Bendis () was a

Thracian The Thracians (; ; ) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied the area that today is shared between north-eastern Greece, ...

goddess associated with hunting and the moon. Worship of the goddess seems to have been introduced into

Attica Attica (, ''Attikḗ'' (Ancient Greek) or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital city, capital of Greece and the core cit ...

around 430 BC.A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), BENDIDEIA
/ref> In Athens, Bendis was identified with the goddess Artemis, but she had a separate temple at Piraeus, near the temple of Artemis, and was a distinct goddess. She was a huntress, like Artemis, but was often accompanied by dancing satyrs and

maenad In Greek mythology, maenads (; ) were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of his retinue, the '' thiasus''. Their name, which comes from μαίνομαι (''maínomai'', “to rave, to be mad; to rage, to be angr ...

s, as represented on a fifth-century red-figure stemless cup at Verona. The Greeks wrote of Bendis as one of the seven daughters of Zeus who were turned into swans who would later reappear in human forms driving a golden carriage and teaching crowds.

Etymology

The deity's name, ''Bendis'', is thought to derive from a

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...

stem ''*bʰendʰ-'', meaning 'to bind, unite, combine'.

Worship

By a decree of the Oracle of Dodona, which required the Athenians to grant land for a shrine or temple, her cult was introduced into

by immigrant Thracian residents, and, though Thracian and Athenian processions remained separate, both cult and festival became so popular that in Plato's time () its festivities were naturalized as an official ceremonial of the city-state, called the ''Bendideia'' (Βενδίδεια). Among the events were night-time torch-races on horseback, mentioned in Plato's ''

Republic A republic, based on the Latin phrase ''res publica'' ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a State (polity), state in which Power (social and political), political power rests with the public (people), typically through their Representat ...

'', 328:

"You haven't heard that there is to be a torchlight race this evening on horseback in honour of the Goddess?" "On horseback?" said I. "That is a new idea. Will they carry torches and pass them along to one another as they race with the horses, or how do you mean?" "That's the way of it," said Polemarchus, "and, besides, there is to be a night festival which will be worth seeing."

Piraeus Piraeus ( ; ; , Ancient: , Katharevousa: ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens city centre along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf in the Ath ...

there was a temple of the goddess which was called the Bendidia / Bendideion (Βενδίδειον). A red-figure skyphos, now at Tübingen University, of c. 440–430, seems to commemorate the arrival of the newly authorized cult: it shows Themis (representing traditional Athenian customs) and a booted and cloaked Bendis, who wears a Thracian fox-skin cap. A small marble votive stele of Bendis, –375 BC, found at Piraeus, (pictured left) shows the goddess and her worshippers in bas-relief. The image shows that the Thracian goddess has been strongly influenced by Athenian conceptions of

Artemis In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Artemis (; ) is the goddess of the hunting, hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, Kourotrophos, care of children, and chastity. In later tim ...

: Bendis wears a short chiton like Artemis, but with an Asiatic snug-sleeved undergarment. She is wrapped in an animal skin like Artemis and has a spear, but has a hooded Thracian mantle, fastened with a brooch. She wears high boots. In the fourth century BC terracotta figurine (pictured right) she is similarly attired and once carried a (wooden?) spear. Elsewhere in Greece, the cult of Bendis did not catch on.

Just as in all other respects the Athenians continue to be hospitable to things foreign, so also in their worship of the gods; for they welcomed so many of the foreign rites that they were ridiculed for it by comic writers; and among these were the Thracian and Phrygian rites. (
Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...
, ''Geography'' (1st century AD), 10.3.18)

The "Phrygian rites" Strabo mentioned referred to the cult of

Cybele Cybele ( ; Phrygian: ''Matar Kubileya, Kubeleya'' "Kubeleya Mother", perhaps "Mountain Mother"; Lydian: ''Kuvava''; ''Kybélē'', ''Kybēbē'', ''Kybelis'') is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest ...

that was also welcomed to Athens in the 5th century.

Related deities

The Athenians may have blended the cult of Bendis with the equally Dionysiac Thracian revels of

Kotys Kotys ( '), also called Kotytto (Κοτυττώ), was a Thracian goddess whose festival, the '' Cotyttia'', resembled that of the Phrygian Cybele, and was celebrated on hills with riotous proceedings and orgiastic rites, especially at night. ...

, mentioned by

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; ; /524 – /455 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek Greek tragedy, tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is large ...

and other ancient writers. Archaic female cult figures unearthed in Thrace (modern-day Bulgaria) have also been identified with Bendis. Bendida Peak on

Trinity Peninsula Trinity Peninsula is the northernmost part of the Antarctic Peninsula. It extends northeastward for about 130 km (80 mi) to Cape Dubouzet from an imaginary line connecting Cape Kater on the north-west coast and Cape Longing on the sou ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

is named after the goddess.SCAR Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica
/ref>

References

Sources

"Bendis"
William Smith (ed.) ''

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' is a biographical dictionary of classical antiquity, edited by William Smith (lexicographer), William Smith and originally published in London by John Taylor (English publisher), Tayl ...

.'' 1. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1867.
"Bendis (Thracian goddess)"
The Editors. ''Encyclopedia Britannica'', 20 Jul. 1998. Accessed 24 January 2022.

External links