Hecate in the ancient sources

Ancient Sources / Figures / Hecate

20 passages from 10 ancient authors that tell of Hecate, in the original with English translation, author by author in the order the Greeks read them. Hecate was a goddess in Greek mythology, considered to be the goddess of magic and witchcraft. She was often depicted holding two torches or a key. Sh... For the story in one place, read our article on Hecate.

Hesiod (2)

Hesiod, Theogony 405–449Leto, Asteria and Hecate (405-449)Phoebe and Coeus have Leto and Asteria, and Asteria's daughter is Hecate. The long praise of Hecate describes how Zeus honoured her beyond all other gods, leaving her a share of earth, sea and starry heaven, and how she helps those she favours in the assembly, in war, in the games, at sea and in the herds.
Hesiod, Theogony 450–479Rhea and Cronus; the birth of Zeus (450-479)Hecate is made a nurse of the young. Rhea bears Cronus Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus, and Cronus swallows each child as it is born, because Gaia and Uranus have told him his own son will overcome him. When she is about to bear Zeus, Rhea asks her parents for a plan, and they send her to Lyctus in Crete, where Gaia receives the child.

Homer (2)

Homer, The Homeric Hymns 2.1–86Hymn 2 to Demeter (1): the abduction of PersephonePersephone is gathering flowers in a meadow when the earth opens and Hades seizes her and carries her away in his chariot. Her mother Demeter hears her cry, searches the earth for nine days with torches, and learns the truth from Hecate and from Helios, who tells her that Zeus gave Persephone to Hades.
Homer, The Homeric Hymns 2.395–495Hymn 2 to Demeter (5): reunion and the MysteriesPersephone tells her mother how she was seized and made to taste the seed, and mother and daughter spend the day in joy. Rhea brings Zeus's message, and Demeter agrees that Persephone will spend a third of the year below and the rest with the gods. Demeter makes the fields fruitful again and teaches her rites to the leaders of Eleusis, and the hymn closes with a blessing on those who have seen them.

Euripides (2)

Euripides, Medea 358–445Medea plans revenge; first choral song on broken oathsThe Chorus pities Medea, who says that she has won a day in which to kill Creon, his daughter and Jason, and considers the possible ways of doing it. She decides to poison them, calls on Hecate, and resolves that she will not be mocked. The Chorus sings that the rivers flow back to their sources, that men's oaths have failed, and that the honour of women is changing.
Euripides, Ion 1048–1105Second choral song: prayer to Hecate for the poison's successThe Chorus prays to the goddess of the highways, the daughter of Demeter, to guide the hand that fills the cup of death. It sings that no bastard should rule Athens, and that the house of Erechtheus must not go to a stranger's son.

Apollonius Rhodius (7)

Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 3.912–1025Jason and Medea meet at the temple of HecateArgus leads Jason and Mopsus towards the shrine of Hecate, and a crow, speaking for Hera, mocks Mopsus; he sends Jason on alone. Jason and Medea meet in silence, and he begs her for help, speaking of Ariadne and Theseus. She gives him the charm.
Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 3.439–575The heroes decide to ask Medea for helpMedea, tormented by love, fears for the stranger's life. Argus tells Jason that Medea knows magic and should be asked for help, and after Peleus, Telamon and Idas offer to face the contest, an omen of a dove escaping a hawk, which Mopsus reads as the will of Cypris, persuades the heroes. Idas scorns the plan, and Argus is sent back to the city.
Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 3.576–743Aeetes' plot, Medea's dream and Chalciope's pleaAeetes plots to destroy the strangers, but Argus goes to his mother Chalciope, who wants to ask Medea for help. Medea dreams that she undertakes the contest herself and is taken away by the stranger; and when Chalciope begs her to help her sons, Medea agrees and promises to bring charms to the temple of Hecate at dawn.
Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 3.744–911Medea's night of tormentAt night Medea is divided between her duty to her parents and her love for Jason, and takes up a casket of drugs with the thought of ending her life. A fear of Hades and a prompting from Hera restore her resolve, and at dawn she takes the charm of Prometheus and drives to the temple of Hecate. She tells her maids that she will meet the stranger there.
Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 3.1026–1162Medea's charm and the lovers' partingMedea tells Jason how to use the charm: sacrifice to Hecate by night, anoint himself and his weapons, and throw a stone among the Earthborn men. They exchange promises to remember each other, Jason speaks of Iolcus and Ariadne, and Medea reproaches him before they part; she returns home in distress.
Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 3.1163–1277Hecate's rites and the arming of Jason and AeetesJason tells the heroes Medea's counsel, and Telamon fetches the dragon's teeth from Aeetes. By night Jason sacrifices to Hecate, and in the morning Aeetes arms himself and goes to the field of the contest. Jason steeps his weapons in the charm, and Idas cannot break his spear.
Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4.212–349Aeetes' pursuit and the route homeAeetes learns of Medea's flight and sends the Colchian fleet in pursuit, and the Argonauts sacrifice to Hecate on the coast of Paphlagonia. Argus advises a different way home by the river Ister, and a heavenly sign confirms it, but Apsyrtus' fleet takes a shorter way. The Argonauts, meeting them at the Brygean islands, agree that Jason keeps the Fleece and Medea is held in trust until a king decides her fate.

