The Graces

The Charites (singular Charis) or Graces were minor goddesses of charm, beauty and festivity in Greek mythology, usually three in number and daughters of Zeus and Eurynome. Hesiod names them Aglaea, Euphrosyne and Thalia. Other traditions gave them different parents, names and numbers.

Who were the Graces

In Hesiod’s Theogony, Zeus had the Oceanid Eurynome as one of his wives, and she bore him three Graces with fair cheeks: Aglaea (splendor), Euphrosyne (mirth) and Thalia (good cheer). Desire drips from their eyes as they glance, and they look out from beneath their brows (Hesiod, Theogony 907–911). Apollodorus gives the same parents and names (Apollodorus, Library 1.3.1), and Pausanias says the poem of Onomacritus agrees with Hesiod (Pausanias 9.35.5).

Pausanias reports other parents too: the poet Antimachus made the Graces daughters of Aegle and the Sun (Helios), without giving their number or names (Pausanias 9.35.5).

The Graces in Ancient Greece

The number and names of the Graces differed from place to place. The Boeotians said that Eteocles was the first man to sacrifice to the Graces and that he fixed their number at three, though they had no tradition of the names he gave them. The Lacedaemonians said there were two, Cleta and Phaenna, established by Lacedaemon, son of Taygete (Pausanias 9.35.1; 3.18.6). The Athenians had long worshipped two Graces, Auxo and Hegemone (Pausanias 9.35.2). The elegiac poet Hermesianax made Persuasion (Peitho) one of the Graces (Pausanias 9.35.5). In the Iliad, Hera offers Sleep (Hypnos) one of the younger Graces as his wife, and Sleep makes her swear to give him Pasithea, whom he has always longed for (Homer, Iliad 14.267–276).

Cult at Orchomenos

At Orchomenos in Boeotia the oldest sanctuary was that of the Graces. The people there worshipped stones above all, which they said had fallen from heaven for Eteocles (Pausanias 9.38.1). Pindar’s ode for a victor from Orchomenos addresses the Graces as the queens of shining Orchomenos by the waters of the Cephisus, guardians of the ancient Minyans (Pindar, Olympian 14.1–4), and names them Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia, children of the mightiest of the gods (Olympian 14.13–16).

Companions of the Muses and Aphrodite

Hesiod says the Graces have their homes beside the Muses on Helicon, near Desire (Hesiod, Theogony 64–65). In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, the Graces dance on Olympus with the Horai, Harmonia, Hebe and Aphrodite, holding each other by the wrist, while Apollo plays and the Muses sing (Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollo 194–196). When the gods make Pandora, the Graces and Persuasion put golden necklaces on her (Hesiod, Works and Days 73–75). Pindar says that the gods hold neither dances nor feasts without the Graces, who set their thrones beside Apollo of the golden bow on Olympus (Pindar, Olympian 14.8–12).

The Graces and Hephaestus

Hesiod says that Hephaestus made Aglaea, the youngest of the Graces, his wife (Theogony 945–946). In the Iliad the wife of Hephaestus is called simply Charis (Homer, Iliad 18.382–383).

Patrons of Pleasures

They were patrons of the pleasures of life: festivity, good cheer and the gifts that make life pleasant. Pindar says that through the Graces all pleasant and sweet things come to mortals, whether a man is wise, handsome or glorious (Pindar, Olympian 14.5–7), and he credits them with his own victory songs (Olympian 4.9, Olympian 9.27). In art, Pausanias notes that early sculptors and painters showed the Graces clothed, and that later artists, for a reason he does not know, represent them naked (Pausanias 9.35.6–7).

The Graces Sources

Hesiod, Theogony 64–65, 907–911, 945–946; Hesiod, Works and Days 73–75; Homer, Iliad 14.267–276, 18.382–383; Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollo 194–196; Pindar, Olympian 4.9, 9.27, 14.1–16; Apollodorus, Library 1.3.1; Pausanias 3.18.6, 9.35.1–7, 9.38.1.

See Also: Zeus, Eurynome, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Apollo, Pandora, Aglaea, Euphrosyne, Thalia