Nike (mythology)
Nike and her siblings were close companions of Zeus, the dominant deity of the Greek pantheon. According to classical (later) myth, Styx brought them to Zeus when the god was assembling allies for the Titanomachy against the older deities. Nike assumed the role of the divine charioteer, a role in which she often is portrayed in Classical Greek art. Nike flew around battlefields rewarding the victors with glory and fame, symbolized by a wreath of laurel leaves (bay leaves).
Nike is seen with wings in most statues and paintings, with one of the most famous being the "Winged Victory of Samothrace". Most other winged deities in the Greek pantheon had shed their wings by Classical times. Nike is the goddess of strength, speed, and victory. Nike was a very close acquaintance of Athena, and is thought to have stood in Athena's outstretched hand in the statue of Athena located in the Parthenon. Nike is also one of the most commonly portrayed figures on Greek coins. After victory at the Battle of Marathon, Athenians erected the Nike of Callimachus.
Kratos (mythology)
Kratos or Cratos is the divine personification of strength in Greek mythology. He is the son of Pallas and Styx; he and his siblings Nike ("Victory"), Bia ("Force"), and Zelus ("Zeal") are all essentially personifications. Kratos is first mentioned alongside his siblings in Hesiod's "Theogony". According to Hesiod, Kratos and his siblings dwell with Zeus because their mother Styx came to him first to request a position in his regime, so he honored her and her children with exalted positions. Kratos and his sister Bia are best known for their appearance in the opening scene of Aeschylus's "Prometheus Bound". Acting as agents of Zeus, they lead the captive Titan Prometheus on stage. Kratos compels the mild-mannered blacksmith god Hephaestus to chain Prometheus to a rock as punishment for his theft of fire. Kratos is characterized as brutal and merciless, repeatedly mocking both Hephaestus and Prometheus and advocating for the use of unnecessary violence. He defends Zeus's oppressive rule and predicts that Prometheus will never escape his bonds. In Aeschylus's "Libation Bearers", Electra calls upon Kratos, Dike ("Justice"), and Zeus to aid her brother Orestes in avenging the murder of their father Agamemnon. Kratos and Bia appear in a late fifth-century BC red-figure Attic "skyphos" of the punishment of Ixion, possibly based on a scene from a lost tragedy by Euripides. They also appear in late eighteenth and nineteenth-century Romantic depictions and adaptations of the binding of Prometheus.