Apate – Greek Goddess of Deceit

In Greek mythology, Apate was the goddess of deceit, a physical embodiment (or living representation) of the concept of deceit. She is the daughter of Nyx, who was the personification of night and also one of the first primordial gods to exist at the beginning of time. Erebos, a being who represented darkness, was her father and he too was one of the first gods to ever exist.

Apate was the sister of several other traits brought to life, such as Geras, the god of old age, Oizys, the personification of suffering, Moros, the physical embodiment of doom, Momos, who represented blame, Eris, who represented strife (or conflict and disagreement), Nemesis, who represented retribution (and was sometimes paired with Themis when she was ignored), and Keres, who represented violent death and destruction. Apate, along with her siblings, were trapped in Pandora’s box before being released by the first human woman to ever exist, Pandora. Hesiod, the Greek poet to write about this in his poem, Theogony, said that when Pandora opened this box of evil spirits, Apate and her siblings escaped, which gave the reason for all the evils in the world; hope was the only virtue (or moral behavior) to stay behind.

In one story involving Apate, Hera, the wife of Zeus (god of gods), learned about her husband’s affair with the Theban princess, Semele, and looked to Apate for help in punishing the princess. To make matters worse, the princess had a child by Zeus named Dionysus, who would become the god of wine. Apate agreed to help and gave Hera a magical girdle which she used to trick Semele into asking Zeus to see his real self, and the princess died as a result; whenever the gods approached humans, they would appear as something else and hide their true forms because no mere mortal could survive looking directly at a god.