Tag Archives: boeotia

Hekate & Witchcraft

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I find it hard to bring up Hekate and not express my thoughts on Hekate and Witchcraft.

For starters, it’s impossible to deny with fact the deep and ancient connection Hekate has to witchcraft. It’s also damned near impossible to sugar-coat the ancients’ view of this goddess as rather frightening in a way.

Euripides and Apollonius Rhodius portray Medea as a priestess of Hekate, and by Apollonious’ account, she only assisted Jason because Hera had convinced Eros to make Medea fall in love with Jason. It is also by Apollonious’ account that Medea of of blood-relation to Kirke, Who, by the benevolence of Zeus, cleansed Medea and Jason of the miasma of murdering Medea’s brother — and this cleansing took place after several instances where Medea used her craft to the aid of Jason. To simply be a witch in ancient Hellas was not a great crime, nor was it apparently regarded as something frowned upon by the Theoi.

The murder Medea committed against her own children seems to be an invention of Euripides, as earlier poets (as early as the 7th Century BCE) described their death variously as an accident or at the hands of Corinthians. By Theban tradition, Medea also cleansed Herakles of the murder of Iphitus, and remained in Thebes under His protection until she was eventually driven out in spite of their Heros’ protests.

There is no single internally consistent narrative of Medea, and the use of her character as a cautionary against witchcraft in specific seems to be an invention of Seneca the Younger, who was later adopted by early Christians as being allegedly posthumously baptised by the Apostle Paul (who is the source of the majority of what it wrong with Christianity). Ovid, drawing more directly from Hellenic mythology and folklore, paints still a tragic Medea, but one more sophisticated than a morality tale. Pindar also cites Medea as a founding seer of the city of Cyrene; Herodotous describes her as the founder of the Medes people, and others describe Kolkhian colonies venerating Medea as a foundation heroine after staking out to discover her tomb; even today, the Kolkhian (West Georgian) city of Batumi maintains a statue of Medea at the centre of the city, assuring us that one tribe’s “mad deceiver-sorceress-child murderess” is another tribe’s Founder Heroine. By Diodorus Siculus, Hekate is the mother of both Kirke and Medea, further cementing Hekete as a Theon who looks favourably upon the practise of witchcraft.

The witchcraft of Medea seems to be predominantly herbal magic and the invocation, or supplication of deities —mainly Hekate— and spirits, and this is what Kirke is portrayed as practising, as well. Whether or not the Theoi approve or disapprove of these spells incantations and potions is apparently based on intent: If the pharmakeia is using this as a tool of aid to others, or benevolent self-improvement, or throwing curses justly toward another, then one is in Their favour; if she has unjust ill intent toward another, or is seeking self-improvement with malevolent intent, then the Theoi act accordingly. Kirke, being a Goddess, seeks to attack Odysseus and his men with Her own magic, but Odysseus is given guidance by Hermes to a magical herb to protect himself — then hijinks ensue, and Odysseus and Kirke are wed and, by Hesiod’s account, She bore him three sons.

That said, pharmakoussai were viewed suspiciously in ancient Hellas, and the kult of Kirke in particular seems to be mostly contained to the Pharmakoussai Islands (Farmakonisi) off the coast of Attika, and the Kirkaion Mountain (Mount Kirkeo) in Latium, where Athene was also worshipped. It’s hard to really make a clear distinction in a lot of rituals that are defined as “magic” what it supplicatory of the Theoi and what attempts to coerce Them, and this can be confusing or even seem hubristic to an outsider, but frankly, in some spells and incantation, the only ones who really know is the practitioner and the deity(s) addressed, and is it really any-one’s place to say that a Deity is being coerced or controlled when the practitioner and the Deity both know that is clearly not the case? Even outside of Kirke’s cult, specifically, there was no shortage of pharmakoussai mixing herbs, selling amulets and curse kits, and performing simple divinitory rites outside of the ceremony and auspices of the public oracular shrines. Their main purpose seemed to be to sell medicinal and/or mood-altering herbs with specific instructions and generally be ignored or whispered about in-between — that’s not necessarily a sign of Divine disfavour so much as a sign of social disfavour; likewise, there were people whose sole function in the local community was to handle funerary rites so that the family didn’t have to pollute themselves with it, and while there is certainly writing warning us of the spiritual pollutant of handling the dead, even earning us an Olympian disfavour, clearly the very purpose these people took on earned them Khthonic favour, while also earning all the whispers and assumptions of others. There also seems to be a strong link between pharmakoussai and necromantic rites and oracles. One could argue, I suppose, that funerary rites are necessary and witchcraft is not, and I’d agree that in most cases witchcraft probably isn’t necessary, but at the same time, in certain climates and taking on a raw food diet, fire wouldn’t be necessary, but it’s still a tool that the Theoi have given us, and its necessity, its good use, or its ill use is all what we can make out of it: I can move to a Polynesian island and eat a raw diet and I’d never need fire again, and could maintain reasonably healthy, but I’d also know there is only so much space on a Polynesian island, and only just so many Polynesian islands to go around, that clearly fire is necessary to some people and it has to be.

