Prothyraia (Ancient Greek: Προθυραία, romanized: Prothuraía) is the figure addressed in the second of the Orphic Hymns, a collection of ancient Greek hymns composed around the 2nd and 3nd centuries AD.^[2]

Prothyraia's means 'at the door' or 'at the door-way',^[3] and is used to denote a goddess who presides over the area around the entrance to a building.^[4] Prothyraia is an epiclesis of the goddesses Eileithyia, Hecate, and Artemis;^[3] Prothyraia is attested as an epithet of Artemis in a 2nd-century AD inscription discovered in Epidaurus.^[5] In Pausanias's Description of Greece, there is reference to a temple in Eleusis which was dedicated to Artemis Propylaia.^[6]

In line 9 of the Orphic Hymn to Prothyraia, she is addressed as "Eileithyia", and in line 12 she is called "Artemis Eileithyia".^[5] The epithets applied to her in the hymn relate primarily to her role in helping with births,^[5] and the request of the hymn implores her to aid in giving birth.^[7] Two descriptions the hymn applies to her are ōdínōn eparōgós (ὠδίνων ἐπαρωγός), meaning she "who offers support in the pains of childbirth", and ōkýlocheia (ὠϰυλόχεια), meaning she "who accelerates childbirth".^[4]

The placement of the hymn to Prothyraia, a figure associated with birth, at the beginning of the collection, is significant, and mirrors the position of the hymn to Thanatos (Death) as the last hymn.^[8] According to Fritz Graf, during the rite in which the Orphic Hymns played a role, the hymn to Prothyraia may have been sung as the initiates were entering the building where the rite took place.^[8]

• Athanassakis, Apostolos N., and Benjamin M. Wolkow, The Orphic Hymns, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. ISBN 9781421408828. Internet Archive.
• Malamis, Daniel, The Orphic Hymns: Poetry and Genre, with a Critical Text and Translation, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2024. ISBN 9789004714076. doi:10.1163/9789004714083.
• Pausanias, Description of Greece, Volume I: Books 1-2 (Attica and Corinth), translated by W. H. S. Jones, Loeb Classical Library No. 93, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1918. ISBN 978-0-674-99104-0. Online version at Harvard University Press. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Quandt, Wilhelm, Orphei Hymni, Berlin, Weidmann, 1955. OCLC 22971774.
• Ricciardelli, Gabriella, Inni Orfici, Milan, Mondadori, 2000. ISBN 8804476613.
• Rudhardt, Jean, "Recherches sur les Hymnes orphiques", in Opera inedita: Essai sur la religion grecque & Recherches sur les Hymnes orphiques, Liège, Liège University Press, 2008. ISBN 9782960071726. doi:10.4000/books.pulg.514.