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Hecates

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

Also in Greece. as in all ancient world. magic art, either foreign or local, had widely spread. By then it was a fact of life and it was impossible to ignore it. Then also witchcraft as everything else had to have a goddess: One who would protect it. Greeks as we know had gods for everything, so it would have seemed odd in a country where there were no trees without Driads, no mountains without Oreads, and no springs without Naiads, if magic and spells didn’t have a goddess of their own: A dark goddess, of course, as dark were the rituals celebrated by night. Thus, while Aphrodites was the goddess of love, Artemis of hunting, and Athena the one of wisdom, Hecates, who in more ancient times had been a lunar goddess confused with Artemis, ended by becoming the protector of witches and wizards. A pale goddess she was, the one that in his Theogony Hesiod exalted as the utmost essence of divinity, a goddess with triple power over earth, sea and the star lighted sky. A triple kingdom because everything that was connected with Hecates was always tied up with the number three. Of course Hecates lived in the Olympus, but it was always in the trivia, the “holy trivia”, that she was adored and it was always here that in the full moon nights her followers brought a cake called amphiphon, a cake with a lot of little candles picked in it just like a birthday cake. Feeling a little sense of uneasiness Hecates adorers set it on the ground: The pale goddess was not the kind that inspired confidence.
Her priests were the powerful witches, all strictly foreigner because, as it is always affirmed by Greek literature, it was from far away countries that magic art came to Greece. Thus these witches were all foreigners as the beautiful, but also cruel Medea who came from Middle East. Often they also were women who not even set a foot in Greece, as the fascinating Circe, who in love with Ulisses, succeeded for a very long time to retain him with her. Circe, a name that makes people dream, an extremely handsome creature who lived among oaks and bushes in a grotto perched very high over the sea on the steep Circeo Mountain. Around her the thick Mediterranean bush scented of oregano and thyme covered the mountain, a shrub that still exist and also now is peopled by numerous boars and other wild beast. Are they all animals? Who knows? Maybe they still can be some of the men taken in her net.


BIBLIOGRAPHY
HESIOD, Theogony