Women, Weird and Wonderful: Pheme - Fama, goddess of Rumour

The Athenian socialite Alkibiades was as infamous as he was rich, and his extravagant lifestyle was widely covered. When he caused indignation for chopping the tail of his million-dollar dog, he dryly explained: “This way at least, they don’t talk about all the other stuff.” Now, hearsay and gossip were the domain of Pheme, ancient goddess of rumour (hence “fame”). According to the ancient Greeks – masters in concretising abstract subjects – Pheme was just a small goddess, but when she heard something juicy, she would grow and grow. She would spread every rumour, first as a small whisper, then louder and louder, until she would be shouting and blowing the trumpet. It would gain her some popularity at first, but inevitably, she would end up hurting people. It would leave her quite isolated, with only the goddess of discord, Eris, as a trusted companion. Nowadays, when scrolling through social media, it seems the pair of them, Rumour and Row, are still alive and kicking. And still the closest of friends.

Fama, Juan Bautista, Fuente de la Fama, Madrid, Spain

La Renommée, Place Stanislas, Nancy, France

Did you know?

• Vergil famously describes the goddess Pheme (Fama) in book 4 of the Aeneid: “Rumour the swiftest of all evils. Speed lends her strength, and she winds vigour as she goes: small at first through fear, soon she mounts up to heaven, and walks the ground with head hidden in the clouds. Mother Earth, provoked to anger against the gods, brought her forth last, they, say as sister to Coeus and Enceladus, swift of foot and fleet of wing, a monster awful and huge, who for the many feathers in her body has as many watchful eyes beneath – wondrous to tell – as many tongues, as many sounding mouths, as many pricked up ears. By night, midway between heaven and earth, she flies through the gloom, screeching, and droops not her eyes in sweet sleep; by day she sits on guard on high rooftop or lofty turrets, and affrights greats cities, clinging to the false and the wrong, yet heralding truth. Now exulting in manifold gossip, she filled the nations and sang alike of fact and falsehood…”

• "The other stuff" mentioned by Alkibiades would include vandalism, the desecration of Demeter's "Eleusinian Mysteries", the abduction of his wife Hipparete from the courthouse (where she was filing for divorce) and his defection to Sparta. (See also "Instrumental" for his ideas about music.)