The Boeotians say that Eteokles was the first human to sacrifice [thuein] to the Graces [Kharites]. Moreover, they know that he was the one who established three as the number of the Graces [Kharites], but they do not memorialize [mnēmoneuein] the names that he gave them. The Lacedaemonians, however, say that the Graces [Kharites] are two, and that Lacedaemon, son of [the nymph] Taygete established-their-worship [hidrusasthai] and gave them the names of Klētā and Pháenna.
Pamphōs was the first we know of to sing [āidein] to the Graces [Kharites], but what-has-been-poetically-created [perfect passive poieîn] by him has nothing about their number or about their names. Homer1 also memorializes [mnēmoneuein] the Graces [Kharites],and he says that one is the wife of Hephaistos, and he gives her the name Grace [Kharis]. He also says that Sleep [Hypnos] was a lover of Pasithea, and in the speech of Sleep there is this verse [Iliad 14.275]:
I, Sleep, call on you, Hērā, to swear that] you will give me one of the younger Graces [Kharites].
Hence some have suspected that Homer knew of older Graces as well.
Footnotes
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@urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.aprip-nagy:9.35.3
It was from Eteokles of Orkhomenos that we by now have-the-custom [nomizein] of praying [eukhesthai] to three Graces [Kharites]. And Angeliōn and Tektaios, sons of Dionysus,[^592] who made the image of Apollo for the Delians, set three Graces [Kharites] in his hand. Again, in Athens, in front of the entrance to the Acropolis, the Graces [Kharites] are three in number; and in their presence is celebrated aritual-of-initiation [teletē] that is something-not-to-be-spoken [apo-rrhēton] to the-many [hoi polloí]. Iliad 18.382 and following.
Hesiod in the Theogony1 (though the is doubtful, this poem is good evidence) says that the Graces are daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, giving them the names of Euphrosyne, Aglaia, and Thalia. The poem of Onomacritus agrees with this account. Antimakhos, while giving neither the number of the Graces nor their names, says that they are daughters of Aigle and the Sun. The elegiac poet Hermesianax disagrees with his predecessors in that he makes Persuasion also one of the Graces.
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Hesiod Theogony 907.
Who it was who first represented the Graces naked, whether in sculpture or in painting, I could not discover. During the earlier period, certainly, sculptors and painters alike represented them draped. At Smyrna, for instance, in the sanctuary of the Nemeses, above the images have been dedicated Graces of gold, the work of Bupalus; and in the Music Hall in the same city there is a portrait of a Grace, painted by Apelles. At Pergamon likewise, in the chamber of Attalus, are other images of Graces made by Bupalus;
and near what is called the Pythium there is a portrait of Graces, painted by Pythagoras the Parian. Socrates too, son of Sophroniskos, made statues [agalmata] of Graces [Kharites] for the Athenians, which are situated in front of the entrance to the Acropolis. All these are alike draped; but later artists, I do not know the reason, have changed the way of portraying them. Certainly today sculptors and painters represent Graces naked.