In Delphi, there was a young orphan by the name of Achillea. Every night, she saw visions of the deaths of those around her, a gift passed down from her grandmother, Pythia. Having learned of Achillea’s existence, Apollo demanded that Hecate kill her. The goddess, having pity for the girl, allowed her to live with her powers. But, to protect herself from the punishment of disobeying Apollo, she laced Achillea’s powers with a curse:
Bastard granddaughter of Pythia,
Your birth has brought rage upon The Delphic One
Yet, I have no interest in disrupting the horrid fate spun by Clotho
I only forbid you from telling a mortal the means of his death
For his very suffering is tied to those around him
At first, Achillea carefully followed the orders of Hecate. One day, however, she falls deeply in love with a young man, Amphiaraos. She then had a horrendous vision of his watery grave. Despite the heedings of The Masked Goddess, Achillea told her lover of her vision. Attempting to escape his fate, Amphiaraos sailed far away. But, he ended up dying at sea. Only when Achillea had dreams of his family did she know that her lover had died and his lineage would die. Desperate to reverse the damage she had created, Achillea called upon Hecate for help:
Goddess of the Underworld, I ask that you forgive me for my grave disobedience
As punishment, I beg that you save these people and send me to Tartarus
Where I will pay for tangling with the threads of the Moirai
Hearing the girl’s cries, Hermes appeared in Achillea’s dream:
Hecate has allowed you to redeem yourself
She has asked that you bring the Helmet of Hades to me
When Hermes disappeared, Achillea dreamed of a dark cave at the edge of Tartarus in which the helmet laid. Wanting to be relieved of her curse, she went and retrieved the helmet. However, before she could leave, her soul was consumed by a three-headed beast. It was then that Hermes appeared and took the helmet:
I finally have very source of power I need to defeat Ares
To win back my true love, Aphrodite
Only the life of an oracle, however, could trigger its power
And so, young girl, you have served your purpose
When Hecate finds you, may she show you mercy once more
When Achillea woke up again, she found herself soaked by the souls of the Acheron and drowning in her visions of the continued deaths of those close to her lover. As she closed her eyes to try and forget the horrors around her, Hecate appeared in her dreams:
For your defiance, I will send you to Tartarus
Where you will repeatedly live through the many deaths of those you caused and foresaw
However, to ensure Apollo never learns of how I have disobeyed him,
I will buy your word by granting you one of your desires
Every century, you can save a few souls from their fates
And as long as the Moirai view them worthy
An excited Achillea quickly tested Hecate’s gift by begging for the life of a boy in a seven-year coma to be saved. Sure enough, the boy woke up. The doctors who cared for him were shocked by such a revelation that they termed it as one of life’s miracles.
Meanwhile, the Moirai cackled as they saw Achillea smile. Unbeknownst to the gullible girl, she had become a victim of deception by the very gods she assumed had helped her.
Analysis
The main message of this morbid myth is that miracles came about from disinformation. Specifically, the idea of people breaking the laws of nature by cheating death (i.e. rising from coma, surviving a car accident with fatal injuries) is associated with the manipulation of the ignorant or hopeless, which is a key concept of disinformation. In as early as ancient Greece, philosophers and authors, such as Homer and Hesiod, were also indirectly practicing disinformation in that they carried enough authoritative power to be able to influence the Greek literature, especially through creating aetiological myths that explained how the relationship between humans and gods and goddesses developed and contributed to worldly occurrences (i.e. disease and natural disasters) (Doughtery 28). While information provided by such work has not been explicitly proven to be false or true, the fact that they satisfy the innate curiosity of human minds by providing an explanation for the unknown and unfamiliar has allowed for the myths to spread and be integrated into cultures outside of Greece. This authoritative power was also carried by oracles from both written or oral myths and the real-world (Kindt 35). Much of what oracles claimed were questionable in that some sources stated even Pythia inhaled toxic fumes that evoked hallucinations that were most likely side effects of the poison rather than true visions from God or about the future (Lehoux 41; Spiller et al. 195). However, an oracle’s supposedly exclusive ability to foresee the true future and thus determine the unknown is what still enabled them to be revered by humans and gods alike. In fact, oracles were forced to abstain from sex when they entered priesthood presumably to not only ensure they were “pure” enough to receive “divine messages”, but out of the fear that their powers would pass on and be accessed by evildoers as well (Spiller et al. 190). In this myth, the existence of the young oracle, Achillea, was not tolerated by Apollo as it threatened the power of Pythia, his own oracle from Delphi, which is where this myth takes place (Spiller et al. 191).
