Obscure Gods: Hekateros
A demi-god who is the father or grandfather (it varies) of Oaxos, the Daktyloi, the Hekaterides, Satyroi, the Kouretes, and the Oreiades. We don’t know who his parentage might be, but his descendants are featured in numerous stories and cults.
His name is found in the name of two styles of dance, hekateris and hekatereo. His name may mean “with both hands,” or “each of two,” or “the marvelous hundred.” It could also be translated as “either” according to Desiderius Erasmus in the Renaissance, who shares an unrelated story about two brothers, Amphoteros (Both), and Hekateros (Either), which is mostly a play on words rather than a legend or anything of real value for our purposes.
His children, the Kouretes, are in this case the Phrygian demi-gods who were renowned for their music, playing pipes for Nymphs and other wildling creatures. Hesiod, in a lost document, makes him the father of the Satyroi, those frivolous companions of Dionysos and Pan.
It seems that Hekateros is most likely similar in nature to Silenus, and theoi.com speculates that He is a God of the dance which bears his name. Based upon his offspring, it also seems possible that He is a God associated with the hands, for daktyloi are ‘fingers’. Overall, from him come some of the most light-hearted and wild spirits known to us, and without him, Dionysos’ retinue would be quite tame!
Sources:
Theoi.com lsj.translatum.gr
Erasmus, Desiderius. Apophthegmata, Toronto, 2015. Rose, Herbert Jennings. A Handbook of Greek Mythology: Including its Extension to Rome, Dutton, 1959. Stoll, Heinrich Wilhelm. Handbook of the Religion and Mythology of the Greeks, trans R.B. Paul, 1852. Tsagalis, Christos. Early Greek Epic Fragments I: Antiquarian and Genealogical Epic, de Gruyter, 2017.
Images:
Cezanne, Paul. “Bacchanal,” oil on canvas, 1875-80, via wikicommons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_C%C3%A9zanne_002.jpg Marsyas. “Frieze of the choral dancers from the Great Gods’ sanctuary in Samothraki,” photo taken 2005. Via wikicommons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Samothraki_choral_dancers.jpg
