MELINOE was a frightful underworld Goddess who presided over the propitiations offered to the ghosts of the dead. She wandered the earth at night with a retinue of ghosts, striking fear into the hearts of mankind. Her limbs were black one one side of her body and white on the other, revealing her dual chthonian and heavenly aspects.

The word meilia, which forms the first part of her name, was often used to describe propitiatory offerings made to the ghosts of the dead. Melinoe was probably an Orphic title for the goddess Hekate, who was sometimes named as a daughter of Zeus and Persephone.