While Apollo had the power to kill Achillea, he had given Hecate this duty out of respect for the work Pythia has done for him and because he is the God of Prophecy, as implied by Hecate referring to him by his epithet “The Delphic One”, who supports oracles in general (Hom., Il. 1.72). Hecate has a close relationship with Apollo and thus is reached out to by the god in that she was the sister of Leto, Apollo’s mother, and was considered one of the gods and goddesses of oikos, or the “household”, along with Apollo, Zeus, Hermes, and Hestia (Hes., Theog. 8.410-425). Furthermore, her knowledge of magic and witchcraft made her likely the best individual to deal with Achillea's divine powers (Ov., Met. 14.405; Stat., Theb. 4.428). At the same time, however, her connection with the Underworld, as alluded to by Achillea referring to her as the “Goddess of the Underworld” (Theocrit., I. 2.10-14; Diod. Sic., Libr. of Hist. 4.45.1-2) makes her a character who is not necessarily good or bad. In addition, since she had to wear a mask in front of the other gods and goddesses to hide her decomposed appearance, as referred to with her epithet “The Masked Goddess” (Apollon., Rhod. 3.861; Ov., Met. 7.194), Hecate sympathized for the orphan oracle who was also ostracized by the gods even though she was not asked to be born with such powers. This resulted in Hecate choosing to act against Apollo’s wishes by sparing the girl’s life.
Even though Achillea does initially listen to Hecate’s warnings, it is love that ultimately makes her disobey. In classic mythology, love or infatuation is intertwined with fate and disinformation in that it is displayed as a strong emotion that sways the views of those who fall victim to it, such as the infamous Odysseus, who sleeps with Circe as she convinces him that it is the only option to save his men despite that fact that his wife, Penelope, was faithful to him (Hom., Od. 10.336-345). In this case, Achillea's feelings for Amphiaraos led to his demise. In fact, the name, Amphiaraos, was purposefully chosen as the name of Achillea’s lover in that it was based off of the oracle favored by Zeus and Apollo, Amphiaraus, who shared the similar fate as Amphiaraos. As Achillea indirectly caused Amphiaraos’s death, Amphiaraus was urged by his wife to join the war against the Thebean throne and ended up dying, even though he foresaw the death of all those who were part of the group of seven warriors selected to fight (Stat., Theb. 7.584-588).
After Achillea disobeys Hecate’s rules, it is not Hecate, but rather Hermes, who appears by her request, which is believable in that he is the messenger of gods and, similar to Hecate, is a god of oikos (Hom., Od. 1.38; Hom., Il. 24.390). However, readers can see that his visit is suspicious in that he does not choose to provide details about the purpose of the Helmet of Hades and asks that the weapon be given to him rather than to Hecate directly. Nonetheless, Hermes’s title as a God of Thieves (Hom., Il. 5.390, 24.24) and relationship with other gods and goddesses allowed him to cunningly influence Achillea into obtaining the helmet, despite the risks of her going to an unfamiliar place in the Underworld. Readers can see that this particular event is an example of disinformation in that Hermes takes advantage of Achillea’s desperation by having her believe that she could stop the suffering she caused to her lover through completing the task that he says Hecate supposedly ordered her to do. It is also important to note that Achillea, which is the feminine version of the name Achilles, a Trojan soldier who was seen as invincible until he died when he was shot in his weak spot (i.e. left heel) (Stat., Achil. 1.133-134), was chosen to be the name of the main character of this myth to make the point that “weaker” individuals tend to most likely become victims of disinformation. This is such the case when Achillea, the victim in this myth, was not aware of Hermes’s ulterior motives, since she was unfamiliar with both the extent of her own oracle powers and Hecate’s curse.
