In the ancient Greek religion Nemesis was the goddess who enacted retribution against those who succumb to hubris (arrogance before the gods). Another name was Adrasteia/Adrestia, meaning "the inescapable". Her Roman name/counterpart is Invidia.Pax-Nemesis was worshipped on occasion at Rome by victorious generals, and in imperial times was the patroness of gladiators and of the venatores, who fought in the arena with wild beasts, and was one of the tutelary deities of the drilling-ground (Nemesis campestris). Sometimes, but rarely, seen on imperial coinage, mainly under Claudius and Hadrian. In the third century AD there is evidence of the belief in an all-powerful Nemesis-Fortuna. She was worshipped by a society called Hadrian's freedmen. The poet Mesomedes wrote a hymn to Nemesis in the early second century AD, where he addressed her

Nemesis, winged balancer of life,
dark-faced goddess, daughter of Justice,

and mentioned her "adamantine bridles" that restrain "the frivolous insolences of mortals".

In early times the representations of Nemesis resembled Aphrodite, who sometimes bears the epithet Nemesis.

Later, as the maiden goddess of proportion and the avenger of crime, she has as attributes a measuring rod (tally stick), a bridle, scales, a sword, and a scourge, and she rides in a chariot drawn by griffins.

Nemesis is also known to have been called "Adrastia". Ammianus Marcellinus includes her in a digression on Justice following his description of the death of Gallus Caesar