Aristophanes’ Charitable Hekate
This is not written to convince anyone one way or the other, but as a presentation of fact based on Aristophanes’ play Plutus for me to refer back to.
Ask Hecate whether it is better to be rich or starving; she will tell you that the rich send her a meal every month and that the poor make it disappear before it is even served.
That is the line that starts it all. This is the proof touted that Hekate’s Deipnon is an act of charity and that she is a goddess concerned with such things.
Aristophanes’ Plutus was produced in 388 BCE near the end of the man’s life. It is said to be more of an allegory and lacks the usual level of comedy and banter seen in his earlier known works.
This play follows post-war Athens and the poverty and economic impact in the city, as poor man Chremylus and his slave return from Delphi with instructions from Apollon; convince the first person he sees on the road to come home with him as his guest. This guest is Plutus, Wealth, depicted as a beggar blinded by Zeus so he cannot tell the just from the unjust, the worthy from the unworthy, and so the world’s wealth is distributed at random. Chremylus is convinced that if they can restore Plutus’ eyesight, the world will be a better place with wealth distributed fairly amongst all people. At home Chremylus argues with another of his “guests”, Penia, Poverty, who asserts that through poverty she makes mankind better, and if wealth were distributed fairly none would work.
But if your wishes were realized, your profit would be great! Let Plutus recover his sight and divide his favours out equally to all, and none will ply either trade or art any longer; all toil would be done away with. Who would wish to hammer iron, build ships, sew, turn, cut up leather, bake bricks, bleach linen, tan hides, or break up the soil of the earth with the plough and garner the gifts of Demeter, if he could live in idleness and free from all this work?
Chremylus chides her and says slaves will do the work, but Poverty maintains that if slaves can buy their freedom with wealth, who is left? “The beggar […] never possesses anything. The poor man lives thriftily and attentive to his work: he has not got too much, but he does not lack what he really needs.” “Oh! what a happy life, by Demeter!” Chremylus says, “To live sparingly, to toil incessantly and not to leave enough to pay for a tomb!”
And so Poverty continues to convince Chremylus of her virtues, but he is not swayed and banishes her. They deliver Plutus to the healing beds of Asklepios where his eyesight is restored and blessings begin to flow, the poor thanking Wealth for their good fortune and the rich complaining of their losses. One man approaches who complains of his new woes, and another comments “I think I know what's the matter. If this man is unfortunate, it's because he's of little account and small honesty; and indeed he looks it too.” Interesting how the insults typically used against the impoverished are so easily repeated when a man, now proven unwise and unjust by Plutus’ new world order, seeks help.
Eventually Hermes visits to tell them of Zeus’ anger, that the gods no longer receive their dues because man is too rich.
Since Plutus has recovered his sight, there is nothing for us other gods, neither incense, nor laurels, nor cakes, nor victims, nor anything in the world.
Hermes bargains with Chremylus’ former slave Cario for a place in the man’s house, because now “one is much better off among you.”
Hermes: Do you forget, then, how I used to take care he knew nothing about it when you were stealing something from your master?
Cario: Because I used to share it with you, you rogue; some cake or other always came your way.
Hermes: Which afterwards you ate up all by yourself.
Cario: But then you did not share the blows when I was caught.
The play’s commentary on the human condition is astute, but as you can see it only mentions Hekate once in passing, and this is the only surviving reference to such things associated with Hekate. That Deipnon offerings were often stolen was a well known fact, but does not stand as an endorsement on its own, and even Hermes is shown saying all offerings were often eaten up by those that made them, even the poor and enslaved themselves. This play leans more toward Plouton’s concern for the condition of man and his inability to do more for the just and worthy. Hekate’s modern association with charitable work is so ingrained it may as well be true.
