Hecate is a Goddess beloved by contemporary Pagans and increasingly popular among Magic Practitioners. But who is Hecate really?

Her portrayal has evolved over the ages, and the contemporary perceptions of the Greek Goddess have some distinctive elements and present variations from the ancient depictions. I will investigate contemporary perception in another episode. In this one, we will learn how Hecate has been perceived, seen and depicted in antiquity, in Hesiod and in antiquity.

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Hello everyone, I’m Dr Angela Puca and welcome to my Symposium. I’m a PhD and a University Lecturer and this is your online resource for the academic study of Magick, Paganism, Esotericism and all things occult.

As Henrichs explains, ‘Hecate was a popular and perversive Goddess from the time of Hesiod until late antiquity. She does not feature in Homer, and Hesiod describes her as harmless. (Henrichs, 2015)

By the 5th century, she began to be seen as a sinister divine figure associated with Magic and Witchcraft as well as lunar lore, creatures of the night, dog sacrifices, and illuminated cakes. This is also the time when she became associated with doorways and crossroads. The name Hekate is the feminine correspondent to Hekatos, a less-known epithet of Apollo. Yet, the Greek etymology doesn’t imply that either her name or her cult comes from Greece.

She likely has Carian origins, considering her infernal attributions and the ambivalent and polymorphous nature. She seems to dwell more at the fringes than in Greek polytheism’s centre. In The Theogony, Hecate is the granddaughter of the Titans Phoebe and Coeus, daughter of Perses and Asteria, and first cousin of Apollo and Artemis. Still, in the Theogony, there is a digression (Theog. 411–52) where Hecate is praised as a powerful goddess who ‘has a share’ of earth, sea, and sky — but not of the Underworld. Here, it is also said that she gives protection to warriors, athletes, hunters, herders, and anglers.

Like all the other gods, Hecate can bestow and withhold her help. But, because her attributes often intertwine with that of other deities, she lacks individuating traits in the Theogony and appears as an eccentric deity compared to the others. Also, the Hesiodic Hecate contrasts remarkably with later depictions of the Goddess, which tend to be much more threatening. It is still uncertain where and how this change occurred.

Throughout history, Hecate was the object of both public and private worship. People have worshipped her and made sacrificial offerings in liminal places. As Henrichs explains, the documentation on the cult of Hecate in Classical Athens suggests that her favourite food offerings consisted of a scavenging fish, the red mullet (τρίγλα‎, Apollodorus 244 F 109; Antiphanes fr. 69. 14 f. K–A), of sacrificial cakes decorated with lit miniature torches (Soph. fr. 734 Radt; Diphilus fr. 27 K–A; LIMC ‘Hekate’, no. 47), and, most famously, of puppies (Ar. frs. 209, 608 K-A).

The illuminated cakes were offered at the time of the full moon (Philochorus, FGrH 328 F 86). So-called ‘suppers of Hecate’ (Ἑκαταῖα‎ sc. δεῖπνα‎)—consisting of various bread-stuffs, eggs, cheese, and dog meat—were put out for her at the crossroads each month to mark the rising of the new moon (Ari.Plut. 594 ff. with schol., fr. 209 K–A). In Athens, Colophon, Samothrace, and Thrace, dog sacrifices to Hecate were made both for consumption and as a form of catharsis. (Sophron fr. 4.7 K-A; Plut. Quaest. Rom. 280c, 290d). During Hellenistic and Roman times, she was worshipped as the regional mother-goddess at her main Carian sanctuary at Lagina, near Stratonicea. There weren’t dog sacrifices in the Lagina cult, but the presence of puppy sacrifices, particularly in Hittite and Carian purification rituals, indicate a possible early Anatolian connection.

As a chthonian deity, Hecate was seen as both terrible and benign. Her benign side is shown in the epithet ‘nurturer of the young’ found in the Theogony (Hes. Theog. 450 κουροτρόφος‎, echoed in later sources). We find in Aeschylus the title ‘Hekata’ that refers to Artemis in her association with childbirth and young animals. The Hecate seen in Eleusinian myth and cult is also kind and caring. She helps Demeter in her search for Persephone (Kore) and, after the reunion of mother and daughter, becomes Persephone’s ‘minister and attendant.’ In later versions of the myth, Hecate is another daughter of Demeter and is the one who retrieves Persephone from the Underworld.

Even though Hecate didn’t quite have a mythology of her own, her nocturnal apparitions, packs of barking hell-hounds, and hosts of ghost-like revenants occupied a special place in the Greek religious imagination. Deemed to be ‘the one of the roadways’ (ἐνοδία‎), she protected the crossroads, and the graves by the roadside and would guard the gates to Hades. According to one of the hymns to Selene-Hecate, part of the Paris magical papyrus, Hecate keeps the keys that ‘open the bars of Cerberus’ and wears ‘the bronze sandal of her who holds Tartarus’ (PGMIV 2291–5, 2334 f.; cf. Suppl. Mag. 49. 57–61). She features consistently in the Greek and Roman Underworld. For instance, she guides through the Tartarus Virgil’s Sibyl, a priestess of Apollo and Hecate. (Aen. 6. 35, 564 f.). Hecate also features extensively in ancient magic, due to her association with the chthonian world and the ghosts of the dead.

In the theurgy of the Chaldaean Oracles adopted by the Neoplatonists, Hecate becomes an epiphanic celestial deity and cosmological principle—the Cosmic soul—accessible through ritual as well as contemplation. She is still associated with demons, though. In art, Hecate is represented either single-faced or three-faced. Often shown wearing the polos (the divine headdress) and holding torches in her hands and sometimes with a phiale, a sword, snakes, boughs, flowers, or a pomegranate.

Greek writers have often addressed the triple aspects of the trimorphic Goddess. In one of his comedies, Chariclides has her humorously invoked as ‘Lady Hecate of the triple roads, of the triple form, of the triple face, enchanted by triple fish. A curse tablet from the imperial period addresses her as ‘Lady Hecate of the heavens, Hecate of the Underworld, Hecate of the three roads, Hecate of the triple face, Hecate of the single face’ (SEG 30. 326 = Gager no. 84; cf. IV 2525–30, 2820–6).

This is it for this historical overview of the Goddess Hecate and her worship. If you want me to address the more contemporary depictions of Hecate, please, let me know in the comment section. I also want to know what your thoughts are, even your experiences if you want to share. So I really look forward to reading your comments.

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REFERENCES

Clay, J.S., 1984. The Hecate of the Theogony. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 25(1), pp.27-38.

Henrichs, A. (2015) ‘Hecate’, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Classics. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.2957.

First uploaded 23 Jun 2022