If the Moirai have decided that some-one’s fate shall include the mastery of magical herbs and incantations, then that person will fall upon that path, and it would be within the will of the Theoi that they are doing so. Whether they use that tool for necessity, for good, or for ill is also something that would be offered to them by the Moirai, as would whatever retribution that other deities deem necessary. That said, clearly Hekate will only have so much of an interaction with the majority of Hellenists, but Her closer bond with Her pharmakoussai is something I wouldn’t too eagerly denounce — I mean, really, the “why not” should be obvious. ;-) But really now, I’m not here to bad-mouth another Hellene’s work/service to a deity, especially when all the real evidence suggests that the Theoi only have really specific incidental issues with whitchcraft — just like the issues They have with sexual intercourse are very specific.

Notes on Hekate of Boeotian mythos

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In Thebes, there was a woman named Galinthias. She was a midwife who delivered Herakles from the womb of Alkmene, her childhood friend. Alkmene’s pregnancy offended Hera, and cursed the young woman’s birth pains to never cease. Galinthias, worried her friend would be driven mad, first appealed to Hekate, who concluded that the curse was placed by another Deathless One, and She could not remove those, but perhaps appealing to the right Deity would earn the sympathies of the one Who could. Deciding No-One higher up than the Moirai, for even the other Theoi were bound to Their tapestry, Galinthias then appealed to the Moirai, Who Themselves were becoming exhaused by the sound of the laborous woman’s screaming, and removed the curse in order to hear Themselves think.

When Hera realised Alkemene had given birth to a son, Herakles, She spoke up that Her own curse had become removed because a silly girl took advantage of the Moirai in Their confusion. The Moirai concluded that Hera was technmically correct (the best kind of correct) and it was decided that Galinthias’ fate was to be transformed into a ferret, a creature that looks most absurd in mating and birth labour. Hekate, though, was sympathetic to Galinthias and the girl’s desires to remove Hera’s curse, and did not fault the girl for failing to discover that it was Hera who cast the curse, and therefore only Hera who could be appealed to lift it. Out of kindness, Hekate made the ferret one of Her sacred workers on Gaia’s face, and in Thebes, the animal was held in esteem as the nurse of Herakles, their native Heros.

By Hesiod’s account, Ouranos and Gaia begat Koios (the Titan Theos of the North, also “the Inquirer”) and Phoibê (the “Bright”, the Titan Theon of prophecy); Koios and Phoibê begat Perses (the Destroyer) and Asteria, the Titan Theon of the Stars, astrology, and necromancy. It is Perses and Asteria Who are the parents of Hekate.

As per the playwright Aeschylus, Phoibê is regarded as the previous oracular deity of Delphi, later succeeding Her reign and bestowing Delphi as a gift to Apollon, Her grandson via Leto. Phoibê is also associated with the moon. Asteria, after the Titan war, was pursued by Zeus, but She did not want Him, and so first transformed to a quail, then lept into the sea, swam out, and became the island of Delos, where Apollon was born.

It is through Asteria that Hekate inherited the gift of necromancy and oracles from the dead. Some ancients also may have believed that Asteria was also worshipped as a goddess of prophetic dreams.

