a name given to the Furies by the ancients. They are fabled to have sprung from the blood of the wound which Cælus received from his son Saturn; but according to others they were daughters of Earth, and conceived from the blood of Saturn; whilst others again make them daughters of Acheron and Night, or of Pluto and Proserpine. They were three in number, Tisiphone, Megara, and Alecto, to whom some add Nemesis. Plutarch mentions only one called Adrasta, the daughter of Jupiter and Necessity. Supposed to be the ministers of the vengeance of the gods, they were stern and inexorable, and were always employed in punishing the guilty upon earth, as well as in the infernal regions. Upon earth they inflicted the divine vengeance by means of wars, pestilence, and dissensions, and by the secret stings of conscience; in hell they punished the guilty by continual flagellation and torments. They were also called Furiae and Erinnyes. Their worship was almost universal, and people dared not to mention their names or to look upon their temples. They were honoured with sacrifices and libations; and in Achaia they had a temple, which, when entered by any one guilty of a crime, suddenly deprived him of the use of his reason, and rendered him furious. In sacrifices their votaries used branches of cedar and of alder, hawthorn, saffron, and juniper; and the victims were generally turtle doves and sheep, together with libations of wine and honey. They were usually represented as of grim and frightful aspect, with black and bloody garments, and serpents wreathed round their heads instead of hair. They held a burning torch in one hand, and a whip of scorpions in the other; and were always attended by Terror, Rage, Paleness, and Death. In hell they were seated around Pluto's throne, as the appropriate ministers of his vengeance.