Empusa
Empusa, chthonic spectre of Hecate with one leg of bronze and one leg of donkey dung
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Ancient Greece(Greece)
Mythical Origins of Empusa
Empusa is a specter of the retinue of Hecate, the goddess of the crossroads, magic and the dark moon. Unlike the great Greek monsters, she does not star in any myth: she belongs to the class of apparition that is invoked to frighten, the one that mothers and nurses named before the children together with Lamia and Mormo. The oldest source that mentions her is The Frogs of Aristophanes, from the year 405 before our era, where Dionysus and his slave Xanthias believe they see her on the way to the underworld and the god is terrified to the ridiculous. Harpocracion, in his lexicon, defines her as a ghost sent by Hecate, and that filiation is what gives her rank: she does not act on her own account, but the goddess sends her.
The bronze leg and the disguise
Her obligatory iconographic trait is the asymmetry of the legs: one of bronze and the other of ass, grotesque detail that betrays her no matter how beautiful the form she adopts. Aristophanes makes her change appearance with each verse, first ox, then mule, then most beautiful woman, and that instability is her true nature. The most elaborate version is told by Philostratus in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana: the young Menippus has become engaged to a very rich woman who showers him with banquets and palaces, and Apollonius, invited to the wedding, discovers that everything is illusion and that the bride is an empusa who was fattening the boy to devour him. It is enough for the wise man to say the truth out loud for the gold to vanish and the creature to confess amid tears.
Powers, defenses and offspring
The powers of Empusa are those of seduction and deception: she changes shape at will, fabricates illusions solid to the touch and chooses as victim the young man whom she can empty slowly. Her defenses are scarce, and there is the interesting part: she is scared away with insults, because she does not tolerate mockery, and she dissolves before the truth said aloud or before the first light of dawn. That combination of feigned beauty, blood appetite and vulnerability at dawn turns Empusa into the clearest Greek antecedent of the seductive vampire, an archetype that reappears in the medieval lamia, in the bride of Corinth of Goethe and, by that route, in all the vampiric literature of the nineteenth century.
Relics
🏺 Chthonic Torch of Hecate
🏺 Key of the Crossroads
Symbology
Element
Earth and Fire
Number
2
Color
Burning Bronze, Youthful Rose, Ash
Animals
Mule, Bull, Donkey, Nocturnal Owl, Black Dog
Sigils:
🏷️ Traits
Powers
Weaknesses
Behavioral
Resistances
🗺️In the Atlas
Travel the beings’ world of origin and the cosmos of their dimensions.
📜 Mythologies
Greek mythology developed in Ancient Greece from the Late Bronze Age and reached its most elaborate form during the archaic and classical periods, between the 8th and 4th centuries BCE. It emerged among the Hellenic peoples who inhabited the Greek peninsula, the Aegean islands and the coasts of Asia Minor, and was transmitted mainly through the oral poetry of Homer and Hesiod, as well as local traditions collected in sanctuaries and festivals. Its worldview presents a universe ordered by a hierarchy of divinities that intervene in human and natural affairs, with Olympus as the dwelling of the principal gods and Hades as the destination of the deceased. The central deities include the twelve Olympians, headed by Zeus, god of the sky and sovereign, together with Hera, Poseidon, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes, Demeter and Dionysus. Before them, the Titans, among whom Cronus and Rhea stand out, ruled the cosmos until they were deposed by the Olympians in the Titanomachy. Other important entities are the Muses, the nymphs, the Cyclopes and the Moirai, who embody cosmic forces and destinies. This tradition exerted a lasting influence on the literature, art and thought of Rome, the European Renaissance and subsequent Western culture, supplying motifs, characters and narrative structures that have endured in philosophy, astronomy and the arts to the present day.
Sources
The Frogs
Aristófanes · -405
Comedy by Aristophanes mentioning Empusa in the descent to Hades.
Lexicon of the Ten Orators
Harpocración · 150
Lexicon by Harpocration defining Empusa as infernal spectre of Hecate.
Life of Apollonius of Tyana
Filóstrato · 220
Biography by Philostratus narrating the empusa episode in Corinth.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Empusa and on whom does she depend?
It is a specter of the retinue of Hécate, goddess of the crossroads and magic. It does not act on its own: Harpocración defines it as an apparition that the goddess sends. It belongs to the class of creatures with which children were frightened, along with Lamia and Mormo, more than to the catalog of the great Greek monsters.
Why does he have one leg of bronze and another of donkey?
It is its obligatory trait and what gives it away no matter how beautiful the form it adopts may be. The grotesque asymmetry functions as a signature: no matter how much it changes appearance (Aristophanes makes it go from ox to mule and to a most beautiful woman in a few verses), the legs give it away. That instability of form is its true nature.
How did Apollonius of Tyana unmask her?
Filóstrato recounts that the young Menipo was going to marry a very rich woman who showered him with palaces and banquets. Apolonio, invited to the wedding, said the truth aloud and all the gold vanished: the bride was an empusa that fattened the boy to devour him, and she ended up confessing it between tears.
How do you scare away an empusa?
With insults, curiously: it does not tolerate the mockery and flees launching a shriek. It also dissolves before the truth said aloud and before the first light of dawn. That combination of feigned beauty, blood appetite and vulnerability at dawn turns it into the clearest Greek antecedent of the seductive vampire.
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