Hecate

Hecate, the chief goddess presiding over magic and spells. She was accepted at an early date into Greek religion but probably derived from the Carians in southwest Asia Minor. In Hesiod she is the daughter of the Titan Perses and the Titaness Asteria and has power over heaven, earth, and sea; hence, she bestows wealth and all the blessings of daily life. She was sometimes identified with other goddesses such as Artemis, Selene, and Persephone. In Roman tradition Hecate’s equivalent is the goddess Trivia.

Attributes

Shadowy and sometimes depicted as sinister, Hecate was nevertheless a very powerful divinity. Although she was primarily known as the goddess of witchcraft and sorcery, she was also a protective force. As a lunar deity she was associated with the moon and the night. Her spheres of influence included boundaries and liminal spaces, such as crossroads and entryways. She was also regarded as a deity of the underworld and was able to move freely between the realms of the living and the dead. Dogs were sacred to her, and she was attended by the Lampades, who were torch-bearing nymphs of the underworld.

In Greek mythology

In one account of the birth of Zeus, it is Hecate who hands Zeus’s father, Cronus, a stone in place of his newborn son. Cronus swallows the stone, just as he swallowed his other offspring. The infant Zeus is raised in secret and eventually overthrows Cronus after his siblings have been liberated. Hecate took the part of the Olympian gods, led by Zeus, in their war against the Gigantes or Giants. When Persephone was abducted her cries were heard by Hecate, who reported back to Persephone’s mother, Demeter. With the help of either Hyperion, the Titan deity of light, or Helios, the sun god who saw everything, Persephone’s captor was identified as Hades, the god of the underworld. Hecate subsequently served as a companion to Persephone during the months that she spent in the underworld (Persephone returned to her mother for the remainder of the year). In some traditions Hecate is given as the mother of the sorceresses Circe and Medea.

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Worship

Hecate was worshipped in households and in temples across Asia Minor and Greek city-states such as Athens and Argos. In honor of her role as the guardian of entryways and transitional spaces, pillars called Hecataea stood at crossroads and doorways, perhaps to keep away evil spirits. Hecate was represented as single-formed, clad in a long robe, and holding burning torches; in later representations she was triple-formed, with three bodies standing back-to-back, probably so that she could look in all directions at once from the crossroads. She was accompanied by packs of barking dogs. These iconographic forms became established motifs in Greek sculpture and other cult imagery, making Hecate readily identifiable in representations and reflecting her role as a protective deity associated with crossroads, the underworld, and magic.