Justice

From the Latin 'iustitia', another of the four cardinal virtues. The figure descends from the classical goddesses Dike (Greek) and Justitia (Roman), and the image of a woman with sword and scales was already ancient when tarot adopted it.

From the Visconti-Sforza deck onward Justice appears as a seated woman holding a sword upright in one hand and a pair of scales in the other. She is one of the three cardinal virtues preserved in the trumps, and her attributes have barely changed across five centuries.

Smith seated her on a stone chair between pillars, draped in a purple curtain, wearing a crown and holding the sword and scales. Her expression is calm and rational, the sword pointed upward, the scales balanced. The imagery is restrained and archaic, closer to the medieval virtue than to mystery.

The sword is discernment and decision — the cut that separates truth from falsehood. The scales are balance and impartial measurement. The crown denotes legitimate authority, the purple curtain the spiritual dimension of justice. Justice is not revenge but the ordered balancing of accounts that sustains the cosmos.

In the Marseille order Justice is VIII, coming before Strength (XI) — law precedes force. Waite swapped them, placing Strength at VIII and Justice at XI, so that inner fortitude prepares the ground for fair judgment. In the Thoth deck Crowley renames the card 'Adjustment', attributes it to Libra, and depicts the goddess dancing rather than seated, signifying dynamic rather than static balance.

Justice inherits Dike, Justitia, and the archangel Michael who weighs souls. As a cardinal virtue she is one of the moral pillars of the trump sequence. Astrologically she corresponds to Libra. Her renumbering by Waite is one of the most discussed structural shifts in modern tarot, reflecting a different philosophy of how virtue is ordered.