HECATAEUS OF MILETUS (6th-5th century B.C.), Greek historian, son of Hegesander, flourished during the time of the Persian invasion. After having travelled extensively, he settled in his native city, where he occupied a high position, and devoted his time to the composition of geographical and historical works. When Aristagoras held a council of the leading Ionians at Miletus, to organize a revolt against the Persian rule, Hecataeus in vain tried to dissuade his countrymen from the undertaking (Herodotus v. 36, 125). In 494, when the defeated Ionians were obliged to sue for terms, he was one of the ambassadors to the Persian satrap Artaphernes, whom he persuaded to restore the constitution of the Ionic cities (Diod. Sic. x. 25). He is by some credited with a work entitled Γῆς περίοδος (“Travels round the Earth”), in two books, one on Europe, the other on Asia, in which were described the countries and inhabitants of the known world, the account of Egypt being especially comprehensive; the descriptive matter was accompanied by a map, based upon Anaximander’s map of the earth, which he corrected and enlarged. The authenticity of the work is, however, strongly attacked by J. Wells in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, xxix. pt. i. 1909. The only certainly genuine work of Hecataeus was the Γενεηλογίαι or Ἱστορίαι, a systematic account of the traditions and mythology of the Greeks. He was probably the first to attempt a serious prose history and to employ critical method to distinguish myth from historical fact, though he accepts Homer and the other poets as trustworthy authority. Herodotus, though he once at least controverts his statements, is indebted to Hecataeus not only for facts, but also in regard of method and general scheme, but the extent of the debt depends on the genuineness of the Γῆς περίοδος.
See fragments in C. W. Müller, Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, i.; H. Berger, Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen (1903); E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, i.; W. Mure, History of Greek Literature, iv.; especially J. V. Prašek, Hekataios als Herodots Quelle zur Geschichte Vorderasiens. Beiträge zur alten Geschichte (Klio), iv. 193 seq. (1904), and J. Wells in Journ. Hell. Stud., as above.
HECATE (Gr. Ἑκατή, “she who works from afar”[1]), a goddess in Greek mythology. According to the generally accepted view, she is of Hellenic origin, but Farnell regards her as a foreign importation from Thrace, the home of Bendis, with whom Hecate has many points in common. She is not mentioned in the Iliad or the Odyssey, but in Hesiod (Theogony, 409) she is the daughter of the Titan Perses and Asterie, in a passage which may be a later interpolation by the Orphists (for other genealogies see Steuding in Roscher’s Lexikon). She is there represented as a mighty goddess, having power over heaven, earth and sea; hence she is the bestower of wealth and all the blessings of daily life. The range of her influence is most varied, extending to war, athletic games, the tending of cattle, hunting, the assembly of the people and the law-courts. Hecate is frequently identified with Artemis, an identification usually justified by the assumption that both were moon-goddesses. Farnell, who regards Artemis as originally an earth-goddess, while recognizing a “genuine lunar element” in Hecate from the 5th century, considers her a chthonian rather than a lunar divinity (see also Warr in Classical Review, ix. 390). He is of opinion that neither borrowed much from, nor exercised much influence on, the cult and character of the other.
Hecate is the chief goddess who presides over magic arts and spells, and in this connexion she is the mother of the sorceresses Circe and Medea. She is constantly invoked, in the well-known idyll (ii.) of Theocritus, in the incantation to bring back a woman’s faithless lover. As a chthonian power, she is worshipped at the Samothracian mysteries, and is closely connected with Demeter. Alone of the gods besides Helios, she witnessed the abduction of Persephone, and, torch in hand (a natural symbol for the moon’s light, but see Farnell), assisted Demeter in her search for her daughter. On moonlight nights she is seen at the cross-roads (hence her name τριοδῖτις, Lat. Trivia) accompanied by the dogs of the Styx and crowds of the dead. Here, on the last day of the month, eggs and fish were offered to her. Black puppies and she-lambs (black victims being offered to chthonian deities) were also sacrificed (Schol. on Theocritus ii. 12). Pillars like the Hermae, called Hecataea, stood, especially in Athens, at cross-roads and doorways, perhaps to keep away the spirits of evil. Like Artemis, Hecate is also a goddess of fertility, presiding especially over the birth and the youth of wild animals, and over human birth and marriage. She also attends when the soul leaves the body at death, and is found near graves, and on the hearth, where the master of the house was formerly buried. It is to be noted that Hecate plays little or no part in mythological legend. Her worship seems to have flourished especially in the wilder parts of Greece, such as Samothrace and Thessaly, in Caria and on the coasts of Asia Minor. In Greece proper it prevailed on the east coast and especially in Aegina, where her aid was invoked against madness.
In older times Hecate is represented as single-formed, clad in a long robe, holding burning torches; later she becomes triformis, “triple-formed,” with three bodies standing back to back—corresponding, according to those who regard her as a moon-goddess, to the new, the full and the waning moon. In her six hands are torches, sometimes a snake, a key (as wardress of the lower world), a whip or a dagger; her favourite animal was the dog, which was sacrificed to her—an indication of her non-Hellenic origin, since this animal very rarely fills this part in genuine Greek ritual.
See H. Steuding in Roscher’s Lexikon, where the functions of Hecate are systematically derived from the conception of her as a moon-goddess; L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, ii., where this view is examined; P. Paris in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités; O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie, ii. (1906) p. 1288.
[1] J. B. Bury, in Classical Review, iii. p. 416, suggests that the name means “dog,” against which see J. H. Vince, ib. iv. p. 47. G. C. Warr, ib. ix. 390, takes the Hesiodic Hecate to be a moon-goddess, daughter of the sun-god Perseus.