Apr 30
You know the saying "you are the people you surround yourself with"? I think retelling authors often neglect giving Aphrodite her Charites friends because that would mean making Aphrodite joyous and actually laughter-loving
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You know the saying "you are the people you surround yourself with"? I think retelling authors often neglect giving Aphrodite her Charites friends because that would mean making Aphrodite joyous and actually laughter-loving
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Three Chthonic Graces
While in the Hellenic period known to us, the Three Charites came to be associated with beauty, grace and art, in fact their cult has much more ancient and chthonic roots.
The cult of the Charites is very old, with their name appearing to be of Pelasgian, or pre-Greek, origin rather than being brought to Greece by Proto-Indo-Europeans. The purpose of their cult appears to be similar to that of nymphs, primarily based around fertility and nature with a particular connection to springs and rivers. [Breitenberger, Barbara (2007). "Goddesses of Grace and Beauty: the Charites"] In some cults, they were also associated with the Underworld, Elysium, and even the Eleusinian mysteries. Pausanias in his Description of Greece wrote about that:
At the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens, there were three Charites, "by their side are celebrated mysteries which must not be divulged to the many".
In Messene, he records that the Charites were worshipped alongside the Erinyes.
Pausanias also wrote that initially the Charites were worshiped as three aniconic stones believed to have fallen from cosmos. It has been suggested that the original stone worship may have resulted from an astrological phenomenon. Specifically, there may have been a series of meteorites that were interpreted as a sign or representation of the gods or goddesses falling from heaven and descending upon earth during the time of Eteocles.
Piece of evidence for their chthonic nature also comes from the island of Paros. An aetiological myth, recorded by Apollodorus and referenced by the poet Callimachus, explains a unique local practice:
The story goes that King Minos of Crete was sacrificing to the Graces on Paros when he received the news of his son's death in Athens. In his grief, he stopped the music of the flutes and tore off his garland, but he completed the sacrifice. From then on, the Parians sacrificed to the Charites without flutes and without garlands. The absence of music and garlands which were symbols of joy and festivity shows a somber, chthonic ritual rather than an Olympian one.
The lexicographer Julius Pollux (2nd century CE) in his Onomasticon notes that one could swear by the Charites, just as one did by the deities of the "lower world". Invoking a deity in a binding oath is a practice typically reserved for solemn, often underworld, powers who could enforce the curse that would follow perjury.
The Encyclopædia Britannica (9th edition) offers a scholarly synthesis of these ideas, noting that the Charites, in their ancient form, were goddesses "of fertility and growth". It explicitly states that, in this regard, the singular goddess Charis "closely resembles Persephone", the queen of the underworld. It further notes that in later art, the Charites often hold corn ears in their hands, a symbol of agricultural fertility tied to the earth's bounty and the cycles of life and death.
During the Hellenistic period, the connection between the Charites and the chthonic forces had become almost completely obscure, but in some myths, at least a distant connection between them can still be traced. For example, in his Iliad, Homer describes an agreement between Hypnos and Hera that she would promise one of the Younger Charites, Pasithea, as a possible bride for Hypnos if he agreed to help her. This once again links at least one of the Younger Charites to the chthonic forces.
This gives an interesting perspective, where the originally chthonic goddesses of nature and growth also became associated with beauty and grace.
Aphrodite dancing with the Charites.
Hephaestus and Aglaia’s daughters 🥰
They literally have one single source mentioning their existence but I love them.
A standardized set of twelve gods could be thought of as a ‘representation of the pantheon’, which is common to all cities. Thus, it is an integrative feature, almost a Panhellenic one. If so, you might think that the members of Dodekatheon would always be the same, but in fact the members varied like everything else in Greek religion. The most often cited group is: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hermes, Athena, Hephaistos and Hestia. Some are more secure in their position than others. Hestia and Ares tend to be the first to be jettisoned and we may find Dionysos, Herakles or Hades sneaking in. But the variations are often even greater. One strikingly aberrant list is the Olympic one, known from Herodorus, where the deities were arranged in six pairs: Zeus and Poseidon, Hera and Athena, Hermes and Apollo, the Charites and Dionysos, Artemis and the river Alpheios, Kronos and Rhea. ... The Olympian Dodekatheon is the best attested variant pantheon, but there may have been others. At Chalkedon, the twelve established by the Argonauts are reported by Herodorus (again) to have included Hades, apparently replacing Ares. Hades–Plouton was also included in Plato’s Laws. There may be another variant Dodekatheon at Pherai in Thessaly, where Stephan Miller reconstructed an altar with the heads of six named goddesses, which are plausibly taken as the female side of a Dodekatheon, and which include Einodia (a form of Artemis?) and also Themis. - Ian Rutherford, Canonizing the Pantheon: The Dodekatheon in Greek Religion and its Origins
Discussions and works based on Greek myth are often so rigid about which gods should or shouldn't belong to the dodekatheon, given the variations that existed in Antiquity. It looks as if the only debatable place is that of Hestia or Dionysos, but the idea of the six altars at Olympia and the altar of the six goddesses at Pherai indicate that Aphrodite, Demeter, Artemis or Hera could also be absent from the Twelve, not just Hestia. Dionysos could be excluded, but so could Ares and Hephaistos. It is also misleading when people speak of the gods as the "twelve Olympians" with the implication that "Olympians" are necessarily a select group of only 12 gods (when for instance Herakles also could be worshipped as one of the Olympians as attested in Herodotos, Histories 2.44 and the Muses are called Olympian by Hesiod), or that the twelve must necessarily live on Olympos. It's the 12 gods, not the 12 Olympians.
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Saw this on pinterest but idk where its from but idgaf because LOOK!!! IT REMINDS ME SSOSOSO MUCH OF THE CHARITES!! LOOK!!!
I think from left to right its Thalia, Aglaia, and Euphrosyne, don't ask me why
My Greek myth AU designs that I have yet to draw (Post 5) + lore
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The birth of Kharites.
Thalia the one of the top left, Euphrosyne on the top right, and Aglaia the one in the middle.