The Role Of Fates In Greek Mythology

The Greek myth of the Fates personified the inevitable and unavoidable fate of every mortal thing on earth: life and death. The Fates were feared by even the immortals, for their rather rare “power” could not be stopped by even them. The three Fates worked together to control the metaphorical thread of life. The Fates were the most powerful beings in Greek mythology because no one else could do what they did.

The three sisters supposedly controlled how long one was to live. There was a sister, Clotho, to spin the symbolic thread. Lachesis, another sister, to measure it. And the final sister, Atropos, was to cut the thread. Once the thread was cut, the person’s life was over. The Fates were very powerful, and there weren’t any other gods or deities that could do what they did. Because of this, they also controlled the length of the gods’ lives.

It is often forgotten that the Fates controlled the fates of the gods. Because the Fates were able to control the gods’ fates, they were considered a more powerful force. Many times the gods and goddesses of Olympus tried to intervene with the Fates’ work, but they were never successful in trying to do so. It is written in one of Homer’s epics, that Hera, the Queen of the Gods, once tried to intervene with the Fates’ works. And though Hera’s intended target was stabbed, the target did not die because the length of their thread was too long. This example goes to show just how powerful the three fates truly were--not even the gods could interrupt their