CTONIC DEITIES. — The epithet chthonic was given in Greek religion to numerous deities who, in contrast to the Olympian gods inhabiting the heavens, lived within the earth and had relations with the realm of the dead. They are ancient deities, pre-Hellenic according to some, with a frequently local cult, later absorbed by other deities. To them man owed good harvests and the prosperous raising of livestock. Some considered them malevolent, and the sacrificial rites were supposedly intended to drive them away (Isocrates, V, 117), but this assertion is inaccurate.
The epithet chthonic was applied by the Greeks to: 1) Zeus: in the Iliad, and in Hesiod, he is Hades, king of the underworld, but for Hesiod himself he also blesses the fields and agriculture; at Mykonos he received a sacrifice together with chthonic Ge in order to obtain abundant crops. 2) Dionysus, as god of plant and animal life. 3) Hermes, bearer of dreams, guide of souls into the underworld, honored at festivals of the dead and at tombs. 4) Ge (the earth), venerated at Mykonos. 5) Demeter, invoked in imprecations: she had a cult at Sparta, where she received a sacrifice in burial rites; in her honor, and in that of Pluto and Kore, the Chthonia festivals were celebrated at Hermione at harvest time; a procession of priests, magistrates, and people, with the children dressed in white and crowned with hyacinths, proceeded to the temple; four calves, led by four men, were sacrificed to her by four old women who served as priestesses; behind her temple a fissure led to the Underworld. 6) Persephone, in her capacity as queen of the underworld. 7) Hecate, goddess of spirits and the dead: she traveled by night at the head of an infernal host; to propitiate her, food was offered to her at crossroads, and she received sacrifices of dogs; small shrines sacred to her stood at the doors of houses, decorated with food and flowers at the end of each month; she was invoked together with chthonic Hermes and other infernal deities in curses. 8) The Titans. 9) The Erinyes: to these deities must be added those whom the Greeks placed in the Underworld (v. la lista in Roscher, Levihon der Mythologie, VI, coll. 76-78). In funerary inscriptions the expression chthonic gods (θεοί γδῶνοι) appears to designate the deceased. Modern scholars consider [them] and numerous other deities for whom the Greeks did not use this epithet.
In general, the chthonic deities had their own rites. The worshiper knelt and touched the earth with his hand. In the sacrifice, performed at a low altar (ἀρχάρι), the blood of the victims had to penetrate the ground. The flesh was burned. Preferred victims were the ram and the swine; they had to have black fleece or bristles. At times they received human sacrifices.