The Furies (Erinyes)
The Furies, known in Greek as the Erinyes, are ancient chthonic goddesses of vengeance who pursue and punish the guilty, especially those who kill their own kin, break solemn oaths, or violate the natural bonds owed to family.
Sections on this page
In Practice
Hesiod's Theogony gives them a violent origin: when Kronos castrates his father Ouranos, the drops of blood that fall on Gaia produce the Erinyes alongside the armed Giants and the ash-tree nymphs called the Meliae, tying the very existence of divine vengeance to the first act of violence between a father and a son in the Greek cosmos. Apollodorus, retelling the same episode in prose, goes further than Hesiod by naming the three Erinyes individually as Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera, a specificity Hesiod's poem never supplies. The Erinyes appear in Homer as well, though not as a fully developed trio with individual names. In the Iliad, Phoenix recalls that his own father called down the hateful Erinyes to curse him, and the poem treats their power to enforce such a curse as real and effective rather than empty threat. Elsewhere in the Iliad, when the goddess Hera briefly grants Achilles's horse Xanthus the power of human speech to warn him of his coming death, it is the Erinyes who cut the prophecy short and silence the horse's voice - a strange, striking scene that shows the Erinyes acting as enforcers of a boundary between mortal and divine knowledge, not only as punishers of murder. How much authority the Erinyes hold, and how they relate to the Moirai, is a question Aeschylus addresses directly in Prometheus Bound: when asked who governs Necessity above all, Prometheus answers that the three-shaped Fates and the unforgetting Furies both do, and that even Zeus cannot escape what has been decreed. This pairs the Erinyes with the Fates as forces whose reach extends above Zeus's own, at least in this one telling, and the epithet 'unforgetting' captures their defining trait: a wrong once committed against blood or oath is never simply set aside. Ancient sources do not agree on the Erinyes' parentage. Where Hesiod derives them from the blood of Ouranos's wound, Virgil's Aeneid instead calls them three sisters born of Night, a lineage that echoes the alternative genealogy the Theogony itself gives elsewhere for the Moirai, and ties the Erinyes to the same primordial darkness rather than to a single violent event. The two genealogies are never reconciled in any surviving ancient source; different authors simply draw on whichever origin suits the scene they are telling.
Where do the Erinyes come from, according to Hesiod?
From an act of violence at the very start of the Greek cosmos: when Kronos castrates his father Ouranos with the sickle Gaia made, the drops of blood that fall onto Gaia produce the Erinyes, along with the armed Giants and the ash-tree nymphs called the Meliae. Their origin in the oldest tradition is therefore tied directly to a father's punishment for wronging his children.
Hesiod, Theogony 176-206
What are the individual names of the three Furies?
Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera, according to Apollodorus, who names them individually where Hesiod's earlier account leaves them collective and unnamed. Apollodorus places their birth at the same moment as Hesiod does, from the blood of Ouranos's wound, but adds a level of individual identity the Theogony itself never supplies.
Apollodorus, Library 1.1.4
Are the Erinyes the same beings as the Moirai, the Fates?
No, though Aeschylus links their authority closely. In Prometheus Bound, when asked who governs Necessity, Prometheus answers that the three-shaped Fates and the unforgetting Furies both do, and that not even Zeus can escape what they decree together. The two groups act together in that passage, but they remain distinct: the Moirai govern the length of a life, while the Erinyes punish specific crimes after they occur.
Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 511-518
Do the Erinyes appear anywhere in Homer?
Yes, twice in notable ways in the Iliad. Phoenix recalls that his own father invoked the hateful Erinyes to curse him, treating their power as genuinely effective. Separately, when Achilles's horse Xanthus is briefly given human speech to warn him of his coming death, it is the Erinyes who cut off the prophecy and silence the horse's voice, acting to enforce a limit on what mortals are permitted to hear.
Homer, Iliad 19.404-418
Is there a different account of where the Erinyes came from?
Yes. Virgil's Aeneid calls them three sisters born of Night rather than deriving them from the blood of Ouranos's wound, as Hesiod does. This alternative lineage is never reconciled with Hesiod's account anywhere in surviving antiquity; different authors simply use whichever genealogy fits the passage they are writing.
Virgil, Aeneid 7.323-329
What kind of crimes do the Erinyes specifically punish?
Above all, violations of the bonds owed to one's own family: kin-murder, broken oaths, and curses invoked by a parent against a child, as in Phoenix's story in the Iliad. Their epithet in Aeschylus, 'unforgetting,' captures the core of their role - a wrong against blood or oath is treated as permanent rather than something that can simply be left in the past.
Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 511-518
Where Accounts Differ
- parentage: blood of Ouranos versus daughters of Night
- Hesiod derives the Erinyes from the blood of Ouranos's wound after his castration by Kronos. Virgil's Aeneid instead calls them three sisters born of Night, a lineage that is never reconciled with Hesiod's account anywhere in surviving antiquity.
Where This Appears
Referenced By
Sources
- Hesiod, Theogony 176-206
- Apollodorus, Library 1.1.4
- Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 511-518
- Homer, Iliad 19.404-418
- Virgil, Aeneid 7.323-329