Makaria

Makaria is the name of two figures from ancient Greek religion and mythology. Although they are not said to be the same and are given different fathers, they are discussed together both by Zenobius and in a single entry in the 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia the Suda.

In the Heracleidae of Euripides, c. 430 BC, Makaria is a daughter of Herakles and plays the role of the tragic heroine. Even after Heracles' death, King Eurystheus pursues his lifelong vendetta against the hero by hunting down his children. Makaria flees with her siblings and her father's old friend Iolaus to Athens, where they are received by Demophon, the king.

Arriving at the gates of Athens with his army, Eurystheus gives Demophon an ultimatum, threatening war upon Athens unless Demophon surrenders Herakles's children. When Demophon refuses and begins to prepare for war, an oracle informs him that Athens will be victorious only if a noble maiden is sacrificed to Persephone. Upon hearing this, Makaria sees that her only choice is immediate death on the altar or eventual death at the hands of Eurystheus. Since in neither case will she be granted a normal, happy life, she offers herself as the victim to save the welcoming city and its inhabitants, declining a lottery that would put other girls at risk. The Athenians honored her with lavish funeral rites, and the myth has an aetiological aspect: the spring where she died was named the Makarian in her honor.

Centuries later Makaria is mentioned again, but this time taking the role of a cthonic diety. According to the Suda, Makaria is the daughter of Hades. She seems to have embodied a blessed death, and was perhaps a sacrificial aspect of the death-god Thanatos, or else connected with the passage of souls to the Islands of the Blessed (Nesoi Makarioi). The Suda connects her name to the figure of speech "be gone to blessedness," instead of misery or damnation, which may be euphemistic, in the way that the dead are referred to as "the blessed ones." The phrase was proverbial for those whose courage endangered them.