Eume'nides

Eume'nides (Gr., 'the benign'), the euphemistic name for the Erinyes, the Roman Furiae or Diræ, three fearful winged maidens who dwell in the depths of Tartarus, daughters of Earth or of Night, represented with serpents twined in their hair, and with blood dripping from their eyes, whose function as early as Homer and Hesiod is to punish men both in this world and after death for such crimes as perjury, murder, and the violation of filial duty and of the rite of hospitality. They were regarded also as goddesses of Fate, somewhat like the Moire or Fates, and they had a share in the grim providence which led the doomed ones into the way of calamity. A part of their function was also to hinder man from acquiring too much knowledge of the future. Their number is usually three, and their names Alceto, Megera, and Tisiphone; but sometimes in the poets they appear as one, and we find a whole chorus of Erinyes in the tragedies of Æschylus. The later poets and sculptors represented them in the more pleasing form of winged virgins, attired in the garb of huntresses, bearing torches in their hands, and with a wreath of serpents round their heads. Gradually, they came to be considered goddesses of the infernal regions, who punished crimes after death, but seldom appeared on earth. In Athens their worship, which, like that of the other infernal deities, was conducted in silence, was held in great honour. The sacrifices offered to them were black sheep and libations of nephalia, honey mixed with water. The turtle-dove and the narcissus were sacred to them. They had a sanctuary in the vicinity of the Areopagus, and one at Colonus.