FURIES (Furiae, also called Dirae) are not native to Latin mythology, but adopted and modified from the Greek Erinyes (see Erinyes). Originally denoting the avenging power exerted by nature against all transgressors of its regular order, and spoken of by older poets (Homer, Aeschylus, &c.) either simply in the singular or in the plural as an indefinite number, the Erinyes assumed later a more rigid and methodical form, As the conception of a future life grew, they were invested with the duty of punishing sinners, and were settled in Tartarus (Virgil, Aen. vi.); their number was fixed down to the sacred three (a number mentioned so early as Eurip., Orestes), aud individual names, Allecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera, occur first in the Alexandrian poets and are adopted in Latin. But besides this, Virgil, and the later poets in imitation of him, frequently employ the Furiae in another way which is also suggested by a Greek original. The Erinyes are said to madden the transgressor and lead him into further crimes which work their own punishment (II. xix. 87 ; Oct. xv. 234); and Aeschylus by a strong metaphor calls Helen an Erinys, as it were, a scourge of men (Again. 729). Virgil develops this thought so as to make the Furiae the agents employed by the higher gods to stir up all mischief and strife and hatred on the earth. They sit close by the throne of Jupiter, ready to execute his errands of ill fAen. xii.); Allecto is sent by Juno to raise the war against Aeneas (so also Ovid, Met. iv. 473; Statius, Thcb. i., &c.); they are the pronubae of an unhappy marriage (Lucan, viii. 90). Without regard to ethical propriety, they are employed as a convenient poetic machinery. The free, fluid conception of the Greek myth, hiding in it the deepest truth and capable of infinite growth, ...