In the cave of Amnisos (Crete) she was related with the annual birth of the divine child, and her cult is connected with Enesidaon (the earth shaker), who was the chthonic aspect of the god Poseidon.
[4] In his Seventh Nemean Ode, Pindar refers to her as the maid to or seated beside the Moirai (Fates) and responsible for the creation of offspring.
[2] 19th-century scholars suggested that the name is Greek, derived from the verb eleutho (ἐλεύθω), "to bring", the goddess thus meaning The Bringer.
[15] The Iliad pictures Eileithyia alone, or sometimes multiplied, as the Eileithyiai: And even as when the sharp dart striketh a woman in travail, [270] the piercing dart that the Eilithyiae, the goddesses of childbirth, send—even the daughters of Hera that have in their keeping bitter pangs;[16]Hesiod (c. 700 BC) described Eileithyia as a daughter of Hera by Zeus (Theogony 921)[17]—and the Bibliotheca (Roman-era) and Diodorus Siculus (c. 90–27 BC) (5.72.5) agreed.
[18] But Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century AD, reported another early source (now lost): "The Lycian Olen, an earlier poet, who composed for the Delians, among other hymns, one to Eileithyia, styles her as 'the clever spinner', clearly identifying her with the Fates, thus making her older than Cronus.
[20] In the Orphic Hymn to Prothyraia, virginal Artemis is given an epithet relating to the goddess of childbirth, making the divine huntress also "she who comes to the aid of women in childbirth":[21] When racked with labour pangs, and sore distressed the sex invoke thee, as the soul's sure rest; for thou Eileithyia alone canst give relief to pain, which art attempts to ease, but tries in vain.
Vase-painters, when illustrating the birth of Athena from Zeus' head, may show two assisting Eileithyiai, with their hands raised in the epiphany gesture.
[22] A fragment by Callimachus has Eileithyia assist her full-sister Hebe in her labour,[23] presumably when she gave birth to Alexiares and Anicetus, her sons by Heracles.
As the primary goddess of childbirth along with Artemis, Eileithyia had numerous shrines in many locations in Greece dating from Neolithic to Roman times, indicating that she was extremely important to pregnant women and their families.
[24] People would pray for and leave offerings for aid in fertility, safe childbirth, or give appreciation for a successful birth.
[26] More highly educated midwives, typically from higher classes, were referred to as iatrenes or doctors of women's diseases and would be respected as physicians.
Every day, both with sacrifices and with incense, they magnificently propitiate the goddess, and, moreover, there is a vast number of votive gifts offered to Eileithyia.
6), of bringing labor on and of delaying it, and votive offerings to her have been found establishing the continuity of her cult from Neolithic times, with a revival as late as the Roman period.
[44] The goddess of nature and her companion survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the following words were uttered: "Mighty Potnia bore a strong son.
[47][full citation needed] Pausanias noted that "The Messenians have a temple erected to Eileithyia [at Messene, Messenia] with a stone statue.
"[48] On the Greek mainland, at Olympia, an archaic shrine with an inner cella sacred to the serpent-savior of the city (Sosipolis) and to Eileithyia was seen by the traveler Pausanias in the 2nd century AD (Description of Greece vi.20.1–3); in it, a virgin-priestess cared for a serpent that was fed on honeyed barley-cakes and water—an offering suited to Demeter.
[19] Eileithyia had a cult south of the Mount Kounados on the Cycladic Island of Paros, where a cave with a natural spring functioned as an informal sanctuary.