Extract

Hecate was a popular and ubiquitous goddess from the time of *Hesiod until late antiquity. Unknown in *Homer and harmless in Hesiod, she emerges by the 5th cent. as a sinister divine figure associated with magic and witchcraft, lunar lore and creatures of the night, dog sacrifices and illuminated cakes, as well as doorways and crossroads. Her name is the feminine equivalent of Hekatos, an obscure epithet of *Apollo (Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (Paris 1968–80) 1. 328 on ἔκατος, ἑκατηβόλος), but the Greek etymology is no guarantee that her name or cult originated in Greece. Possibly of Carian origin (see caria), and certainly outlandish in her infernal aspects, she is more at home on the fringes than in the centre of Greek polytheism. Intrinsically ambivalent and polymorphous, she straddles conventional boundaries and eludes definition.In Hesiod's Theogony she is the granddaughter of the *Titans*Phoebe and Coeus, daughter of Perses and *Asteria, and first cousin of Apollo and *Artemis (for other genealogies see schol.