Chthonic Deities

CHTHONIC DEITIES. - In Greek religion the epithet chthonic was given to numerous deities who, in contrast to the Olympian gods who dwell in the sky, lived in the interior of the earth and had connections with the realm of the dead. They are ancient deities, for some pre-Hellenic, often with a local cult, later absorbed by other deities. To them man owes good harvests and the successful rearing of livestock. For some they are malevolent and the sacrificial rites were intended to ward them off (Isocrates, V, 117), but this claim is inaccurate.

The epithet chthonic is found given by the Greeks to: 1) Zeus: in the Iliad, and in Hesiod he is Hades, the king of the underworld, but for the same Hesiod he also blesses the fields and agriculture; on Mykonos he received a sacrifice together with chthonic Ge in order to obtain abundant harvests. 2) Dionysus, as god of plant and animal life. 3) Hermes, bringer of dreams, guide of souls in the underworld, honored in festivals of the dead and at tombs. 4) Ge (the earth), venerated on Mykonos. 5) Demeter, invoked in curses: she had a cult at Sparta, where she received a sacrifice in burial rites; in her honor, and that of Pluto and Kore, the Chthonia festivals were celebrated at Hermione at harvest time; a procession of priests, magistrates and people, with children dressed in white and crowned with hyacinths, went 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 cleft 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, she received sacrifices of dogs; small shrines were sacred to her at the doors of houses, adorned with food and flowers at the end of every 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. the list in Roscher, Lexikon der Mythologie, VI, coll. 76-78). In funerary inscriptions the expression chthonic gods (θεοί χθόνιοι) appears to indicate the deceased. Modern scholars also consider numerous other deities for whom the Greeks did not use this epithet.

In general the chthonic deities had rites of their own. The worshipper knelt and touched the earth with his hand. In the sacrifice, made at a low altar (ἀρχάρι), the blood of the victims had to penetrate the ground. The flesh was burned. The preferred victims were the ram and the pig, which had to have black fleece; sometimes they received human sacrifices.

Luisa Banti