This image of two Furies, from a 19th century book depicting an ancient vase, shows the goddesses wreathed with snakes. |
Erinyes
Roman name: The Furies
The Erinyes are the goddesses of vengeance. They pursue and punish the guilty.
Associated iconography: the Erinyes were often depicted in a terrifying fashion, with snakes in their hair and eyes dripping blood. Sometimes they were pictured with a dog’s body or the wings of a bat or bird.
Alternative names: the Semnai (‘the Venerable Ones’); the Potniae (‘the Awful Ones’); the Maniae (‘the Madnesses’) and the Praxidikae (‘the Vengeful Ones’). When the Erinyes took on their benevolent aspect to uphold justice, they became the Eumenides (‘the Goodly Ones’).
The Avenging Erinyes
The Erinyes are three sisters, Alecto (‘unceasing’), Tisiphone (‘avenging murder’) and Magaera (‘grudging’). They pursue and punish those guilty of the worst crimes against natural laws, such as the murder of kinsfolk.
They were born from the blood that fell to the earth when Cronus castrated his father Uranus, the ruler of the Universe.
In Greek myths the Erinyes, when not pursuing sinners on earth, lived in Tartarus, punishing the souls of the damned.
In later Roman stories, the Furies, also known as Dirae (‘the terrible’) typically pursued sinners on earth, punishing their victims by driving them insane, hence their Latin name furor.
The Erinyes and Orestes
The Erinyes pursued Orestes for murdering his mother Clytemnestra.
However, the god Apollo had commanded Orestes to kill the murderer of his father, Agamemnon, and that person turned out to be his mother.
So Orestes prayed to Apollo, and Athena intervened. As the upholders of justice, the Erinyes transformed themselves into the benevolent Eumenides (‘goodly ones’).