Restless Dead

by Sarah Iles Johnston

  By at least the fifth century, she also had a temple at the city gates of Miletus, about fifty miles northwest of Lagina, where she must have been important: as I have already mentioned, a prominent altar was dedicated to her there in the sixth century, and another was dedicated to her under her common epithet Phosphoros, "bringer of light," in the first century.15 An archaic calendar of sacrifices mentions a rite in which she was crowned.16 Information that once again connects Hecate to city gates in Caria comes from fifth-century Miletus, in the cult regulations of a guild of musicians called molpoi. These describe a procession in which two mysterious objects called gulloi had to be carried. One was to be crowned and anointed with unmixed wine "next to the Hecate who stands before the gates [of Miletus]." 17 In Aphrodisias, just north of Lagina, there was a priesthood of Hecate Propylaia, suggesting that there, too, she had a special connection with gates.18

  Her placement at the gates of cities can be understood as part of her broader role in Caria as a city goddess, for it implies that she will protect her city by preventing anything dangerous from entering.19 Although she never became a full-fledged city goddess in other parts of the Greek world (probably because this role was already being played by Athena, Hera, and others), her duty as a guardian of entrances spread widely there. According to Plutarch, in fact, it was so common to set up images of Hecate (hekataia) at important city entrances that one general could ridicule another who had set up a military trophy at such an entrance by suggesting that he would have done better to have erected a hekataion-that is, a statue to protect the entrance. In Rhodes, she was worshipped as Propylaia alongside Hermes Propylaios and Apollo Apotropaios. In Thasos, she was worshipped at three different city entrances: the Maritime Gate, the Gate of Silenus, and the Gates of Hermes. In Athens, she probably had a shrine on the west road leading out of the city, just outside of the Sacred Gate. She also guarded the entrances of important areas within or near cities. Most famously, Hecate Epipyrgidia stood at the entrance to the Athenian Acropolis, the "city within the city" that represented Athens' religious heart. In Selinus, a fifth-century dedicatory inscription found at a propylon that served as the entrance to the sanctuary of Demeter Malophoros refers to Hecate, suggesting that she was also worshipped at this important entrance.20

  A goddess who guards a whole city can also guard a home, a role for which Hecate became famous in Greece. The earliest evidence, which describes her as standing in front of kings' houses, comes from a fragment of Aeschylus21 and thus is approximately contemporaneous with the inscriptions from Didyma and Miletus that associate her with city gates and doors. Although this contemporaneity allows the possibility that Hecate's role as entrance guardian first developed in Greece and then moved to Carla, or developed simultaneously in both places, it is far more likely that it was among her original Carian duties and that Hecate brought it with her into Greece. For one thing, it is difficult to imagine that if the Greeks had made significant innovations in Hecate's persona once she arrived, these would be adopted by her homeland so rapidly as to become part of official cult within little more than a hundred years, especially to such an extent that a new temple at the Milesian city gates would be built. For another thing, the Greeks already had a god who served as guardian of entrances when Hecate arrived: Hermes.22 It is hard to see why they would assign the same role to another deity, had she not brought it with her when she arrived.

  It was probably her role as guardian of entrances that led to Hecate's identification by the mid fifth century with Enodia, a Thessalian god- dess.23 Enodia's very name ("In-the-Road") suggests that she watched over entrances, for it expresses both the possibility that she stood on the main road into a city, keeping an eye on all who entered, and in the road in front of private houses, protecting their inhabitants.

  The latter function is demonstrated by remains from Thessalian Larissa. An iron key was found inside a hole drilled in a fifth-century statue base inscribed to Enodia. This suggests that the base was originally positioned near something that the key was able to lock and unlock, either symbolically or in reality. The small size of the base suggests a domestic setting, as does the inscription, which asks Enodia for help with a child. Thus, it seems probable that the piece was originally placed in front of the door of a private house. The inscription also mentions an agalma dedicated to Enodia; this must refer to the statuette that was once on top of the base. Given the frequent identification of Hecate and Enodia, this is likely to have been similar to the hekataia that were found in front of house doors. Another fifth-century Larissan dedication that also asks Enodia for help with a child comes from a marble statue base discovered in the remains of a private dwelling; its original position is unknown, but its domestic use makes it possible that it, too, stood at the entrance to a house. A third fifth-century inscription, on a fragment from a marble stele, mentions a dedication to Enodia Alexeatis, "The Averter," a title that expresses Enodia's ability to ward off all dangers. Unfortunately, we do not know where it was erected, but its small size again makes a domestic use likely.24

  Divinities who guard the entrances to cities or private dwellings would be expected to avert all sorts of dangers that might threaten those dwelling within, from burglars to mice, but in ancient Greece (like many other places), they were particularly expected to ward off unhappy souls and other demonic creatures, who were believed to congregate at entrances for two reasons. First, because inhabitants vigilantly used protective devices to keep them out, these creatures were imagined to lurk near entrances, patiently awaiting those rare moments of laxity when they might dart back inside. (This is the idea, for instance, behind the Byzantine folktale of how Gello sneaked into a heavily guarded castle by disguising herself as a fly on a horse that Saint Sisinnius rode through the gates, which opened only for him.) 25 Second, spaces such as the threshold of a door are "liminal," lying between otherwise defined areas without belonging to either of them. All over the world, as noted in chapter 5, liminal situations are associated with demons.26 As a goddess expected to avert demons from the house or city over which she stood guard and to protect the individual as she or he passed through dangerous liminal places, Hecate would naturally become known as a goddess who could also refuse to avert the demons, or even drive them on against unfortunate individuals. In noting her association with liminal places, then, we have identified one important factor that led to Hecate's lead ership of the demons in Greece. Following this reasoning, she was probably also associated with demons in Caria, although evidence for this is lacking.

