Apate
minor goddess in Greek mythology, personification of deceit
In Greek mythology, Apate (; Ancient Greek: Ἀπάτη Apátē) is the goddess and personification of deceit. Her mother is Nyx, the personification of the night. In Roman mythology her equivalent is Fraus (Fraud), while her male counterpart is Dolus (Deception), both considered children of Nyx and Erebus according to Cicero. Her opposite number Aletheia, the goddess of truth.
Neoplatonic philosophers such as Proclus and Plotinus discuss Eros and Aphrodite in the sense that deception (Apate) and illusion give rise to desire a moral interpretation used as an example of allegorical reasoning, where sensory beauty and desire are described as deceptive reflections.
Apate was said to surpass even Hermes in deception and persuasive trickery.
Apate gave rise to a genus of dinosaur, Apatosaurus (/əˌpætəˈsɔːrəs/), "deceptive lizard."
Family
Apate was the daughter of the primordial deities Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night).
In an Orphic theogony, Apate conceives the goddess Aphrodite through a union with Zelos, from which she is born from the sea foam. This version of the goddess’s origin is a minor one, as she is more commonly described as the daughter of Uranus, born when his severed genitals fell into the sea, or as the daughter of Zeus and Dione.
Mythology
The only myth in which Apate appeared was that of the affair between Zeus, king of the gods, and Semele, a Theban princess who bore him the god of wine, Dionysus.
“Apate” enters the record as minor goddess in Greek mythology, personification of deceit. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Apate, minor and goddess can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q617977. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Apate” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.