Maniae

The Maniae (“Madnesses”) were goddesses of madness in Greek religion. The best-known evidence is Pausanias’ description of their sanctuary near Megalopolis in Arcadia, where, according to local tradition, madness overtook Orestes as punishment for killing his mother (Pausanias 8.34.1).

The Maniae of Arcadia

Pausanias writes that on the road from Megalopolis to Messene, after about seven stades, a sanctuary of goddesses stands on the left of the highway. The goddesses themselves, and the district around the sanctuary, were called Maniae, “Madnesses”. In his own view this was a surname of the Eumenides, and the people there said it was in this place that madness came on Orestes for shedding his mother’s blood (Pausanias 8.34.1).

Pausanias describes several places close by that were tied to Orestes’ story. Not far from the sanctuary was a small mound topped by a stone finger, called the Tomb of the Finger, where Orestes in his madness was said to have bitten off one of his fingers. Next to it was a place called Ace (“Remedies”), where Orestes was cured, and where there was also a sanctuary of the Eumenides (Pausanias 8.34.2). The people told how, when the goddesses were about to drive Orestes out of his mind, they appeared to him black; when he had bitten off his finger they seemed white again and he recovered his senses at the sight. He sacrificed a sin-offering to the black goddesses to avert their anger and a thank-offering to the white ones, and it was the custom to sacrifice to the Graces together with the Eumenides. Nearby was another place where Orestes was said to have cut off his hair when he came to his senses (Pausanias 8.34.3).

Madness in Greek Myth

The Maniae are close in nature to the Erinyes, whom the Arcadians honoured under the name Eumenides. In Aeschylus’ Eumenides the Erinyes call themselves the eternal children of Night (Eumenides 416), and their binding song over Orestes is called a song of derangement (Eumenides 328–333, 341–346). No ancient text gives the Maniae parents of their own; if they are the Eumenides, as Pausanias believed, they are daughters of Night (Nyx), whom the Erinyes call their mother (Eumenides 321–322, 416).

Madness also appears as a single personified goddess, Lyssa, in Euripides’ Heracles. Iris brings Lyssa, whom she calls the offspring of Night, to the house of Heracles at Hera’s wish, and Lyssa says that she is born of Night and of the blood of Uranus. She does not want to harm a man of such merit, but she obeys, and drives Heracles to a frenzy in which he kills his children (Euripides, Heracles 822–873). In this play Lyssa is the madness sent by a god to a mortal; the Maniae, in Pausanias, are the goddesses who send madness on Orestes and also cure it.

Maniae Sources

Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.34.1–3; Aeschylus, Eumenides 321–346, 416; Euripides, Heracles 822–873.

See Also: Nyx, Lyssa, Erinyes, Orestes, Heracles, Hera, Iris