Horkos
Horkos ( ancient Greek Ὅρκος , "the oath", Latinized Orcus , Latin Iusiurandum ) is the personification of the binding force of the oath in Greek mythology .
In Hesiod's theogony , Horkos is a descendant of the goddess of discord Eris , his siblings are the personifications Ponos (hardship), Lethe (oblivion), Limos (hunger), Algea (pain), Hysminai (battle), Makhai (fight), Phonoi ( Murder), Androktasiai (slaughter), Neikea ( hader ), Pseudea (lie), Amphilogiai (argument), Dysnomia (lawlessness), and Ate (delusion). He brings more ruin to people than any of his siblings when they have perjured . In the works and days he persecutes judges who pass false judgments out of corruption, and the Erinyes , the goddesses of revenge , consecrate themselves to him .
In Hyginus Mythographus , Iusiurandum is the descendant of Aither and Terra .
Aisopus tells in a fable of a man who receives money from a friend in trust but plans to keep the money for himself. On the way out of the city he meets a lame man who introduces himself as Horkos and says that he only visits each city every thirty to forty years. The next day, the man takes an oath to manage the money well. When he met Horkos, who pushed him to the edge of a cliff, he asked how it could be that he met him again the next day. Horkos replied that he would come back the same day if he were provoked to do so. The moral of the fable is that there is no foreseeable time when the perjurer will be punished by Horkos.
Since the word ὅρκος originally referred to the object on which an oath is taken, Horkos is also a name for the Styx , on whose water the Greek gods take their oaths.
literature
- Heinrich Wilhelm Stoll : Horkos . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1,1, Leipzig 1886, column 2724 ( digitized version ).
Web links
- Horkos in the Theoi Project (English)