Theocritus (1)

Theocritus, Idylls 2.1–166Idyll 2: Simaetha's love-charmSimaetha and her maid Thestylis perform love-magic by moonlight, calling on Selene and Hecate to bring back Delphis, who has not come to her for twelve days. Alone, she tells the moon how she first saw Delphis on the way to a procession in the grove of Artemis, fell ill with love, and sent Thestylis to bring him to her house. She ends by vowing that if the charms fail he shall knock at the gate of Hell.

Aristophanes (1)

Aristophanes, Frogs 1300–1359Agon: Aeschylus parodies Euripides' songsAeschylus says that Euripides draws his lays from rotten sources, and he calls for a lyre and for the Muse of Euripides. He then parodies the monodies of Euripides, with a dream, a lost cock and the call of Mania to the hounds, and rounds off the parody with a song of spiders and halcyons and an appeal to Hecate.

Diodorus Siculus (1)

Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Books 4 to 6 (the Greek myths) 4.45.1–4.49.8The Argonauts II: Colchis, Medea and the golden fleeceThe historian explains the custom of the Colchi of killing strangers by the story of Aeëtes and his brother Perses, and gives the traditions about Medea and about Phrixus and the ram with the golden fleece. With Medea's help the Argonauts take the fleece; the king of the Colchi falls in the fighting, and the chiefs sail home by way of Byzantium and Troy.

Ovid (1)

Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.159–296Medea rejuvenates AesonJason, home in Thessaly with the fleece, asks Medea to give some of his own years to his father Aeson. Medea, on the night of the full moon, calls on Hecate and gathers magic herbs, and drains the old man's blood and fills his veins with a potion. Aeson regains the vigour of a young man, and Dionysus (Bacchus), watching, asks Medea to do the same for his nurses.

Pausanias (2)

Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.30.1–10Aegina’s cults of Hecate and Aphaea; the early history of TroezenPausanias lists Aegina’s temples, Hecate’s mysteries with Myron’s image, the sanctuary of Aphaea and the Cretan legend of Britomartis, and the sanctuary of Panhellenian Zeus, referring readers to Herodotus for the images of Auxesia and Damia. He then turns to Troezenia, giving its legendary kings from Orus and Althepus through Saron, Hyperes and Anthas to Pittheus and Troezen, and notes Dorian rule from Argos and the colonies founded from Troezen.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.22.1–9Argos: sanctuaries of Hera and Latona, the Dioscuri, Hecate and the gymnasium of CylarabesSouth of the Latona sanctuary Pausanias describes the temple of Flowery Hera and the grave of the Sea-Women, the sanctuary of Pelasgian Demeter, a bronze vessel said to hold the bones of Tantalus, and the shrine of Poseidon of the Dashing Wave. He then lists the grave of Argus, the temple of the Dioscuri, the sanctuary of Ilithyia founded by Helen, and the temple of Hecate with images by Scopas, Polyclitus and Naucydes. He ends with the tomb of Sacadas and the gymnasium of Cylarabes.

Orpheus (attributed) (1)

Orpheus (attributed), Orphic Hymns 0–3Hymns 0-3: Musaeus (proem), Hecate, Prothyraea, NightThe collection opens with a prologue in which Orpheus addresses his pupil Musaeus, promises to teach him the rites of sacrifice and then calls on a long roll of gods, nymphs, spirits and personified powers to attend. The prologue ends with a short invocation of Hecate of the crossroads, which Taylor prints as its closing lines (modern Hymn 1). The next two hymns invoke Prothyraea, the goddess who presides over childbirth, and Night, named as the parent from whom gods and men first arose.