Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/60

 46 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY burning torches, which were attributed to her because of her character as a goddess of light; but Alcamenes (toward the end of the fifth century B.C.) made for the Acropolis at Athens a figure representing her as having three bodies (T/OITT/OOO-CDTTOS, triformis). These three bodies were placed back to back so that one of them constantly, like the crescent moon, looked towards the left, another, like the waning moon, towards the right, while the one standing between them, like the full moon, turned her face towards the beholder. The dish and measure that she car- ries in representations of this type characterize her as dis- penser of dew. Afterwards her worship at the crossroads was associated with these figures, and hence she was called Trioditis, Lat. Trivia ('the goddess of the crossroads 7 ). 60. Hecate was a kind of patron goddess of the belief in ghosts and witchcraft, and, as a natural consequence, a goddess of the lower world. The first of these functions belongs properly to the moon goddess as the mistress of the dismal nighttime ; but she came to be considered a witch because she herself, i.e. the moon, has the power of changing her own form, a trick that plays an important part in all witchcraft. Therefore she was regarded as the mother of the enchantresses Circe and Medea ('the shrewd/ 'the cunning woman'). Her association with the realm of the dead, however, was based on the idea that night and the world below are in general closely related ; it was also believed that at its setting the moon sank down into the lower world, so that a subterranean or gloomy Hecate (Ckthonia, fikotia) was commonly recognized. 61. After the activity of these older forms had thus passed over into other spheres, Selene, or Mene, assumed the functions of the moon goddess proper, as Helios took