Erinyes (Furies)

Female spirits who punished offenders against blood kin. The Erinyes (Ἐρινύες) were named Alector, Tisiphone and Megaera. They were born together with the Giants and the Meliae, from the earth where blood landed from the severed genitals of Uranus. They were better known as the Furies by the Romans.

The Erinyes seemed to reside in the Underworld, the World of the Dead. It was the Erinyes who brought condemned souls to Tartarus for their punishment, after the judgment of Themis.

One of their more famous victims was Orestes. When Orestes murdered his own mother, Clytemnestra, the Erinyes persecuted him for many years, inflicting madness on him.

With Orestes, the oracle from Delphi and the god Apollo (Orestes' protector) ordered the young man to kill his mother. To avenge his father, Orestes faced persecution and madness from the Erinyes. Failure to avenge his father's death would also result in persecution and madness. Orestes was in a "no-win situation". Whichever choice Orestes made, he would be haunted by the Erinyes.

Similarly, Alcmeon killed his mother and was driven mad by the Erinyes. Alcmeon had a choice of ignoring his father's order, to kill his mother; Orestes was not given this choice.

When Athena and the Athenian jury acquitted Orestes, the Athenians appeased the Erinyes by offering to build a temple to them within their city. Their name was changed to Eumenides (Εἐμοδπος), which meant the "Kindly Ones".