In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, the Tritopatores () are three benevolent worshipped in Athens as deities of marriage, childbirth and the household. They are mentioned in the Suda lexicon, a Byzantine work of the tenth century AD, and several other Greek inscriptions.
Mythology
The Tritopatores are mentioned in the tenth-century Byzantine lexicon known as the
Suda, whose author states that they are Athenian wind gods (or guardians of the winds) to whom the Athenians pray and offer sacrifices when they are about to marry or wish to conceive children.
He says that some authors make them the firstborn beings of them all, while others make them the offspring of the earth-goddess
Gaia by the sun-god
Helios (often identified with
Apollo).
He gives their names as Amalceides, Protocles and Protocleon (in , Πρωτοκλῆς and Πρωτοκλέων), but also says that alternatively they are Cottus, Briareon and Gyges (mixing them up with the
Hecatoncheires, a set of offspring of Gaia by the sky-god Uranus).
Worship
The Tritopatores's worship was a type of the ancestor-worshipping cult of a particular group, in this case the Athenians. Cults and festivals
in honour of the three are attested in the wider
Attica region and the Athens-influenced
Delos,
Selinunte,
Troezen and Cyrene.
Furtwangler suggested that the three-bodied figure from the pediment of the
Hekatompedon in the Acropolis of Athens is supposed to depict the Tritopatores, based on the tri- ("three") prefix of their name; that being said, there is no evidence that the Tritopatores were ever thought to be three bodies with a single tail, as they are three separate beings.
See also
-
Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth
-
Hera, goddess of marriage and household
-
Hestia, goddess of the hearth
Bibliography
