Source Verification: Themis
Every claim below is either what a named ancient source attests, in its own line or section, or a point where the sources themselves disagree.
What the Sources Attest
Who are Themis's parents and siblings?
Hesiod names her as one of the twelve Titans born to Ouranos and Gaia, making her a sibling of Kronos, Rhea, Mnemosyne, and the rest of that first generation, all born before the Olympians existed.
Source: Hesiod, Theogony 132-138
What children did Themis have with Zeus?
Two sets of daughters. The Horae, Eunomia (Order), Dike (Justice), and Eirene (Peace), who mind the works of mortal life, and separately the three Moirai, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, the Fates, to whom Hesiod says Zeus himself gave the greatest honor of all.
Source: Hesiod, Theogony 901-906
Is Themis really Prometheus's mother?
In one tradition, yes, though it is not the standard genealogy. Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound has Prometheus call Themis, whom he identifies as one and the same with Gaia under different names, his own mother, and credit her foreknowledge with the advice that let him side with Zeus during the Titanomachy. Hesiod and most other sources instead name Iapetus and the Oceanid Clymene as his parents; the two accounts were never reconciled.
Source: Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 209-213
Why does the Moirai's parentage disagree with the rest of Hesiod's account of them?
Hesiod actually gives the Moirai two different origins in the same poem: once as daughters of Night alone, born of no father, and once, in the passage about Themis, as daughters of Zeus and Themis, ranked among the honors Zeus grants. The two genealogies sit side by side without being reconciled, and later authors used whichever suited the scene they were writing.
Source: Hesiod, Theogony 901-906
Sources
- Hesiod, Theogony 132-138
- Hesiod, Theogony 901-906
- Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 209-213
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)