'torch')[1] are torch-bearing nymphs who follow the goddess Hecate.
According to a scholium on Homer's Iliad, the Lampades are among the types of nymphs mentioned by the lyric poet Alcman (fl.
seventh century BC); the scholiast describes them as the nymphs "who carry torches and lights with Hecate",[2] a description which Timothy Gantz claims was probably a creation of the scholiast, rather than of Alcman or another writer.
[3] According to Claude Calame, the scholium's connection of these nymphs with Hecate is likely related to the common association of the goddess with torches.
[4] In Greek hexameters from Selinus dating to the fourth century BC, there is mention of "goddesses, bright with torches",[5] which Sarah Iles Johnston interprets as referring to the Lampades, pointing to their attestation as torch-carrying goddesses, and their association with Hecate, who is mentioned immediately after these figures in the text.