  A goddess like the one I have been describing for the past few pages would have been welcomed in Greece during the later archaic age for two reasons. First, any divinity who safeguarded boundaries and entrances would have had an important role to play during the later archaic age. For, as discussed in chapter 3, during this time, the Greeks became increasingly concerned with delineating space, and marking off certain portions of it for certain uses. The polis was divided, symbolically and physically, from the world outside of the polis. The dead were given their own territory, which often was circumscribed by walls. Sanctuaries were set off from secular space by walls or boundary stones, and commercial spaces such as the Athenian agora were set off from noncommercial spaces.27 The positioning of hekataia at the entrances to cities, sanctuaries, and other areas within cities, like the positioning of herms, probably began as an effort to guard those areas, but developed into a means of defining them as well. The statue of a guardian divinity declared to all who passed by that the space within was dedicated to a special use. Hecate's position at the doorways to private homes may have had a similar importance, symbolically declaring the integrity of the oikos to those who passed by.

  Second, as we have seen, the archaic period was a time during which fear of the restless dead was growing in Greece; any goddess who could control them would have been valued. By themselves, however, neither the need for such a deity nor Hecate's association with liminal points can adequately account for the
fact that an association with ghosts became such a dominant aspect of her persona. As I have mentioned, Hermes was also a god who guarded entrances and protected people at liminal places. As psychopompos, he also had contact with the departing souls of the dead; by the time of Aeschylus, this led to the belief that he could help individuals invoke those souls again.21 And yet, he never was portrayed as the leader of a band of restless, dangerous souls.29

  Hecate had another role that Hermes did not, however, which brought her even more closely into contact both with demons and with the mortals whom they were especially likely to attack. In the next section, I shall begin to explain what this was.

  HECATE AND GIRLS' TRANSITIONS

  I mentioned above that one of Hecate's earliest roles in Greek literature and art was that of a wedding attendant. In this she was similar to Artemis, who also was expected to bless weddings with her presence, ensuring the bride's safe transition from maiden to wife. As is well known, this was but one aspect of Artemis's general guardianship of the female's passage from girl to mother, which also manifested itself in her presence when women gave birth, her protection of children after birth, and, even earlier in the process, her sponsorship of a variety of rituals in which girls symbolically made the transition from virgin to marriageable woman.30

  Hecate, too, exhibited a concern for women that extended from the time that they were ready for marriage through childbirth-in fact, it was undoubtedly this common range of interests that led to the early association of the two goddesses. Aeschylus credits "Artemis-Hecate" with bringing labor pains to women. Antoninus Liberalis, drawing on the second-century B.C.E. poet Nicander, relates a story whereby one of the midwives present at Heracles' birth was turned into a weasel by Hera, but then, in recompense, was honored by Hecate and became her "sacred servant" forever, which suggests that Hecate was a goddess whom midwives particularly served. Ennius mentions that Trivia (i.e., Hecate) could bestow children on fathers who prayed to her. Hesychius describes the birth goddess Genetyllis as another form of Hecate. The Chaldean Oracles make Hecate the goddess through whose grace the whole material cosmos was created, and identify her womb as the source of all life.31 Hecate's sacred animal, the dog,32 is also suggestive of her connection with birth, for the dog was sacred to Eileithyia, Genetyllis, and other birth goddesses.33 Although in later times Hecate's dog came to be thought of as a manifestation of the restless souls or demons who accompanied her,34 its docile appearance and its accompaniment of a Hecate who looks completely friendly in many pieces of ancient art suggests that its original signification was positive and thus likelier to have arisen from the dog's connection with birth than the dog's demonic associations. Of course, as in the case of Artemis, there was a darker side to Hecate's role as birth goddess as well. A fragment from a Doric mime, perhaps by Sophron, describes her as leaving the bed of a parturient woman whom she has just killed. Like all divinities, Hecate can take away what she can give. Perhaps the women who try to avert Hecate in some other fragments from Sophron are also concerned with protecting a parturient woman and her infant.31

