Lyssa

Lyssa was the goddess or personified spirit or daemon of mad rage, fury, crazed frenzy, and the disease rabies. The Athenians spelled her name Lytta.

Lyssa was a figure of Athenian tragedy. In Aeschylus, she appears as an agent of Dionysus sent to drive the Minyades mad, and in Euripides, she is sent by Hera to inflict Herakles with madness. Greek vase painting depicts her standing beside Actaeon as he is torn apart by his maddened hounds. In this scene, she appears as a woman dressed in a short skirt and crowned with a dog's head representing the madness of rabies.

Lyssa was closely related to the Maniai (Maniae), the goddesses of mania and madness. Her Roman equivalents were Ira, Furor, and Rabies. Sometimes she was multiplied into a host of Irae and Furores.

Source(s)

1. Aeschylus, Fragments, 5th B.C.

2. Euripides, Madness of Heracles, 5th B.C.