Sources mention that Hermes’s love for Aphrodite, which drove his decision to manipulate Achillea into getting the Helmet of Hades, came about when Aphrodite was caught having an affair with Ares while she was married to Hephaestus (Stat., Theb. 7.61-62). With the Zeus’s aid, Hermes was even able to trick Aphrodite into having sex with him, which resulted in the birth of their child, Hermaphroditus (Hyg., Astr. 2.16; Diod. Sic., Libr. of Hist. 4.6.5). In the end, however, Aphrodite still preferred Ares as her lover (Stat., Theb. 7.63-64). This myth in particular follows-up with Hermes’s efforts to win back Aphrodite through finding a way to defeat Ares, who specializes in battle tactics as the God of War and thus would have an upper hand in a fight against Hermes. Sources report that the Helmet of Hades was a weapon given to the God of the Underworld by the Cyclopes to defeat his father, Kronos, alongside Zeus and Poseidon in return for Zeus releasing them from Tartarus (Apollod. 1.2.1; Hom., Il. 5.845). The helmet provided invincibility powers that deflected the strong attacks of Kronos and his Titans (Apollod. 1.2.1). In this myth, Hermes tries to obtain the weapon in hopes that it will increase his chances of winning a fight with Ares. While classic mythology mentions that the helmet was kept by Hades’s side (Apollod. 1.2.1), the myth was modified to have the helmet be hidden near the place where war was waged between Kronos and his children to demonstrate the great power of the weapon. Furthermore, the dangers of obtaining such a weapon from the hellish lands of the dead were emphasized through having the power of the helmet be activated exclusively by a figure who has divine power that equates to those of the gods (i.e. Achillea’s prophetic abilities) and having Cerberus, Hades’s three-headed guard dog, protect the weapon.
After Achillea dies, she is sent to the Acheron, one of the four rivers in the Underworld that specifically contains the souls of “woe” (Hom., Od. 5. 513; Paus. 1.17.5). She ends up here in that she is distraught by the fact that she must watch all those around her lover die without being able to save them. Ironically, Achillea begged for Hecate to send her to the “deep abyss” in the first place as she saw herself as a murderer who caused the deaths of her lover and those around him and thus was as evil as others sent to Tartarus, such as Kronos, who ate his own children out of the belief that they would overthrow him (Hom., Il. 8.481; Hes., Theog. 12.820).
Overall, dreams and divination played important roles in this myth of life’s miracles and disinformation. There are several references made to the Moirai, or the three witches that determine the fate of mortals (Hom., Il. 24.525; Hom., Od. 1.17, 3.208, 4.208). When Hecate first speaks to Achillea, she mentions that Clotho, the witch who creates the “thread” of a mortal’s life that determines how they will die (Hes., Theog. 4.217), had already set the path for Achillea’s horrid destiny. Ironically, even as an oracle, Achillea is not aware of the fact that she is following her own fate in that she believes she disrupted the fate of her lover and those around him, which she alludes by saying that she tangled with the threads of Moirai. It is at this point that Achillea proceeds to have a dream of where to find the Helmet of Hades, which, once again, shows that Hermes was able to mislead Achillea by planting the idea in her head through a medium that she already thinks highly of and fears (i.e. visions). The final reference to the Moirai is found in the conversation Hecate has with Achillea when the oracle is in the Acheron. In this instance, Achillea believes that she has graciously been given power to save some lives in return for those she indirectly killed. However, readers can see that this gift is actually a culmination of Hecate’s attempts to avoid being punished by the higher gods and the powers of the Moirai. Essentially, while the ending of this myth can be viewed as a positive one in that Achillea was able to redeem herself, it also shows how Achillea ends up in a “disinformation” loop between Hermes taking advantage of her and Hecate attempting to keep her existence a secret.
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