page_title: Kakia
hierarchical_section_title: Kakia
caption_attribution_description: Hercules at the crossroads / Florence, Musée des Offices
context_page_description: Kakia, the Greek goddess of vice and moral badness, was depicted as a vain, plump, and heavily made-up woman dressed in revealing clothes. She tried to tempt many people to become evil, but her most famous temptation was that of Heracles, the greatest and most famous of the divine heroes in Greek mythology.
  "You shall have the fruits of others' toil, and refrain from nothing that can bring you gain. For to my companions I give authority to pluck advantage where they will."
  Now when Heracles heard this, he asked, "Lady, pray what is your name?"
  "My friends call me Happiness," she said, "but among those that hate me I am nicknamed Kakia."
  —Excerpt from Xenophon, Memorabilia 2.1.21 telling of her competition with Arete to sway Heracles to her side.
context_section_description: Kakia (Ancient Greek: Κακίαν), the Greek goddess of vice and moral badness (presumably, sin or crime), was depicted as a vain, plump, and heavily made-up woman dressed in revealing clothes. She tried to tempt many people to become evil, but her most famous temptation was that of Heracles, the greatest and most famous of the divine heroes in Greek mythology.
  "You shall have the fruits of others' toil, and refrain from nothing that can bring you gain. For to my companions I give authority to pluck advantage where they will."
  
  Now when Heracles heard this, he asked, "Lady, pray what is your name?"
  
  "My friends call me Happiness," she said, "but among those that hate me I am nicknamed Kakia."  
  —Excerpt from Xenophon, Memorabilia 2.1.21 telling of her competition with Arete to sway Heracles to her side (evil).
caption: Hercules (center), being tempted by Kakia (left); Jan van den Hoecke, c. 1640
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