Epithets: Archikos
Royal:
Of the life-generating rulers, the highest is called Hekate, the middle Royal Soul and the last one Royal Virtue. They also have Azonaic Hekatae like the Chaldean Hekate of the Crossroads, Hekate of the Revel, and Hekate of the Assembly. - Chaldean Oracles, xx, Psellus.
And therefore it is certain that Royal Hekate is said to issue from the Crown, as Royal Soul and Royal Virtue issue from the partial sources of the Girdle. - Chaldean Oracles, xx bis., Damascius
Archikos is far from the only epithet that gives Hekate a noble cast. Psellus also says that Hekate is a Goddess of the Assembly, the Ekklesia. Hesiod mentions Her role in guiding the archons of the polis in the Theogony. She is also Anassa Eneroi, Queen of the Dead. She is Basileia, which also translates as Queen, in the Orphic Hymns. Of a similar bent is the title Pasikratea, Universal Queen, and Pasimedousa, Ruling over All. She is also Stratelatis, which can be translated as the Leader of Hosts or General. Even in the afterlife, she is sometimes known as Tartaroukhos, Ruler of Tartaros.
All of this suggests to me that, at least in some regions, Hekate was far more than a simple peripheral household deity. Certainly some of the poets might have been participating in flattery of the Goddess, but would the poems have been well received if they deviated from accepted norms? It is important to remember that each polis had its own understanding of the Theoi, and that the differences could be stark, and some of them are likely lost in the darkness of time.
Sources:
Athanassakis, Apostolos N. The Orphic Hymns, Johns Hopkins, 2013. ----. Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days, Shield, Johns Hopkins, 2004. Ronan, Stephen. The Goddess Hekate, Chthonios, 1992. Marquardt, Patricia A. “A Portrait of Hecate,” The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 102 No. 3, (Autumn, 1981), pp. 243-260.
Images:
CTHOE, “Lagina, Hekate’s Temple,” photo, 2016, via wikicommons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lagina-7-CTH.JPG
