greek mythology to make their Greek origins likely." The ancient Greek traveller Pausanias wrote of a temple in ancient Corinth where the goddesses Ananke and Bia (meaning force, violence or violent haste) were worshiped together in the same shrine. Ananke is also frequently identified or associated with Aphrodite, especially Aphrodite Urania, the representation of abstract celestial love; the two were considered to be related, as relatively unanthropomorphised powers that dictated the course of life. Her Roman counterpart is Necessitas ("necessity"). Etymology "Ananke" is derived from the common Ancient Greek noun (Ionic: ), meaning "force, constraint or necessity." The common noun itself is of uncertain etymology. Homer refers to her being as necessity, often abstracted in modern translation (, "it is necessary to fight") or force (, "by force"). In Ancient Greek literature the word is also used meaning "fate" or "destiny" (, "fate by the daemons or by the gods"), and by extension "compulsion or torture by a superior." She appears often in poetry, as Simonides does: "Even the gods don't fight against ananke". The pre-modern is carried over and translated (by reduction) into a more modern philosophical sense as "necessity", "logical necessity", or "laws of nature".