GREECE AND ROME

Orpheus. In Samothrace the cult was amalgamated with the occult rituals of the Cabiri. In certain parts of Caria she seems to have had eunuchs as her priests, which is certainly connected with the Corybantes of Cybele. Everything points to the fact that Thrace was the first home of Hecate, and the Thracian goddess Bendis may be Hecate venerated under another name. It should be remarked that the hound was the animal sacred to Hecate, and black dogs often precede the coming or manifestation of the divinity. The statue of Hecate Lampadephoros (Torch-bearer) at Byzantium commemorated the good service of the dogs who aroused the citizens on the occasion of a night attack by Philip of Macedon.

At some period before the Peloponnesian War, Hecate had become identified with Artemis. Probably in the first instance this was not because both were moon-goddesses—for such was in fact not originally the case—the usual, and rather superficial, explanation; but rather not on account of any deep essential affinity so much as that the torches, wandering by night, hounds, and wild nature of Hecate admirably suited Artemis as well. It is true, however, that in later years both Hecate and Artemis were worshipped as lunar deities. And soon her ghostly character becomes very prominent. Euripides speaks of her as "Queen of the phantom-world," and on black-figured vases she is depicted in company with Persephone, Demeter, and Hermes. We find her allied with those wilder gods whose rites were mystery, who drove the impious that dare profane the orgies, mad—Pan and Cybele; and at Tralles even with Priapus, a most important fact when we remember that sexual debauchery has always been a feature of witchcraft throughout the ages. In Lucian’s Philopseudes, Hecate is nightly evoked by a sorcerer and she appears terrible to see, in the form of a woman, half a furlong high, snake-footed, snakes in her hair, a torch in her left hand, a mighty sword in her right.

Horror, fear, and darkness rapidly accumulated about her: at Tarentum she was adored as aphrakto (the nameless one); at Terina and Hipponium in the fourth century as pandeina (all-terrible). Her statue of triple form, the queen of three worlds—Selene in heaven, Artemis on earth, Persephone in hell—stood at the crossroads, a haunted spot, where, according to Plato (Laws 873b), might be thrown the...