The Charites

The goddess at the bronze house

The goddess Thetis comes to the bronze house of Hephaestus, the smith god, while he works at his bellows. She needs armour for the hero Achilles. Before she can ask, a goddess called Charis comes forward. She takes Thetis by the hand and seats her on a chair decorated with silver studs.

The scene comes from the Iliad, the epic poem of Homer. There Charis is the wife of Hephaestus. Homer gives no list of three and no name such as Aglaia. Charis does what her name suggests: she welcomes an honoured guest before a hard request is made.

The scene makes it hard to say how many Charites there were. Elsewhere in the Iliad, the goddess Hera promises Hypnos, the god of sleep, one of the younger Charites as a wife, and names her Pasithea. So Homer already knows a group, and “younger” suggests a larger one. He never says who belongs to it.

How three names became familiar

The best-known group of three comes from Hesiod, an early Greek poet, in his poem the Theogony. Eurynome, a daughter of Ocean, has three daughters with the god Zeus: Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia. Their glance releases desire, and beauty shines beneath their brows. Later in the same poem, Aglaia is the youngest Charis and the wife of Hephaestus.

That detail links Hesiod’s named goddess to Homer’s unnamed wife, though the two passages are not the same. Homer says Charis. Hesiod says Aglaia. The change shows how a group of powers could gain fixed names as poems set out the families of the gods.

The English name “Graces” translates their Greek name, but it is too narrow if read only as elegance. Their work covers favour, beauty, pleasure and the qualities that make an exchange welcome. Charis greets Thetis. Pasithea is the reward Hera promises Hypnos. Hesiod’s three release desire with a glance. Each appears where attraction or goodwill changes what another god will do.

Why Greek cities counted them differently

Pausanias, an ancient writer who described the places of Greece, found no single local list. The people of Sparta said there were two Charites, Cleta and Phaenna. The Athenians also honoured two from early times, but called them Auxo and Hegemone. Pausanias adds that Carpo, another Athenian name, belongs to one of the Horae, a different group of goddesses, and not to a Charis.

At the town of Orchomenus, a man named Eteocles was credited with starting the worship of three Charites. Pausanias says the names he gave them were not remembered. Pamphos was the earliest poet Pausanias knew who sang of the Charites, but that poetry gave neither their number nor their names. So the familiar three did not correct an older form of worship. They were one lasting arrangement among several.

The differences matter because these goddesses form a group, yet they are not interchangeable. A community could see grace as two powers or three and give those powers local names. Poets did the same. Homer knew Charis and Pasithea. Hesiod fixed Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia.

What Apollo held on Delos

Pausanias also describes a statue that made the number three visible. The sculptors Angelion and Tectaeus made an image of the god Apollo for the people of Delos, an island with a sanctuary (a sacred precinct) of Apollo. They placed three Charites in the god’s hand. The work joined Apollo’s single standing figure to a small company of goddesses whose local identities had never been the same everywhere.

Pausanias does not name the three in Apollo’s hand. A reader may think of Hesiod’s list, but Pausanias does not confirm it. His description gives the number and the makers, not the names. This matters for goddesses whose later fame can make every ancient group seem settled.

Pausanias saw another group of three in front of the entrance to the Acropolis, the citadel of Athens. Rites were held there that could not be told in public. Yet the same city had kept the older pair, Auxo and Hegemone. Statues, poems and rites did not have to agree for each to stay valid.

So the sources give the Charites in several forms. One welcomes Thetis, another is promised to Hypnos, three are born to Eurynome and local pairs keep different names. On Delos, Apollo held three, and Pausanias left them unnamed.