Though Hesiod names the mother of Kirke as Perseis (Destroyer) and Her father as Helios; Diodoros Siculus names Kirke’s parentage as that of Hekate and Aeëtes. Some also regard Perseis as an epithet of Hekate, though it seems Hesiod gives Perseis a genealogy distinct from Hekate, and Perseis’ mother is Tethys (“Nurse”) and Okeanos. It’s therefore easy to see Perseis and Hekate as one-in-the-same, as these themes are recurring and may be considered too lofty for an Okeanid. Light bearing. Destroyer. Nurse. Sight.

If one is to syncretise Kirke then as a daughter of Hekate Perseis, this undoubted maintains Hekate’s associations with practising witchcraft rather than merely casting spells and curses Herself for the mortals who supplicate Her.

By Hesiod, Kirke is the mother of Odysseus’ immortal son Latinus, father/ruler of the Tyrsenoi, who have since been identified with the Etruscans, and also Telegonos, Whose story is the subject of the now-lost Telegony, which only exists in summary.

The Scholia of Pindar seem to identify Hekate and Perseis with the name Khariklo (“Graceful Spinner”) who is identified in these notes as the daughter of Perses and Okeanos — and also a daughter of Apollon. Even without meditating on this, this gives the appearance of further linking Hekate and Apollon.

These notes also revive previous themes, as Khariklo is identified as the wife of the Centaros Kheiron, the mentor of a young Dionysos and also Asklepios.

Hekate in My Home

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After moving to the house I’m living in now, the *very first* shrine I set up after unpacking was actually not Eros — it was Hekate.  Hekate protects the boundaries of the home, She guards entrances and exits.  She’s one of the liminal deities, existing in the in-between spaces; Her domain is that few inches of wood or earth that is both and neither inside nor outside a door or a gate, the intersection of the crossroads where the possibilities of where to go are endless for only the moment before you decide, and She exists within that moment.  She’s the box that contains Schrodinger’s cat, and the period of time when the creature can be considered both alive and dead, before you open the lid to discover which it is.

Logically, I had to put up Her shrine first.

That said, while She’s a Household Goddess, Her role in this aspect is clearly more the “anti-Hestia” than as Hestia’s partner.  Hestia is the inviting Goddess, the one who warms the hearth and the people before it.  She’s the baker of the bread while Demetre is the provider of the grains and Kore the miller of flour.  Tradition, Prosperity, Continuance:  These Goddesses are the inviters, the personable ones, They make the home.

Hekate, on the other hand, the “worker from afar”, “She who drives off” — She is the lion at the gate, the dog who circles the perimeter, the horse in the stable who’s ready to take the household off at a moment’s notice.  She’s the household Goddess whose function is to keep watch of those outside the home, not to bring abundance to those within it.  She wards off ill-intent and gives pass to those with good, for they in the know will know that they have done nothing to offend Her.  She is the porchlight and the horseshoe over the threshold; she is the deterrant of theives, and the trapper of spirits of ill-intent; She is not the bountiful Goddess, breathing increase and prosperity — indeed, there is nothing in Her mythos that suggest this is at all Her concern for mortals.  It is Tykhe who blesses the house, who grants us and ours with plenty.

Hekate is very focused in Her purpose in human affairs; it’s tempting, at this point, to liken Her to a Mafia Dame running a protection racket, except that She won’t break your legs when you forget to leave a penny, She just won’t stop those who are inclined to do so.

As such, the Deipnon is the time of purging the bad energy and odd malevolent spirit who managed to enter the house during the month, offer Hekate a meal in hopes that She will take them back to the hole they came in from, so a Deipnon ritual is best performed at the gate of the household or a crossroads, and never at the household shrine.  At the old apartment, I’d take the Deipnon ritual to the door of the apartment, and take the meal to a hidden place outside the building; if this was not an option, I would’ve either created a separate shrine for Deipnon purposes only, or (if space was at that much of a premium), spent a significant portion of time before the Noumenia rit to perform purification.  The Deipnon isn’t “whatever you want it to be”, it’s a cleansing, a supplication for a spiritual sweep-up after a physical sweep-up, it is, in a nutshell, asking “Hekate, this household has accumulated negative spirits both seen and unseen; we offer you this meal in hopes that you take these entities far away from this home.” This is not supplication for bounty, this is a supplication for loss. I absolutely agree with those who say that to mix Hekate’s Deipnon and a suppliance for prosperity, to blur the lines of the Deipnon ritual with the Noumenia, is to create a spiritual pollutant

