Mania: The Roman Goddess of Madness

While her name has come to be associated with madness, Mania’s role originally was more spiritual than psychological. Her terror would be felt when boundaries were neglected, when obligations were forgotten, as in my story “Sweet Revenge” in the September 2026 issue of Dark Horses: The Magazine of Weird Fiction.

“Sweet Revenge” is about Theodora, a woman scorned. Though still desperately in love with her estranged husband, she is eager for revenge. But a slow revenge. So, she poisons him with the berries of her nightshade plant:

Before he’d finished the berries, his pupils had widened to saucers, dark, glassy, and unfocused. Slowly, as the lines around his eyes deepened, something menacing, even demonic, stirred in his soul. While his eyes strafed the ceiling and his fingers clawed the air, he screamed as if an infernal image were projected there.

“What do you see?” I whispered. Was Mania already seducing him? What lewd obscenities could she be murmuring?

Rolling back his eyes, he howled in a wine-logged voice as if a primordial monster were ripping him apart.

And Theodora? Come now. Surely you can predict how she felt that moonless night as she followed the lantern beam. “I heard only my whimpers as I trudged back to town knowing I’d have forgiven him anything if he’d only wanted me back. To learn more, click here.