Lachesis

Lachesis was one of the three Moirai, the Fates, with her sisters Clotho and Atropos. The Moirai give mortals their share of good and evil at birth. In Plato’s myth of Er, Lachesis is the one who holds the lots and patterns of lives from which souls choose, and who sends each soul on its way with its guardian spirit.

Parents

The sources give the Fates different parents. In Hesiod’s Theogony, Night bore the Moirai, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, along with the pitiless Keres (Hesiod, Theogony 217–219). Later in the same poem, however, Zeus takes Themis as his second wife, and she bears the Horai and the Moirai, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, to whom Zeus gave the greatest honor (Theogony 901–906). Apollodorus follows this second version and calls the Moirai daughters of Zeus and Themis (Library 1.3.1). Plato calls the three Fates daughters of Necessity (Plato, Republic 10.617c).

Role of Lachesis

Hesiod does not distinguish the three sisters: together, he says, they give mortals at birth the good and evil they have to bear, and they punish transgressions of men and gods and do not stop their anger until the wrongdoer has paid the penalty (Hesiod, Theogony 217–222).

The fullest picture of Lachesis comes from Plato. In the myth of Er, the three Fates sit on thrones at equal distances, dressed in white with garlands on their heads, around the spindle of Necessity. They sing together with the Sirens: Lachesis sings of the things that were, Clotho of the things that are, and Atropos of the things that will be. Clotho turns the outer rim of the spindle with her right hand, Atropos the inner circles with her left, and Lachesis turns either one with each hand in turn (Plato, Republic 10.617b–c).

When the souls arrive to choose their next lives, they go first to Lachesis. A prophet takes lots and patterns of lives from her lap and proclaims “the word of Lachesis, the maiden daughter of Necessity”: no divinity will choose for them, each soul will choose its own life, and the blame belongs to the one who chooses (Plato, Republic 10.617d–e). After the choice, the souls go before Lachesis again, and she sends each with the guardian spirit it has chosen. The spirit leads the soul to Clotho to confirm its lot and then to Atropos, who makes the web of its destiny irreversible (Plato, Republic 10.620d–e).

Lachesis in Myth and Cult

Pindar shows Lachesis, called “of the golden headband”, at a decisive moment in the myth of Rhodes: Helios asks her to raise her hands and, together with Zeus, not to break the great oath of the gods, but to grant that the island he had seen rising from the sea would be his; and the island grew up out of the water (Pindar, Olympian 7.62–70). The Fates appear at the birth of Meleager. When he was seven days old, Apollodorus says, they came and declared that he would die when the brand burning on the hearth was burnt up (Apollodorus, Library 1.8.2); Apollodorus does not say which of the three spoke.

At Delphi, Pausanias saw images of only two Fates; in place of the third stood Zeus, Guide of Fate, and Apollo, Guide of Fate (Pausanias 10.24.4). At Sparta there was a sanctuary of the Fates beside the grave of Orestes (Pausanias 3.11.10).

Lachesis Sources

Hesiod, Theogony 217–222 and 901–906. Plato, Republic 10.617–620. Pindar, Olympian 7.62–70. Apollodorus, Library 1.3.1 and 1.8.2. Pausanias 3.11.10 and 10.24.4.

See Also: the Fates, Clotho, Atropos, Zeus, Themis, Nyx, Meleager, Helios