A To Z Blogging Challenge - V Is For Victory, Goddess of...

Nike. Fair use.

Okay, so I have had to cheat a bit on this one. The goddess’s name is Nike, but she is the goddess of Victory and, now I think of it, her Roman name is Victoria, so it works after all. 

Although she was strictly a virgin like Athene(with whom she hangs out in sculpture) and Artemis, Nike was a very popular goddess, one you would really want on your side. Think about it.

She had wings, and was the daughter of Pallas and the nymph Styx. Pallas was a Titan, father of Nike and three strong boys, Zelus, Kratos and Bia. Styx was the goddess of the river of the Underworld. Oh, and these two had one more daughter, Scylla - yes, that Scylla, who ended up as a scary monster. So Nike was her sister, much more successful than poor Scylla. 

When Zeus was getting ready to take on the Titans ruling the world, Styx brought along Nike and her three boys, to offer him as helpers. 

Nike’s wings came in handy for fluttering around the battlefield handing out laurel wreaths, but she also drove Zeus’s chariot. Nice to see a woman doing the driving.

The image of her has been a big thing over the centuries. The Winged Victory of Samothrace, which was sculpted in about the third century BCE and is now in the Louvre, was probably created to celebrate a naval victory. A pity the head and one arm are missing because it’s a stunning work, of a young woman flying joyously upwards. 

Winged Victory. Fair Use

I’m quite sure it’s not for nothing that there is a brand of running shoes named for her, implying “If you want to win that race, wear these!” Nike was an amazing runner.

In fact, she was a general symbol of victory, including in athletics, often shown holding a palm leaf over winners.

There is a statue of Athene holding a small winged Nike, and a temple of Athene Nike on the Acropolis in Athens, with a wall that had a frieze of winged Nike images. 

As Victoria, in Rome, she was much bigger than in Greece, with temples and a statue of her that was removed by the Emperor in late fourth century Rome, infuriating her worshippers, including, no doubt, the generals who sacrificed to her when returning from a successful war.

A pity that her name now is associated with a brand of shoe; anyone who hasn’t heard the myth will likely think of that first. 

Tomorrow I will be telling you about my favourite Trojan War novel, Whom The Gods Would Destroy by Richard Powell.