In Greek mythology, Apate is the goddess and personification of deceit, a daughter of Night (Nyx)—often with Erebus. Her Roman counterpart is Fraus; Dolus is a male twin figure of deception. She appears chiefly in Nonnus, lending Hera a magical girdle to trick Semele. Opposite her stands Aletheia (Truth).
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Apate" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Personification of deceit
Hesiodic and later catalogues place Apate among the children of Nyx; Cicero pairs Fraus and Dolus as offspring of Night and Darkness. She has little independent cult and functions as an abstract power—craft, perjury, and seductive trickery made divine.
Neoplatonists such as Plotinus and Proclus sometimes treat apate allegorically: sensory beauty and desire as deceptive reflections that stir eros. The dinosaur name Apatosaurus ("deceptive lizard") borrows the same Greek root.
II.Hera, Semele, and the girdle
In Nonnus' Dionysiaca, jealous Hera seeks Apate in Crete—said to favor the island because "Cretans are always liars"—and begs the use of a Kydonian cincture that holds every form of guile. Rhea had once worn such a band when she deceived Cronus.
Apate yields the sash. Hera uses its bewitchment in the plot that leads Semele to ask Zeus to appear in his true form; the mortal princess is consumed by the god's fire, and the infant Dionysus must be saved. Outside this Late Antique epic Apate rarely acts as a named character.