It can be good to lose things like disease and incontinence and enemies and just plain bad luck. Hekate is the one who can properly banish these negative spirits and others. This may make room for good fortune and prosperity, but it is not Hekate Who brings that us those gifts; the room for prosperity is a side-effect of Her actions, not Hekate’s work itself.

While I can understand why modern Hellenists may want to re-envision Hekate as a household Goddess of increase and prosperity, one who cares for the less fortunate, that’s really not Her domain. The passage from Aristophanes often cited, commenting on the poor in ancient times who would eat the meals left for Hekate, is frankly not a suggestion that this was a rationalisation for charity in that time — Aristophanes was, first and foremost, a comedy writer, a satirist, and this was a comment on the assumed impiety of the poor, no matter how necessary it may have seemed for basic survival, who would rather take from a goddess than to ask for charity when needed. To take the work of a comedian lampooning the social climate of his day and use it to paint a “sweetness and light” image of a rather frightful and spooky goddess is, in my opinion, rather fluffy. In maths, we learn that to remove negative numbers, we must first bring it up to zero, neutrality. That’s what Hekate does: By asking Her to remove the spiritually vile and to prevent its influx from recurring, Her goal is to merely maintain Zero, not to increase beyond that. As a household goddess, Hers is apotropaic magic; she’s the guard-dog snarling at invaders, the polecat killing mice and other vermin that would take our storage of grains and cheese (which doesn’t seem an apt metaphor for “tending to the less fortunate”). These are among her sacred animals for a reason, for She is the one who removes that which might harm us.

Inside the door, I have a wall sconce with electric candle and my painting for Hekate, and also a large decorative key with a hook for household keys — my housemate doesn’t use it, but I doubt the Klêidouchos maiden is offended. I also keep a garden wall sconce with a lion at the edge of the porch; it has a crack, and was dumpster-dived, but most people don’t notice the broken spot, and in my defense, I’ve been brainstorming what to do about repairing it in a way that looks nice.

Boeotian Theoi: Hekate

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[Please note: I want to apologise for skipping over Demeter and Kore at the time I had allotted for Them. Sometimes I think I'll feel up for doing something, and then allergies or carpal tunnel syndrome, or whatever else goes wrong. I also must confess that I'm not the best at managing the time I have, in part cos I'm just too easily distracted.]

Hesiod, Theogony 404 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.) :
“Hekate whom Zeus the son of Kronos honoured above all. He gave her splendid gifts, to have a share of the earth and the unfruitful sea. She received honour also in starry heaven, and is honoured exceedingly by the deathless gods . . . For as many as were born of Gaia (Earth) and Ouranos (Heaven) [the Titanes] amongst all these she has her due portion. The son of Kronos [Zeus] did her no wrong nor took anything away of all that was her portion among the former Titan gods: but she holds, as the division was at the first from the beginning, privilege both in earth, and in heaven, and in sea. Also, because she is an only child, the goddess receives not less honour, but much more still, for Zeus honours her.”

I’ve found little about Hekate’s shrines specific to Boeotian traditions, but Hesiod apparently considered Her of great importance, and there is evidence that She was a widespread household goddess, with a a shrine at household gates, and at crossroads. At the deipnon (dark moon), the ancients left Her a meal, outdoors, as an offering. In Popular Wicca, She’s often cast as the “crone” aspect of the uniquely modern archetype on the “triple goddess”, while Demetre and Persephone occupy the “Mother” and “Maiden” faces. Indeed, in Hellenic art, Hekate is consistently maiden, young woman, and Hekate Trimorphis is simply all Hekate. According to Pausanius, Hekate Trimorphis was first depicted in art as triple-headed or triple-bodied by the Attic artist Alkamenes, and came much later than the Triplicate imagery of Hekate that’s incredibly popular with Pop Wicca. I don’t reject Hekate Trimorphis images because they are “newer” and thus somehow not “proper recon”1. Indeed, if the only “correct” way to see Hekate is the oldest way, then She should be an invisible Goddess, appearing only as a glimpse of light from the corner of one’s eye, rather than the single-bodied maiden bearing torches. I don’t reject any image of Hekate, and though I see a more spiritual meaning of the epithet, I can see the value in portraying it literally.

