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Abstract.
This study aims to propose a paradigm of understanding the cult of Hekate in Greek and Roman Antiquity, using epigraphic and literary sources, and,also the psychological tools of explaining the symbols used in myth.
The main problems are the uncertainity of Hekate's original homeland, the links between Homeric Hymn to Demeter and the Orphic Hymn and and the archetypal structures related to the Godess in Antiquity and Middle Age and the modalities of understanding the cult wich are presented in ancient Greek literature, and the concepts of border and cross roads in Greek thinking..
Rezumat.
Articolul Îşi propune să identifice modalităţi de Înţelegere şi interpretare ale mitului şi cultului zeiţei Hekate, În antichitatea greco-romană, utilizând izvoarele epigrafice şi literare antice, dar şi paradigmele de exegeză construite de Jung şi Campbell.
Principalele probleme În acest demers sunt legate de incertitudinile În legătură cu locul de origine al cultului, de identificarea elementelor de structură ale mitului, aşa cum sunt acestea furnizate de Mitul homeric către Demeter, Imnul Orfic şi structurile arhetipale ale Marii Mame, din Antichitate şi Evul Mediu. Deosebit de importante sunt şi semnificaţiile conceptelor de limită şi răscruce, din structura mitului.
Keywords.
myth, symbol, cult, border, crossroad.
Hekate is one of the most enigmatic Greek deities; this is a general conclusion of all researchers who addressed this topic. A clear-cut description of her is verry difficult considering the amounts of information that have survived concerning her. It leaves only a few clues as to the nature of her cult, and these are uncertain. In late classical and Hellenistic eras, her character had taken on a more defined shape: mistress of ghosts, night-wanderer, patroness of witches, worshipped in close association with Artemis, Demeter, Kore, Hermes1.
Hekate's original homeland is uncertain: from Greece or from a neighboring land. The first theory is untenable, but the second hypothesis2 might be argumented. Farnell notices that the worship of Hekate is significantly absent from the interior of Greece, more secluded areas of Greece such as Arcadia, where she has no part in the cult of Demeter, Erinys and Despoina, although elsewhere she is closely connected with Demeter3.
J. Humbert4 begins by taking the example of a short quotation in Pausanias, I, 43, 1, from Hesiod's Catalogue of Women5,...