Limos (;

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

: Λιμός means 'starvation'), Roman Fames , is the "sad" goddess or god of starvation, hunger and famine in

ancient Greek religion Religious practices in ancient Greece encompassed a collection of beliefs, rituals, and mythology, in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. The application of the modern concept of "religion" to ancient cultures has been ...

. They were opposed by

Demeter In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Demeter (; Attic: ''Dēmḗtēr'' ; Doric: ''Dāmā́tēr'') is the Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over crops, grains, food, and the fertility of the earth. Although s ...

, goddess of grain and the harvest with whom

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

wrote Limos could never meet, and Plutus, the god of wealth and the bounty of rich harvests.

Family

According to

Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...

's ''

Theogony The ''Theogony'' (, , , i.e. "the genealogy or birth of the gods") is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods, composed . It is written in the Epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 10 ...

'', Limos is the child of the goddess Eris ("Discord"), who was the daughter of

Nyx Nyx (; , , "Night") is the Greek goddess and personification of night. A shadowy figure, Nyx stood at or near the beginning of creation and mothered other personified deities, such as Hypnos (Sleep) and Thanatos (Death), with Erebus (Darknes ...

("Night"). Limos' siblings include Toil ( Ponos), Forgetfulness ( Lethe), Stories (Logoi), Lies (Pseudea), Oaths ( Horkos), Quarrels ( Neikea), Disputes ( Amphillogiai), Manslaughters ( Androktasiai), Battles ( Hysminai) and Wars ( Makhai), Anarchy ( Dysnomia), Pains ( Algea), and Ruin (

Ate Ate or ATE may refer to: Organizations * Active Training and Education Trust, a not-for-profit organization providing "Superweeks", holidays for children in the United Kingdom * Association of Technical Employees, a trade union, now called the Nat ...

). : And hateful Eris bore painful Ponos ("Hardship"), : Lethe ("Forgetfulness") and Limos ("Starvation") and the tearful Algea ("Pains"), : Hysminai ("Battles"), Makhai ("Wars"), Phonoi ("Murders"), and Androktasiai ("Manslaughters"); : Neikea ("Quarrels"), Pseudea ("Lies"), Logoi ("Stories"), Amphillogiai ("Disputes") : Dysnomia ("Anarchy") and Ate ("Ruin"), near one another, : and Horkos ("Oath"), who most afflicts men on earth, : Then willing swears a false oath.

Sex

The gender of Limos is not consistent in surviving literature. The gender of Limos seems to have varied depending on dialect, as it was feminine in

Doric Greek Doric or Dorian ( grc, Δωρισμός, Dōrismós), also known as West Greek, was a group of Ancient Greek dialects; its varieties are divided into the Doric proper and Northwest Doric subgroups. Doric was spoken in a vast area, that included ...

and masculine in

Attic Greek Attic Greek is the Greek language, Greek dialect of the regions of ancient Greece, ancient region of Attica, including the ''polis'' of classical Athens, Athens. Often called classical Greek, it was the prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige diale ...

, and accordingly was personified as a goddess in

Sparta Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referre ...

. In a temple of Apollo at Amyclae, near Sparta, Limos was presented with a woman's form. as she was in the temple of Athena Chalcioecus, in Sparta. Callimachus of Cyrene, who preserves one of the versions of Limos' only notable myth, has the deity as a male one.Hopkinson, p
135
/ref> What the gender of this deity would be to Homer is indeterminable. The Roman poets, who wrote in Latin, used the feminine noun ''Fames''.

Mythology

Sentinel of Hades

In Virgil's '' Aeneid'', Limos is one of a number of spirits and monsters said to stand at the entrance to the Underworld. Seneca the Younger writes that she "lies with wasted jaw" by Cocytus, the Underworld river of lamentation.

Virgil's account

Aeneas is guided by the Sibyl through the Underworld:

They walked exploring the unpeopled night,
Through Pluto's vacuous realms, and regions void,
As when one's path in dreary woodlands winds
Beneath a misty moon's deceiving ray,
When Jove has mantled all his heaven in shade,
And night seals up the beauty of the world.
In the first courts and entrances of Hell
Luctus/
Penthus In Greek mythology, Penthus (Πενθος) was the personification of grief. When Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label=Genitive case, genitive Aeolic Greek, Boeotian Aeolic and Doric Greek#Laconian, Laconian grc-dor, Δ� ...
(Sorrows) and vengeful Curae (Cares) on couches lie:
There sad Senectus/ Geras (Old Age) abides,
Morbus ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' is an American media franchise created by the comic book artists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It follows Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael, four anthropomorphic turtle brothers (named after ...
/ Nosos (Diseases) pale,
And Metus/
Deimos Deimos, a Greek word for ''dread'', may refer to: * Deimos (deity), one of the sons of Ares and Aphrodite in Greek mythology * Deimos (moon), the smaller and outermost of Mars' two natural satellites * Elecnor Deimos, a Spanish aerospace company * ...
(Fear), and Fames/ Limos (Hunger), temptress to all crime;
Egestas/ Aporia (Want), base and vile, and, two dread shapes to see,
Labor/ Ponos (Bondage) and Letum/ Thanatos (Death): then Sopor/ Hypnos (Sleep), Death's next of kin;
And Gaudia (Dreams of Guilty Joy). Death-dealing Bellum/ Polemos (War)
Is ever at the doors, and hard thereby
The Eumenides'/ Furies' beds of steel, where wild-eyed Discordia/ Eris (Strife)
Her snaky hair with blood-stained fillet binds.

