45 Facts About Hecate

Hecate or Hekate is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, most often shown holding a pair of torches, a key, snakes, or accompanied by dogs, and in later periods depicted as three-formed or triple-bodied.

Hecate is variously associated with crossroads, entrance-ways, night, light, magic, witchcraft, the Moon, knowledge of herbs and poisonous plants, graves, ghosts, necromancy, and sorcery.

Hecate was one of several deities worshipped in ancient Athens as a protector of the oikos, alongside Zeus, Hestia, Hermes, and Apollo.

Whether or not Hecate's worship originated in Greece, some scholars have suggested that the name derives from a Greek root, and several potential source words have been identified.

Supporters of this etymology suggest that Hecate was originally considered an aspect of Artemis prior to the latter's adoption into the Olympian pantheon.

Related searches

Hecate was generally represented as three-formed or triple-bodied, though the earliest known images of the goddess are singular.

Hecate's earliest known representation is a small terracotta statue found in Athens.

An inscription on the statue is a dedication to Hecate, in writing of the style of the 6th century, but it otherwise lacks any other symbols typically associated with the goddess.

Hecate is seated on a throne, with a chaplet around her head; the depiction is otherwise relatively generic.

Apart from traditional hekataia, Hecate's triplicity is depicted in the vast frieze of the great Pergamon Altar, now in Berlin, wherein she is shown with three bodies, taking part in the battle with the Titans.

In Egyptian-inspired Greek esoteric writings connected with Hermes Trismegistus, and in the Greek Magical Papyri of Late Antiquity, Hecate is described as having three heads: one dog, one serpent, and one horse.

Comparative mythologist Alexander Haggerty Krappe cited that Hecate was named, since the horse was "the chthonic animal par excellence".

Hecate was closely associated with plant lore and the concoction of medicines and poisons.

Hecate was said to favour offerings of garlic, which was closely associated with her cult.

Hecate is sometimes associated with cypress, a tree symbolic of death and the underworld, and hence sacred to a number of chthonic deities.

Hecate was associated with borders, city walls, doorways, crossroads and, by extension, with realms outside or beyond the world of the living.

Hecate appears to have been particularly associated with being 'between' and hence is frequently characterized as a "liminal" goddess.

Hecate was seen as a triple deity, identified with the goddesses Luna in the sky and Diana on the earth, while she represents the Underworld.

Nevertheless, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter shows Helios and Hecate informing Demeter of Persephone's abduction, a common theme found in many parts of the world where the Sun and the Moon are questioned concerning events that happen on earth based on their ability to witness everything and implies Hecate's capacity as a moon goddess in the hymn.

From her father Perses, Hecate is often called “Perseis” which is the name of one of the Oceanid nymphs, Helios' wife and Circe's mother in other versions.

Worship of Hecate existed alongside other deities in major public shrines and temples in antiquity, and she had a significant role as household deity.

Shrines to Hecate were often placed at doorways to homes, temples, and cities with the belief that it would protect from restless dead and other spirits.

Home shrines often took the form of a small Hekataion, a shrine centred on a wood or stone carving of a triple Hecate facing in three directions on three sides of a central pillar.

Dogs were sacred to Hecate and associated with roads, domestic spaces, purification, and spirits of the dead.

Hecate's cult became established in Athens about 430 BC E At this time, the sculptor Alcamenes made the earliest known triple-formed Hecate statue for use at her new temple.

Related searches

Hecate was a popular divinity, and her cult was practiced with many local variations all over Greece and Western Anatolia.

The oldest known direct evidence of Hecate's cult comes from Selinunte, where she had a temple in the 6th–5th centuries BC.

An important sanctuary of Hecate was a holy cave on the island of Samothrake called Zerynthos:.

Lagina, where the famous temple of Hecate drew great festal assemblies every year, lay close to the originally Macedonian colony of Stratonikeia, where she was the city's patron.

Hecate was said to have saved the city from Philip II of Macedon, warning the citizens of a night time attack by a light in the sky, for which she was known as Hecate Lampadephoros.

Hecate's island called Psamite, was an islet in the vicinity of Delos.

Hecate's Deipnon is, at its most basic, a meal served to Hecate and the restless dead once a lunar month during the new moon.

Hecate gave her splendid gifts, to have a share of the earth and the unfruitful sea.

Hecate received honor in starry heaven, and is honored exceedingly by the deathless gods.

Hecate is good in the byre with Hermes to increase the stock.

One theory is that Hesiod's original village had a substantial Hecate following and that his inclusion of her in the Theogony was a way of adding to her prestige by spreading word of her among his readers.

Subsequently, Hecate became Persephone's companion on her yearly journey to and from the realms of Hades, serving as a psychopomp.

One surviving group of stories suggests how Hecate might have come to be incorporated into the Greek pantheon without affecting the privileged position of Artemis.

Hecate is told to sweeten the offering with a libation of honey, then to retreat from the site without looking back, even if he hears the sound of footsteps or barking dogs.

Hecate is depicted fighting Clytius in the east frieze of the Gigantomachy, in the Pergamon Altar next to Artemis; she appears with a different weapon in each of her three right hands, a torch, a sword and a lance.

Hecate's fight with the Giant appears in a number of ancient vase paintings and other artwork.

Hecate was said to be the daughter of Zeus by either Asteria, according to Musaeus, Hera, thus identified with Angelos, or Pheraea, daughter of Aeolus; the daughter of Aristaeus the son of Paion, according to Pherecydes; the daughter of Nyx, according to Bacchylides; the daughter of Perses, the son of Helios, by an unknown mother, according to Diodorus Siculus; while in Orphic literature, she was said to be the daughter of Demeter or Leto or even Tartarus.

Hecate adds that such an instrument is called a iunx, but as for the significance says only that it is ineffable and that the ritual is sacred to Hecate.

Hecate noted that the cult regularly practiced dog sacrifice and had secretly buried the body of one of its "queens" with seven dogs.

In Wicca, Hecate has in some cases become identified with the "crone" aspect of the "Triple Goddess".

Related searches