  From earliest times, Hecate is singled out as a kourotrophos as well. Midway through the Theogony, in his so-called "Hymn to Hecate," Hesiod calls her this twice, describing it as a characteristic that Hecate has held from the outset. She is also called kourotrophos by Apollonius Rhodius and several other later authors. The pseudo-Herodotean Life of Homer describes Samian women as sacrificing to a kourotrophic goddess at the crossroads, which must, again, indicate Hecate. The scholiast on Aristophanes' Wasps 804 explains that the Athenians erected hekataia everywhere because they believed that she was the guardian and kourotrophos of all.36 The scholiast to Theocritus's second Idyll more specifically calls Hecate the trophos of Persephone, a function that she also displays, perhaps, in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, when she embraces Persephone upon her return from the Underworld and promises to watch over her thereafter.37 A piglet was offered on the i 6th of the month Metageitnion to a goddess called Kourotrophos at Hecate's shrine in Attic Erchia, according to an inscription dated to the second quarter of the fourth century. On the same day and in the same place, a goat was offered to Artemis-Hecate, which implies that Kourotrophos was understood as a goddess separate from this other, but Kourotrophos's presence in Hecate's shrine is telling nonetheless.38 On a votive relief from imperial Phrygia, which shows two young boys, a mother prays to Hecate for help with her children. Another Phrygian relief (undated) asks both Hecate and the local god Men for help with children.39

  It is probable that Hecate's concern with the birth and nurturing of children was one that she brought with her into Greece from her homeland. The east frieze of her Hellenistic temple in Lagina shows her helping to protect the newly born Zeus by presenting the disguised stone to Cronus; another female figure carries the real child away.40 The Laginetan frieze is our only evidence for Hecate's involvement in this birth; similarly, only at the Laginetan temple does she participate in the myths represented on the west and north friezes, which show the Gigantomachy and a treaty being made between Amazons and unidentified warriors. Kraus suggests, correctly I think, that the roles Hecate plays in these friezes align generically with those that were celebrated at this, her biggest cult site. The artist, wishing to express her locally popular roles through well-known Greek myths, introduced Hecate into established stories where she had formerly had no part.41

  As already mentioned, Thracian Enodia was also concerned with children: two of the early fifth-century inscriptions from Larissa ask for her help with a child. One is from the statue base that enclosed a key, which, I have suggested, was originally positioned at a house door, and the other is from the marble statue base found in the remains of a house. The dedications are brief, and the ways in which the requests are worded makes it impossible to tell whether the dedicators wanted Enodia to ensure conception and birth or rather to protect a child who had already been born.42 The difference is probably insignificant, however, for like Hecate, a goddess who helps with one usually helps with the other. Perhaps such a statue would have served both purposes for the household over a period of years.

  Our paucity of information about Enodia makes it impossible to say whether she displays a concern for children in these inscriptions because it always had been part of her personality or rather because she had adopted it from Hecate, with whom she was identified by at least the time of Sophocles.43 Whatever the answer to that, it is important to note that Enodia's help with children is being sought in a domestic setting in at least one case and probably another as well.44 This makes sense: the birth and nurture of children are first and foremost concerns of the oikos-every home needed the help of a goddess with such interests. The same logic would work to explain the prevalence of hekataia in front of houses: Hecate's ability to guarantee the birth and subsequent health of children would make her popular in any home, particularly amongst women, whom we know were especially devoted to her. In fact, it is in order to explain why hekataia were erected in front of houses that the scholiast on Aristophanes' Wasps tells us that Hecate was considered the kourotrophos of all, which suggests that the goddess's kourotrophic abilities were one of the main reasons that domestic hekataia were erected.

  If the statues were erected simply to solicit Hecate's and Enodia's blessings, however, they could have stood anywhere within domestic spaces; the scholiast's remark seems to imply their location at the entrances to houses, as Aristophanes describes, was directly related to their kourotrophic potency. This takes us back to our earlier discussion about these goddesses' roles as guardians, and implies that they were expected not only to promote fecundity but also to avert from the house whatever might injure its children or reproductively viable women. And, indeed, the scholiast on Aristophanes confirms this in the same breath with which he tells us that the hekataia had kourotrophic functions by also calling the goddess a watcher or guardian-ephoros. The fifth-century marble stele dedicated to Enodia "the Averter" expresses this idea, too.


  But what, exactly, were Enodia and Hecate supposed to be keeping away from the oikos as they stood by its door? On a day-to-day basis, perhaps, no one thought very hard about the answer to this question, any more than a contemporary Greek woman consciously thinks about what will be averted by the amulet against the Evil Eye that she has pinned to her baby's shirt. Both the statue and the amulet become part of everyday life, silently reassuring their owners that the proper supernatural forces are watching over them. When a catastrophe occurs, however-when a baby becomes sick or when a woman finds herself unable to bear children-people begin to think harder about the nature and origin of the evil that causes these problems. They want to identify it by name, to understand why it is attacking them and how they can avert it more effectively. These concerns give rise to belief in the individual aorai discussed in chapter 5: Mormo, Lamia, Gello. Creatures such as these would have been foremost amongst those whom Hecate was expected to avert in order to protect the health of babies and women and ensure the continuation of the family as a whole. Of course, Mormo, Lamia, and Gello were but three mythic crystallizations of a vast army of women who had died in states similar to theirs. We should recall that all three of these names could, in fact, be used in the plural.