Hecate

The goddess Zeus left in place

Hecate is the only child of Asteria and Perses, two descendants of the Titans, the older generation of gods. Zeus did not take away the honours she held before his reign. He confirmed them and gave her a share in the earth, the sea and the starry heaven.

The early Greek poet Hesiod tells this in his Theogony, a poem about the birth of the gods. He spends more space on her honours than on most of the gods’ family lines. Hecate can bring a person standing in an assembly, judgement beside kings, victory in battle and success at games. She favours riders and sailors. With the god Hermes she can make herds of cattle, goats and sheep grow, or shrink. Zeus also makes her a nurse of children.

This is a far wider field than the later picture of a goddess concerned only with magic or ghosts. Hesiod’s Hecate crosses boundaries because her share reaches into several parts of the ordered world. Her favour can grant a result, and her refusal can hold it back.

Apollodorus, whose Library retells the Greek myths, gives her the same parents in one sentence: Perses and Asteria have Hecate. This short note confirms her place in the Titan family, but leaves out Hesiod’s account of her powers.

Hearing Persephone’s cry

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, an early poem in praise of the goddess Demeter, gives Hecate a different part. The god Hades carries off Demeter’s daughter Persephone. Hecate hears the girl cry out from her cave, but she does not see who took her. Demeter searches for nine days. On the tenth, Hecate meets her with torches and tells her what she knows. Together they go to Helios, who saw the abduction and names Hades.

Hecate returns at the end of the poem. Persephone is reunited with Demeter, and the division of the year is settled. Then Hecate embraces her. From then on, the poet says, she becomes Persephone’s attendant and companion.

The hymn does not make Hecate the cause of the abduction or the ruler of the dead. She is a witness, a guide and a lasting companion. Her torches belong to a search for knowledge in the dark.

The yearly rites on Aegina

The Greek traveller Pausanias records a local Hecate who was far more than a vague figure in poems. Of all the gods, he says, the people of Aegina honour Hecate most. They hold rites for her every year, and they say Orpheus of Thrace began them.

Her sanctuary, the sacred ground set aside for her, had a wall around it and a temple. Inside stood a wooden image of her by the sculptor Myron, with one face and one body. Pausanias at once compares it with the image made by Alcamenes at Athens, which has three bodies joined together. The detail matters because the three-bodied Hecate has become the familiar picture. The image worshipped on Aegina was single.

Pausanias does not describe what happened during the yearly rite. Calling it a rite and naming Orpheus as its founder reveals nothing of its private acts. What his account firmly shows is how often she was worshipped, her sanctuary, her image and her special place in the worship of Aegina.

One goddess, several sources

Hesiod’s giver of success, the hymn’s witness with torches and the goddess worshipped on Aegina are different scenes. Each source picks out a different link. Hecate stands beside the order of Zeus, beside Demeter and Persephone, and at the centre of an island rite.

The sources also block a common shortcut. Hecate is not always shown with three bodies. Her earliest long account does not give her a narrow field. She is not another name for Persephone. The image on Aegina has one body. Hesiod divides her honour across three regions. The hymn makes her Persephone’s companion.

Aegina gives the firmest link to a real place, because Pausanias records worship there that was active and repeated. The island does more than appear in a story about Hecate. Its people honour her above the other gods, return to her rite each year and keep her image in her own temple.