- Looks after
- Necessity
- Roman name
- Necessitas
Ananke
Ἀνάγκη
Ananke is Necessity, the force that nothing, not even the gods, can overrule.
Family at a glance
No parents are recorded for this figure in the sources used here.
Ananke means necessity or compulsion. She is not in Hesiod. She belongs to the Orphic tradition and to philosophers, who treat her as an inescapable power.
In Plato's Republic, in the myth of Er, the spindle of the universe turns on the knees of Ananke, and her daughters the Fates (Moirai) sit around her singing. The idea is that the order of the world is a kind of destiny, set by something older than the gods.
In the Orphic accounts she is paired with Chronos (Time), and the two wrap the world-egg in coils. Because she appears in different forms in different sources, this page treats her as a minor figure.
In later art and language
Her name survives in modern Greek in the word anagki, necessity.
The ancient evidence for Ananke is limited, so this page is short on purpose.
Ancient sources
- Plato, Republic 10.616c-617d
- Orphic fragments
The family of Ananke
Descended from
No parents recorded
Brothers and sisters
None listed on this site