Eleos
conceptThe Greek concept of mercy and compassion, personified as a god and central to Athenian civic identity.
The Myth
Athens had an altar that no other Greek city possessed: the Altar of Eleos, the Altar of Pity, standing in the agora. Pausanias reports that suppliants and refugees came there seeking protection, and the Athenians prided themselves on honouring it. Eleos was the civic virtue that tempered Athenian power with compassion. In tragedy, eleos was one of the two emotions — alongside phobos (fear) — that Aristotle said tragedy must arouse to achieve catharsis. The audience watching Oedipus must feel pity for his suffering and fear that similar fate could befall them. Without eleos, tragedy is merely spectacle. The concept had legal force. Athenian defendants routinely appealed to the jury's eleos, bringing their weeping children into court. Aristotle analyzed the tactic in the Rhetoric: pity requires believing the sufferer does not deserve their fate, and that a similar fate could happen to you or yours. Distant or deserved suffering does not produce eleos. The Romans translated it as misericordia and built it into their legal system. Christianity elevated mercy to a cardinal virtue, but the Athenians had already given it an altar.
Parents
Greek civic tradition
Symbols
Fun Fact
The English word "alms" descends through Latin and Greek from eleos — charity is literally "mercy-money."
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth:
Explore Further
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