Alalcomenia

Alalcomenia (Ancient Greek: Ἀλαλκομενία) was, in Greek mythology, one of the daughters of Ogyges.[1] She and her two sisters, Thelxionoea and Aulis, were regarded as supernatural beings who watched over oaths and saw that they were not taken rashly or thoughtlessly. Their name was the Praxidikai (Πραξιδίκαι), and they had a temple in common at the foot of the Telphusian mount in Boeotia.

These three were sometimes rendered as a single goddess, Praxidike, "she who exacts punishment".[2] The representations of these divinities consisted of bodiless heads. Like other Greek deities, animals were sacrificed to them, but only the heads.[3][4][5][6]

Notes

1. Schmitz, Leonhard (1867). "Alalcomenia". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 1. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 88.
2. Liddell, Henry; Robert Scott (1996). A Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 1459. ISBN 0-19-864226-1.
3. Pausanias, Description of Greece ix. 33. § 2, 4
4. Panyasis, ap. Steph. Byz s. v. Τρεμίλη
5. Suda, s. v. Πραξιδίκη
6. Karl Otfried Müller, Orchom. p. 128, &c.

References

• Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
• Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Alalcomenia". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.