Bia: Greek Goddess of Force

The Story of Bia

Bia was the goddess of force and compulsion, a daughter of the Titan Pallas and the goddess Styx. Her siblings were Kratos, the god of strength, Nike, the goddess of victory, and Zelus, the god of zeal. Her name means force or violence in Greek.

Bia and her siblings were the first allies to join Zeus in his war against the Titans, brought to him by their mother Styx. In return, Zeus let them live with him always, and Bia became one of the silent guardians of his throne. In the play Prometheus Bound, she helps her brother Kratos hold Prometheus while Hephaestus chains him to the rock, yet she never speaks a single word.

For the Greeks, Bia stood for the kind of power that does not need to persuade, only to compel. The traveler Pausanias saw a sanctuary of Necessity and Force on the heights above Corinth, a shrine that people did not enter. Her silence in the old stories says a great deal, because force simply acts without explaining itself.