Editing Hecate (section)

===Deipnon===
The Athenian Greeks honoured Hecate during the [[Deipnon]]. In Greek, deipnon means the evening meal, usually the largest meal of the day. Hecate's Deipnon is, at its most basic, a meal served to Hecate and the restless dead once a lunar month<ref>The play Plutus by Aristophanes (388 BCE), line 594 any translation will do or [[Benjamin Bickley Rogers]] is fine</ref> during the [[Dark Moon]]. On the night of the dark moon, a meal would be set outside, in a small shrine to Hecate by the front door; as the street in front of the house and the doorway create a crossroads, known to be a place Hecate dwelled. Food offerings might include cake or bread, fish, eggs and honey.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Robinson |first=Sarah |title=Kitchen Witch: Food, Folklore & Fairy Tale |publisher=Womancraft Publishing |year=2022 |isbn=978-1910559697 |pages=32}}</ref> The Deipnon is always followed the next day by the [[Noumenia]],<ref>''Harvard Theological Review'', Vol. 65, No.2, 1972 pages 291–297</ref> when the first sliver of the sunlit New Moon is visible, and then the Agathos Daimon the day after that.

The main purpose of the Deipnon was to honour Hecate and to placate the souls in her wake who "longed for vengeance."<ref>These are the biaiothanatoi, aoroi and ataphoi (cf. Rohde, i. 264 f., and notes, 275–277, ii. 362, and note, 411–413, 424–425), whose enthumion, the quasi-technical word designating their longing for vengeance, was much dreaded. See Heckenbach, p. 2776 and references.</ref> A secondary purpose was to purify the household and to atone for bad deeds a household member may have committed that offended Hecate, causing her to withhold her favour from them. The Deipnon consists of three main parts: 1) the meal that was set out at a crossroads, usually in a shrine outside the entryway to the home<ref>Antiphanes, in Athenaeus, 313 B (2. 39 K), and 358 F; Melanthius, in Athenaeus, 325 B. Plato, Com. (i. 647. 19 K), Apollodorus, Melanthius, Hegesander, Chariclides (iii. 394 K), Antiphanes, in Athenaeus, 358 F; Aristophanes, Plutus, 596.</ref> 2) an expiation sacrifice,<ref>Hekate's Suppers, by K. F. Smith. Chapter in the book The Goddess Hekate: Studies in Ancient Pagan and Christian Philosophy edited by Stephen Ronan. Pages 57 to 64</ref> and 3) purification of the household.<ref>Roscher, 1889; Heckenbach, 2781; Rohde, ii. 79, n. 1. also Ammonius (p. 79, Valckenaer)</ref>