Deipnon

Deipnon (Greek δεῖπνον, “supper” or “meal”) is the dark-moon rite that closes each Greek lunar month — specifically, Hekate’s Deipnon (ta Hekataia), the offering of food left at the crossroads for the goddess Hecate and the wandering dead on the night when the moon is entirely absent from the sky. It is the clearing half of the monthly rhythm, paired with the following night’s Noumenia.

What the Deipnon involved

On the night of the dark moon, the household was swept clean — all old offerings removed from the altar, all accumulated spiritual weight from the past month collected and taken out. A meal was prepared of crossroads foods: eggs, bread, fish, honey, garlic, and the kinds of food associated with Hecate (Athenaeus, 7.325). This meal was carried to the nearest crossroads — preferably where three roads met — and left there, with a torch or lamp, for Hecate and the dead.

The household then did not look back on returning. To look back was to invite the chthonic presences of the night to follow you home — the same rule observed by Orpheus in the underworld.

Hecate and the liminal month-end

Hesiod, Theogony 411–452 establishes Hecate’s authority: Zeus honored her above all other gods, giving her portions of earth, sea, and starry sky. She is invoked at births, at games, in battle. At the dark moon, this cosmic authority focuses on the liminal — the threshold between the dying month and the new one, the boundary between the living and the dead, the crossroads between paths.

The Deipnon and household purity

Aristophanes, Plutus 594–597 mentions that poor men sometimes ate the Deipnon offerings, suggesting the food was left publicly enough to be found. The primary function was spiritual: by carrying the household’s accumulated miasma out to the crossroads and leaving it with Hecate, the household cleared the way for the Noumenia’s fresh beginning.