EUMENIDI. – Minor Greek deities identified with the Erinyes (v.), although some of the ancients considered them distinct. They are benevolent and promote fertility and fecundity. A pregnant ewe and offerings of honey and flowers were sacrificed to them.
They were worshipped at Athens beneath the Areopagus, at Sicyon, Argos, Colonus, Megalopolis, and Cyrene, where they are represented holding flowers and serpents and invoked to grant offspring.
BIBL.: W. F. Otto, Gli dèi della Grecia, Italian translation by G. Federici Airoldi, Florence 1941, p. 19 ff. Luisa Banti