page_title: Erinyes
hierarchical_section_title: Erinyes
caption_attribution_description: English: Clytemnestra tries to awake the sleeping Erinyes; Orestes, here unseen, is being purified by Apollo on the right. Detail of the side A from an Apulian red-figure bell-krater, 380–370 BC. From Armento? Français&#160;: Clytemnestre essayant de réveiller les Érinyes endormies; Oreste (à droite, non visible ici) est en train d'être purifié par Apollon. Détail de la face A d'un cratère en cloche apulien à figures rouges, 380-370 av. J.-C. Provenance&#160;: Armento&#160;?
context_page_description: The Erinyes, also known as the Furies, were female chthonic deities of vengeance in ancient Greek religion and mythology. A formulaic oath in the Iliad invokes them as "the Erinyes, that under earth take vengeance on men, whosoever hath sworn a false oath". Walter Burkert suggests they are "an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath". They correspond to the Dirae in Roman mythology. The Roman writer Maurus Servius Honoratus wrote that they are called "Eumenides" in hell, "Furiae" on earth, and "Dirae" in heaven.
  According to Hesiod's Theogony, when the Titan Cronus castrated his father, Uranus, and threw his genitalia into the sea, the Erinyes emerged from the drops of blood which fell on the earth, while Aphrodite was born from the crests of sea foam. According to variant accounts, they emerged from an even more primordial level—from Nyx, or from a union between air and mother earth. Their number is usually left indeterminate. Virgil, probably working from an Alexandrian source, recognized three: Alecto or Alekto, Megaera, and Tisiphone or Tilphousia, all of whom appear in the Aeneid.
context_section_description: The Erinyes (/ɪˈrɪniˌiːz/; sing. Erinys /ɪˈrɪnɪs/, /ɪˈraɪnɪs/; Greek: Ἐρινύες, pl. of Ἐρινύς, Erinys), also known as the Furies, were female chthonic deities of vengeance in ancient Greek religion and mythology. A formulaic oath in the Iliad invokes them as "the Erinyes, that under earth take vengeance on men, whosoever hath sworn a false oath". Walter Burkert suggests they are "an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath". They correspond to the Dirae in Roman mythology. The Roman writer Maurus Servius Honoratus wrote (ca. 600 AD) that they are called "Eumenides" in hell, "Furiae" on earth, and "Dirae" in heaven.
  According to Hesiod's Theogony, when the Titan Cronus castrated his father, Uranus, and threw his genitalia into the sea, the Erinyes (along with the Giants and the Meliae) emerged from the drops of blood which fell on the earth (Gaia), while Aphrodite was born from the crests of sea foam. According to variant accounts, they emerged from an even more primordial level—from Nyx ("Night"), or from a union between air and mother earth. Their number is usually left indeterminate. Virgil, probably working from an Alexandrian source, recognized three: Alecto or Alekto ("endless"), Megaera ("jealous rage"), and Tisiphone or Tilphousia ("vengeful destruction"), all of whom appear in the Aeneid. Dante Alighieri followed Virgil in depicting the same three-character triptych of Erinyes; in Canto IX of the Inferno they confront the poets at the gates of the city of Dis. Whilst the Erinyes were usually described as three maiden goddesses, the Erinys Telphousia was usually a by-name for the wrathful goddess Demeter, who was worshipped under the title of Erinys in the Arkadian town of Thelpousa.
caption: Clytemnestra tries to awaken the sleeping Erinyes. Detail from an Apulian red-figure bell-krater, 380–370 BC.
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