Bendis was a Thracian chthonic deity associated with nature, the hunt and the moon, and so when her cult spread to the rest of Greece she was associated with Hecate, Persephone and Artemis. The earliest surviving record of her name occurs in Hipponax, where Bendis is mentioned together with the Thracian goddess Cybele. The poet Cratinus calls her “two-fold” (δίλογχος), while Aristophanes refers to her as the “great goddess”. From Thrace, or possibly from Lemnos, her cult was carried to Attica and in 430/429 BC a sanctuary was created in her honor in Piraeus. Thracians dwelling in Athens celebrated the Bendideia on the 20th of the month of Thargelion (i.e. early June). Plato describes a wonderful festival, with a procession in which local people took part alongside the Thracians and the sacrifices offered rivalled those of the great Athenian festivals of Panathenaea and Dionysia. An inscription found in Piraeus signals the importance of Bendis and the Bendideia, for the festival, it says, was celebrated in accordance with both the ancestral customs of the Thracians and the laws of the city of Athens.