Seneca's account

The foul pool of Cocytus' sluggish stream lies here;
here the vulture, there the dole-bringing owl utters its cry,
and the sad omen of the gruesome screech-owl sounds.
The leaves shudder, black with gloomy foliage
where sluggish Sopor/ Hypnos (Sleep) clings to the overhanging yew,
where sad Fames/ Limos (Hunger) lies with wasted jaws,
and
Pudor ''Modesty'' ( es, Pudor, links=no) is a 2007 Spanish drama film directed by David Ulloa and Tristán Ulloa, based on the novel by Santiago Roncagliolo. Its cast features Nancho Novo, Elvira Mínguez, Natalia Rodríguez Arroyo, Celso Bugallo, Caroli ...
/ Aedos (Shame), too late, hides her guilt-burdened face.
Metus/ Deimos (Dread) stalks there, gloomy Pavor/ Phobos (Fear) and gnashing Dolor/ Algos (Pain),
sable Luctus/ Penthus (Grief), tottering Morbus/ Nosos (Disease)
and iron-girt
Bella Bella is a feminine given name. It is a diminutive form of names ending in -bella. ''Bella'' is related to the Italian, Spanish, Greek, Portuguese and Latin words for beautiful, to the name Belle, meaning ''beautiful'' in French. It increased in ...
/ Enyo (War); and last of all slow
Senectus/ Geras (Old Age) supports his steps upon a staff.

King's punishment

In Ovid's '' Metamorphoses'', Limos is said to make her home in a freezing and gloomy wasteland at the farthest edge of Scythia, where the soil is barren and nothing grows. Demeter seeks her opposite's help there after being angered by the Thessalian king Erysichthon, who cut down a grove that was sacred to the goddess. By way of an oread nymph (as the two can never meet in person), Demeter bids Limos curse Erysichthon with never-ending hunger. The nymph beholds the fearsome spirit in a stony field:

Her hair was coarse, her face sallow, her eyes sunken; her lips crusted and white; her throat scaly with scurf. Her parchment skin revealed the bowels within; beneath her hollow loins jutted her withered hips; her sagging breasts seemed hardly fastened to her ribs; her stomach only a void; her joints wasted and huge, her knees like balls, her ankles grossly swollen.
Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
, '' Metamorphoses'' 8.791 ff.

Limos does as Demeter commands; at midnight she enters Erysichthon's chamber, wraps the king in her arms and breathes upon him, "filling with herself his mouth and throat and lungs, and hannelingthrough his hollow veins her craving emptiness". Thereafter, Erysichthon is filled with an unquenchable hunger which ultimately drives him to eat himself.

Notes

References

* Caldwell, Richard, ''Hesiod's Theogony'', Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company (June 1, 1987). . * Callimachus, ''Hymn to Demeter edited with an introduction and commentary by N. Hopkinson'', Cambridge University Press, 1984, . *

, ''Theogony'' from ''The Homeric Hymns and Homerica'' with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website
* Hodkinson, Stephen, and Anton Powell. 1999. ''Sparta: new perspectives''. London: Duckworth. . * Kilarski, Marcin, ''Nominal Classification: A History of its Study From the Classical pPeriod to the Present'',

John Benjamins Publishing Company John Benjamins Publishing Company is an independent academic publisher in social sciences and humanities with its head office in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The company was founded in the 1960s by John and Claire Benjamins and is currently managed ...

, 2013, . *

Lucius Annaeus Seneca Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (; 65 AD), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, dramatist, and, in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca was born in ...

, ''Tragedies''. Translated by Miller, Frank Justus. Loeb Classical Library Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1917
Online version at theio.com.
* Lucius Annaeus Seneca, ''Tragoediae''. Rudolf Peiper. Gustav Richter. Leipzig. Teubner. 1921
Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
*

Publius Ovidius Naso Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

, ''Metamorphoses'' translated by Brookes More (1859-1942). Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
* Publius Ovidius Naso, ''Metamorphoses.'' Hugo Magnus. Gotha (Germany). Friedr. Andr. Perthes. 1892
Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library
* Publius Vergilius Maro, ''Aeneid.'' Theodore C. Williams. trans. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
* Publius Vergilius Maro, ''Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics''. J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1900
Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library
* West, Martin, ''Theogony: Edited with Prolegomena and Commentary by M. L. West, 1966, Clarendon Press.

External links

LIMOS from the Theoi Project
{{Greek mythology (deities), state=collapsed Greek goddesses Personifications in Greek mythology Metamorphoses characters Greek gods Deeds of Demeter Children of Eris (mythology) Famines