She also had an important role in the cult of the Elusinian mysteries. She assisted Demetre in Her search for Persephone after Persephone was taken away to the kingdom of Hades. I’ve never had much interest in the Elusinian mysteries, so unless this changes, I’m going to leave any discussion of them to people who know more about it and have a better understanding of it than I do.

One of the proposed etymologies of Her name is either giving origin to or coming from an obscure Lesbian epithet of Apollon, Hekatos, meaning “one that removes or drives off” or “far-darting one”. The most common offerings to Hekate in ancient times were to ward off evil spirits, as Hekate is the goddess of magic, witches, ghosts, and necromancy; She also is given messages to deceased loved ones. The pharmakis, or witch, Gale, was cursed by Hekate for moral incontinence and became the polecat, which some Hellenes kept as housepets for their vermin-catching abilities. There really needs to be more imagery of Hekate with a lion and / or ferret.

The most common animal associated with Her is dogs, but I’ve always thought of lions when envisioning Hekate, and Theoi Project maintains a very brief sourced passage that one of Her forms is that of a lion, so I assume this personal association as Confirmed Gnosis, though probably not without help of cultural influences, including the English and U$ custom of statues of lions at the gates and doorways of important buildings and stately homes (or even just homes and estates that aspire toward stateliness).

1: …and for the record, it’s been AGES since I’ve seen some-one actually make such a ridiculous claim for rejecting a certain image or aspect or even deity, I even forget the name of the person who did it, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if other people continue to say it, and I just haven’t noticed.

Ακιδαλια

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ACIDA′LIA, a surname of Venus (Virg. Aen. i. 720), which according to Servius was derived from the well Acidalius near Orchomenos, in which Venus used to bathe with the Graces; others connect the name with the Greek akides, i. e. cares or troubles.

I was looking through epithets for this post, to see if there was something specific to Boeotia that hasn’t been touched on a thousand times before, and this really struck me. It struck me in the same way that the famous Praxitelian Eros of Thespiai described centuries after it ceased drawing crows from all over the Hellenosphere as “Love as Suffering”.

How often is it that love leaves us troubled and shattered? Conflicted? Paranoid?

This is further why I reject the modern syncretisation of Aphrodite with Eirene, as love seldom brings peace on even a personal level, so whoever first assumed it could bring peace on a global level clearly doesn’t strike me as one who has ever been in love.

Even requited love is not without its heartache, and the Moirai have left us with no shortage of evidence of lovers who die young, lovers who fall out of love with us, lovers who hurt us in all sorts of ways.

…and if not directly, trouble comes indirectly: Relationships with friends are all too often forever changed, the approval or disproval of family members has been the subject of many a thesis, for some of us our work suffers, and for others our art suffers. Love can be a distraction, and some have suggested that a key element to intellectual brilliance is to remain unloved, or to never fall in love.

To far too many people I’ve known, there appears no real evolutionary advantage to our wide range of emotions, and if not for other traits, they imagine our emotions would’ve been so distracting that we’d at least be further down on the food chain. I reject this notion, and suggest that for as troublesome as our emotions are, they have saved us just as much. The only other species that comes close to displaying near the range of emotion as human beings is the elephant, so advanced in its emotional development that it’s the only creature aside from humans that has rituals for its dead, and it will extend this ritual to humans who have lived around them for years — but I digress. Without this wide scope of feeling, our pre-historic ancestors would’ve been less inclined to look out for our young and familial adults, reducing the power and safety of numbers, whereas a lion is no more likely to protect members of her pride than she is to just let them go to a larger animal on the attack. Pigs are lauded as fairly intelligent, but even if in packs, are pretty much out for only their own hides. Even whales don’t go to the lengths to protect their young and others of their species that human beings do. It’s our emotions which save us from outside threats, from each-other, and from ourselves, so clearly the trouble is worth it.

