FURIES (in Latin Furia or Dira, in Greek Erinnyes or Eumenides), in Ancient Mythology, the deities whose business it was to punish in Hades the crimes committed upon earth. The name "Eumenides," applied to these goddesses by the Greeks, signifies the "kindly" or "propitious" deities. Like the term "Semnæ," or "venerable," it was euphemistically employed by the Athenians, who feared to call these terrible beings by their real names. Though the proper office of the Eumenides was to punish murder, perjury, disrespect to old age, and other such crimes, they were sometimes invested with very different functions. Thus, in Æschylus' play, The Eumenides, they appear not only as the instruments of wrath and vengeance against the matricide Orestes, but also as promising victory and every sort of prosperity to the people of Athens. In this play, too, they are described as being far more numerous than accorded with the received traditions. They seem to have numbered at least fifteen, whereas common accounts make them only three, and give their names Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megæra.
Furnace. In friezes and sculptures the furies are depicted as dark beings, with serpents intertwined among their hair, blood dripping from their eyes, and holding scourges or torches in their hands. The sacrifices offered to them consisted generally of black sheep. No wine was offered at their sacrifices, but only libations of oil, honey, and water, called "nepalia." Everything relating to these deities is fully
discussed in the second essay appended to Müller's edition of the Eumenides of Æschylus.