View source for Maniae

{{Short description|Spirits personifying insanity in Ancient Greek mythology}}
{{Distinguish|Mania (deity)}}
{{other uses|Mania (disambiguation)}}
{{more citations needed|date=January 2021}}
{{Greek myth (personified)}}
In [[Ancient Greek mythology]], '''Maniae''' or '''Mania''' ({{Langx|grc|Μανίαι/Μανία|Maniae/Mania}}) are the spirits [[Personification|personifying]] [[insanity]], madness, and crazed frenzy. They operate closely with [[Lyssa]], the spirit of rage and [[rabies]], and like Lyssa, are presumed to be daughters of [[Nyx (mythology)|Nyx]].  They are also associated with the [[Erinyes]], the three fearsome goddesses of vengeance.
They are also sometimes said (though, perhaps in jest, or as a metaphor for love's sometimes cruel nature) to have been nurses of the god [[Eros]].
== Mythology ==
[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] writes that on the road from [[Megalopolis, Greece|Megalopolis]] to [[Messene]] there was a sanctuary, which, according to local citizens, was devoted to goddesses called Maniae, and that its surrounding district was also called Maniae (Μανίας). His local sources told him that it was there that madness overtook [[Orestes]], hence Pausanias's view that these Maniae were the vengeful Furies or Erinyes or Eumenides (Graceful Ones).<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-grc1:8.34.1 8.34.1]</ref>
== Note ==
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== References ==
* [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], ''Description of Greece'' with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. {{ISBN|0-674-99328-4}}. [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0160 Online version at the Perseus Digital Library]
* Pausanias, ''Graeciae Descriptio.'' ''3 vols''. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903.  [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0159 Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library].
{{Greek mythology (deities)|state=collapsed}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maniae (Mythology)}}
[[Category:Greek goddesses]]
[[Category:Personifications in Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Insanity]]
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