Praxidice, goddess of judicial
punishment and the exactor of vengeance, which were two closely allied concepts in the classical Greek world-view.
Praxidice, according to the
Orphic hymn to
Persephone, an
epithet of Persephone: "Praxidike, subterranean queen. The
Eumenides' source [mother], fair-haired, whose frame proceeds from Zeus' ineffable and secret seeds."[1] As praxis "practice, application" of dike "justice", she is sometimes identified with
Dike, goddess of justice.
Praxidice, according to
Stephanus of Byzantium, a daughter of
Ogygus named Praxidike, married to
Tremiles (after whom
Lycia had been previously named Tremile) and had by him four sons:
Tlos,
Xanthus,
Pinarus and
Cragus.[2] Of them, Tlos had a Lycian city named Tlos after himself.[3] Cragus may be identical with the figure of the same name mentioned as the husband of
Milye, sister of
Solymus.[4]
The plural Praxidicae (Praxidikai) refers to the following groups of mythological figures who presided over exacting of justice:
Alalcomenia,
Thelxionoea and
Aulis, daughters of the early
Boeotian king
Ogyges.[5] At
Haliartos in
Boeotia,
Pausanias saw the open-air "sanctuary of the goddesses whom they call Praxidikae. Here the Haliartians swear, but the oath is not one they take lightly".[6] Their images only portrayed their heads, and only heads of animals were sacrificed to them.[7]
Stephanus of Byzantium, Stephani Byzantii Ethnicorum quae supersunt, edited by August Meineike (1790-1870), published 1849. A few entries from this important ancient handbook of place names have been translated by Brady Kiesling.
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
Suida, Suda Encyclopedia translated by Ross Scaife, David Whitehead, William Hutton, Catharine Roth, Jennifer Benedict, Gregory Hays, Malcolm Heath Sean M. Redmond, Nicholas Fincher, Patrick Rourke, Elizabeth Vandiver, Raphael Finkel, Frederick Williams, Carl Widstrand, Robert Dyer, Joseph L. Rife, Oliver Phillips and many others.
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
This article includes a list of Greek mythological figures with the same or similar names. If an
internal link for a specific Greek mythology article referred you to this page, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended Greek mythology article, if one exists.