Boeotian Theoi: Aphrodite

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CULT IN BOIOTIA (CENTRAL GREECE)

I) THEBES Chief City of Boiotia

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 16. 3 :
“At Thebes [in Boiotia] are three wooden images of Aphrodite, so very ancient that they are actually said to be votive offerings of [the mythical queen] Harmonia, and the story is that they were made out of the wooden figure-heads on the ships of Kadmos. They call the first Ourania (Heavenly), the second Pandemos (Common), and the third Apostrophia (Rejecter). Harmoina gave to Aphrodite the surname of Ourania (Heavenly) to signify a love pure and free from bodily lust; that of Pandemos (Common), to denote sexual intercourse; the third, that of Apostrophia (Rejecter), that mankind might reject unlawful passion and sinful acts. For Harmonia knew of many crimes already perpetrated not only among foreigners but even by Greeks, similar to those attributed later by legend to the mother of Adonis, to Phaidra, the daughter of Minos, and to the Thrakian Tereus.”

II) TANAGRA Village in Boiotia

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 2. 1 :
“Beside the sanctuary of Dionysos at Tanagra [in Boiotia] are three temples, one of Themis, another of Aphrodite, and the third of Apollon.”

III) THESPIAI Village in Boiotia

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 27. 5 :
“Here [at Thespiai, Boiotia] too are statues made by Praxiteles himself, one of Aphrodite and one of Phryne [historic lover of Praxiteles], both Phryne and the goddess being of stone. Elsewhere too is a sanctuary of Aphrodite Melainis (Black), with a theater and a market-place, well worth seeing.”

Aphrodite, as per Hesiod, is not the mother of Eros. This seems pretty consistent with other Boiotian writers. This seems to be of Attic origin, and Attika certainly ensured that myth’s popularity.

Like Adonis’ cult, Aphrodite’s was most likely a Near Eastern import via the island of Kypris, and Aphrodite’s Roxk is still a prominent attraction off the coast of the island, as it’s regarded as the Goddess’ legendary birthplace, formed from the sea-foam created of the castrated loins of Ouranos. Her conception is sort of the opposite of parthenogenesis, which is the conception of a baby without a male counterpart — indeed, She was created of three males: The seed of Ouranos, the skin of Okeanos, and the hand of Zeus. This is probably what lends well to the Second Wave Anti-sex Feminist dismissal of Aphrodite as “every man’s fantasy”, but I posit that She is something deeper than that.

Even in science, parthenogenic birth makes sense, either as a design of the species or in cloning, because females possess a womb, and/or the ability to lay eggs. It is thus that Aphrodite is an impossible thing: Even the ancient Hellenes, in spite of their faulty understanding of how conception actually works, formed mythology that has no shortage of parthenogenesis, and displays at least a squintable understanding that infants need to be nourished by the human body —thus Zeus had to swallow Metis to birth Athene, and had to sew Dionysos into His thigh (which my house-mate insists is code for weiner, but that’s another story for another time). Aphrodite, even by the internal logic of mythology, is thus an impossible thing, and yet She was born as fully-formed as Athene, and exists as plainly as Dionysos; by all reasoning, She shouldn’t be, and yet She is.

Boeotian Theoi: Kharites

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Alright, a bit tired, but I’m going to have something more to write of this later today. For now, so C&P so that I won’t let myself forget.

