The Roman counterpart of Lyssa was Furor. Many of the Greek gods and goddesses, such as Lyssa, were therefore adopted by the Romans but were given Latin names. When the Roman Empire conquered the Greeks in 146BC, the Romans assimilated various elements from other cultures and civilisations, including the gods and goddesses that were worshipped by the Ancient Greeks. In the above picture, taken from a Greek vase-painting Lyssa is depicted as a woman wearing in a short hunting skirt and is crowned with a dog's head representing the madness of rabies.
She is also associated with myths relating to the frenzied behavoiur of dogs such as the Myth of Diana (Artemis) & Actaeon, in which the hunter Actaeon is killed by his own hounds. Lyssa is therefore depicted in ancient Greek mythology as the companion of dogs. Rabies is transmissible through the saliva of these animals to humans. Rabies is the terrifying, contagious and fatal disease of dogs and other small mammals, such as foxes, bats, and rodents, that causes madness and convulsions. Lyssa was held to be the spirit of rabies. Lyssa, the Greek goddess of mad rage and frenzyįrom left to right the picture depicts Zeus, Lyssa, Actaeon and Artemis
Insania and the Maniae were companions of both Lyssa and her infernal sisters, the Furies (Erinyes), the goddesses of Vengeance & Retribution. The Maniae were evil spirits personifying Insanity, madness and crazed frenzy, the goddess of insanity was called Insania or Mania meaning madness.
In ancient Greek mythology she was strongly associated with the Maniae. Lyssa represented temporary madness and violent mental agitation involving sudden frantic, wild, extreme emotion or or mania that was uncontrolled by reason. As the sister of the many of the dark gods of death, night and the Underworld, Lyssa personified mad rage and frenzy.
Her father was Erebus, who reigned in a palace in the dark regions of the Underworld. Lyssa was one of the primeval gods who was a daughter of Nyx, the goddess of night, who was believed to be the mother of everything mysterious and anything that was inexplicable and unpleasant, such as death, disease, sleep, ghosts, dreams, witchcraft and enchantments.
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