Megaera- Greek GodDeity"The Jealous One"

Birth from Blood

When Cronus castrated Uranus, the blood fell on Earth. From it Gaia bore the Erinyes, beings older than the Olympians, born not from union but from violence. Hesiod in the Theogony names them alongside the Giants and the Meliae as children of that first blood. Megaera is one of the three named Erinyes, with Alecto and Tisiphone. Her name means "the grudging" or "the jealous." Apollodorus in the Bibliotheca lists all three by name; earlier sources treat the Erinyes as one force, not three separate figures.

The Hounding of Orestes

The scene that gives the Erinyes their fullest portrait is Aeschylus's Eumenides. When Orestes kills his mother Clytemnestra to avenge his father Agamemnon, the Erinyes come for him. Aeschylus's priestess at Delphi stumbles upon them sleeping in Apollo's temple and describes what she sees: wingless, black, snoring with a breath no one could bear, serpents wound through their hair. They wake and follow Orestes across the Greek world, tracking the scent of his mother's blood.

The trial takes place on the Areopagus in Athens. Athena presides. The Erinyes argue their case: a son killed his mother, and blood demands blood. Apollo argues for Orestes. The jury splits evenly, and Athena casts the deciding vote to acquit. The Erinyes rage at the verdict and threaten to poison the land, until Athena offers them a sanctuary beneath the Areopagus and a new title. The Athenians would call them the Semnai Theai, the Revered Goddesses, and honor them with offerings. They accept.