GENERAL CULT

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 35. 1 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) :
“The Boiotians say that Eteokles [mythical king of Orkhomenos, Boiotia] was the first man to sacrifice to the Kharites. Moreover, they are aware that he established three as the number of the Kharites, but they have no tradition of the names he gave them.
The Lakedaimonians, however, say that the Kharites are two, and that they were instituted by Lakedaimon, son of Taygete, who gave them the names Kleta and Phaenna. These are appropriate names for the Kharites, as are those given by the Athenians, who from of old have worshipped two Kharites, Auxo and Hegemone. Karpo (Fruit) is the name, not of a Kharis, but of a Hora ) . . .
It was from Eteokles of Orkhomenos that we learned the custom of praying to three Kharites.
And Angelion and Tekatios, sons of Dionysos, who made the image of Apollon for Athens, set three Kharites in his hand.
Again, at Athens, before the entrance to the Akropolis, the Kharites are three in number; by their side are celebrated mysteries which must not be divulged to the many.
Pamphos [legendary poet] was the first we know of to sing about the Kharites, but his poetry contains no information either as to their number or about their names.
Homer (he too referes to the Kharites) makes one the wife of Hephaistos, giving her the name Kharis. He also says that Hypnos was a lover of Pasithea, and in the speech of Hypnos there is this verse:–`Verily that he would give me one of the younger Kharites.’ Hence some have suspected that Homer knew of older Kharites as well.
Hesiod in the Theogony says that the Kharites are daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, giving them the names of Euphrosyne, Aglaia and Thalia. The poem of Onomakritos [poet C6th B.C.] agrees with this account.
Antimakhos [poet C5th B.C.], while giving neither the number of the Kharites nor their names, says that they are daughters of Aigle and Helios.
The elegaic poet Hermesianax [poet C4th B.C.] disagrees with his predecessors in that he makes Peitho one of the Kharites.
Who it was who first represented the Kharites naked, whether in sculpture or in painting, I could not discover. During the earlier period, certainly, sculptors and painters alike represented them draped.
At Smyrna, for instance, in the sanctuary of the Nemeses, above the images have been dedicated Kharites of gold, the work of Boupalos; and in the Music Hall in the same city there is a portrait of a Kharis, painted by Apelles.
At Pergamon likewise, in the chamber of Attalos, are other images of the Kharites made by Boupalos; and near what is called the Pythion there is a portrait of Kharites, painted by Pythagoras the Parian.
Sokrates too, son of Sophroniskos, made images of Kharites for the Athenians, which are before the entrance to the Akropolis.
All these are alike draped; but later artists, I do not know the reason, have changed the way of portraying them. Certainly today sculptors and painters represent Kharites naked.”

CULT IN BOIOTIA (CENTRAL GREECE)

I) ORKHOMENOS Town in Boiotia

Pindar, Olympian Ode 14. 1 ff (trans. Conway) (Greek lyric C5th B.C.) :
“Whose haunts are by Kephissos’ river, you queens beloved of poets’ song, ruling Orkhomenos, that sunlit city and land of lovely steeds, watch and ward of the ancient Minyan race, hear now my prayer, you Kharites three.”

Pindar, Pythian Ode 12. 26 ff:
“The Kharites’s city [Orkhomenos], home of lovely dances.”

Strabo, Geography 9. 2. 40 (trans. Jones) (Greek geographer C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.):
“Eteokles, one of those who reigned as king at Orkhomenos, who founded a temple of the Kharites, was the first to display both wealth and power; for he honored these goddesses either because he was successful in receiving graces, or in giving them, or both. For necessarily, when he had become naturally inclined to kindly deeds, he began doing honor to these goddesses; and therefore he already possessed this power.”

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 35. 1 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.):
“The Boiotians say that Eteokles [king of Orkhomenos, Boiotia] was the first man to sacrifice to the Kharites. Moreover, they are aware that he established three as the number of the Kharites, but they have no tradition of the names he gave them . . .
It was from Eteokles of Orkhomenos that we learned the custom of praying to three Kharites.”

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9. 38. 1 :
“At Orkhomenos [in Boiotia] is a sanctuary of Dionysos, but the oldest is one of the Kharites. They worship the stones most, and say that they fell for Eteokles out of heaven. The artistic images were dedicated in my time, and they too are of stone.”

Nonnus, Dionysiaca 13. 94 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) :
“The dancebeaten precinct of the Erotes (Loves), Orkhomenos city of Minyas, which the Kharites never leave.”

Goal for today: Write something more substantial than a C&P.

As an aside, I really wanted to say more about Artemis than I did, simply for the personal challenge. Frankly, as I’ve said before, Artemis doesn’t like me, and it’s really not from a lack of effort on my part, but I’ve pretty much been told that the best way for myself to worship Artemis to to leave Her alone, so I’m kind of dropping Her “week” out of respect to the Goddess in question.