Horkos, also known as Orcus, was the daemonic personification of broken oaths and functions as a curse that would befall upon any person that broke an oath they had taken. He serves under Hades in the Underworld.
Description[]
During medieval times, he was depicted as a demon with the head of a pig who ravaged corpses, most likely because sacrifices to him commonly used pigs.
Horkos was thought to be the king of the Orcs.
He is the son of the goddess Eris (strife), and brother of Ponos, Limos, Algea, the Hysminai, the Makhai, the Phonoi, the Androktasiai, the Neikea, the Pseudologoi, the Amphilogiai, Dysnomia, Ate, and Lethe.
Overview[]
In Works and Days, Hesiod states that the Erinyes (Furies) assisted at the birth of Horkos, "whom Eris bore, to be a plague on those who take false oath", and that the fifth of the month was especially dangerous as being the day on which he was born. However, there is no fixed day on which the god’s punishment falls on the wicked.
Horkos made an appearance in one of Aesop's Fables, in which a man asked a friend to lend him money, without intending to return it. His friend told him to swear that he would return it some day, so he decided to leave from the town. On his way, he saw a man who told him he was Horkos and his mission was to hunt bad people. Horkos also told him that he returned to the town every thirty or forty years. Happy that Horkos would not return for so long, the man went back to his friend and claimed he had never received any money. On that same day, Horkos returned and dragged him to the edge of the cliff, saying that if he was provoked, he would return on the same day.
A similar story was told by Herodotus and may even have been the fable’s origin. It concerned a man who asked the Delphic oracle’s advice about dishonoring such an oath and received the answer that he would profit for the moment but that it would bring about the destruction of him and his heirs - for Horkos has a son 'who is nameless and without hands or feet, swift in pursuit'. Nor can there be any repentance, for intent is no different from action.