Hades

Hades is the Ancient Greek god of the dead and ruler of the Underworld, the place where human souls go after death. In time his name became the name of his realm as well. He is the son of Cronus and Rhea and the brother of Zeus and Poseidon, and the most important myth about him is his abduction of Demeter’s daughter Persephone, whom he made his queen (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 1–32).

Hades’ Role

When the three sons of Cronus divided the world, the sea fell to Poseidon, the sky to Zeus and the murky darkness below the earth to Hades, while the earth and Olympus remained common to all (Homer, Iliad 15.187–193). Hades therefore rules the dead and lives in a house beneath the earth, which he shares with Persephone. At its gates a fearsome dog keeps watch: it fawns on those who enter and devours any who try to leave (Hesiod, Theogony 767–774).

Homer calls Hades the most hated of the gods to mortals, because he is “implacable and unyielding” (Iliad 9.158–159), and Hesiod gives him the epithet “pitiless in heart” (Theogony 455–456).

Hades’ Name

Hades was often explained as meaning “the Unseen One”. Plato says that most people took the name to mean the Invisible, although Socrates in the Cratylus derives it from the god’s knowledge of all fine things (Cratylus 403a–404b). The Greeks also called him Plouton, “the giver of wealth”, because wealth comes up from below the earth (Plato, Cratylus 403a). Hades’ Roman equivalent is Pluto, a form of Plouton.

Hades’ Portrayal and Symbolism

The early poets give Hades few physical features. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter calls him “dark-haired” and shows him driving immortal horses and a golden chariot (Hymn to Demeter 17–20, 347). His best-known possession is a helmet or cap, the Cap of Hades, which makes the wearer unseen: Athena puts it on so that Ares will not see her (Iliad 5.844–845), and according to Apollodorus the Cyclopes gave it to Hades, as they gave Zeus the thunderbolt and Poseidon the trident, when they were freed from Tartarus before the war against the Titans (Apollodorus, Library 1.2.1). In the war against the Giants, Hermes wore the helmet of Hades and killed the giant Hippolytus (Library 1.6.2). Hesiod names Cerberus as the bronze-voiced dog of Hades and sets a fearsome dog to guard his gates (Theogony 311, 769–773).

Hades’ Epithets

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter calls Hades Polydegmon, “the host of many”, and also Polysemantor, “the ruler over many” (Hymn to Demeter 17, 31), and Aidoneus (Hymn to Demeter 2). Homer names him “Zeus of the underworld” (Zeus Katachthonios) together with dread Persephone (Iliad 9.457), and Hermes addresses him as “dark-haired Hades, ruler of the dead” (Hymn to Demeter 347).

Hades’ Biography

Hades’ Birth

Hesiod lists the children of Rhea and Cronus as Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus (Theogony 453–458), which makes Hades the fourth child and the third of the sons. Cronus swallowed each of them as they were born, until Zeus, the youngest, was hidden and Cronus was made to disgorge the others (Theogony 459–506). Homer too calls Zeus, Poseidon and Hades three brothers born to Cronus and Rhea (Iliad 15.187–188).

Titanomachy and Hades

After being freed, Hades joined his brothers in the war against the Titans, which lasted ten years (Theogony 629–636; Apollodorus, Library 1.2.1). In Apollodorus’ account the Cyclopes made his helmet for the war, and when the Titans had been shut up in Tartarus the three brothers cast lots for the rule of the world, and Hades received the realm of the dead (Library 1.2.1; compare Iliad 15.187–193).

Hades’ Wife

Very few myths are told about Hades in the ancient sources, since he rarely leaves his kingdom. His wife is Persephone, the daughter of Demeter.

The Abduction of Persephone

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter tells how Persephone was gathering flowers with the daughters of Ocean when Earth, to please Hades and by the will of Zeus, made an astonishing narcissus grow as a trap for the girl. When she reached for it, the earth opened in the Nysian plain and Hades rose on his immortal horses and carried her off in his golden chariot, while she cried out to her father Zeus. Zeus himself had given her to his brother (Hymn to Demeter 1–32, 77–80). Only Hecate and Helios heard her.

Demeter wandered the earth for nine days with torches, neither eating nor bathing, until Hecate told her what she had heard and Helios named the culprit (Hymn to Demeter 47–89). In anger she left Olympus, and in the hymn she made the earth bear no crops, until Zeus saw that humans would die and the gods would lose their honours. Zeus sent the gods one by one with gifts, but Demeter refused them all and insisted on seeing her daughter, so Zeus sent Hermes to Hades to bring Persephone back (Hymn to Demeter 305–349).

Hades obeyed, but before she left he secretly gave Persephone a pomegranate seed to eat, so that she would not stay always with her mother (Hymn to Demeter 370–374). In the hymn she later tells her mother that he forced her to eat it (Hymn to Demeter 411–413).

Winter and Spring

Zeus’ settlement was that Persephone would spend a third of the year below the earth with Hades and the other two thirds with her mother and the other immortals. When the earth blooms with spring flowers, she rises again from the gloom, a great wonder to gods and men (Hymn to Demeter 398–403, 445–447). In the hymn Demeter then makes the crops grow again, teaches the rites of her mysteries to the leaders of Eleusis and returns to Olympus (Hymn to Demeter 470–484). Apollodorus says only that Pluto gave her a pomegranate seed so that she would not stay long with her mother (Library 1.5.3). The early sources give Hades and Persephone no children.

Minthe

Strabo reports a mountain near Pylos in Elis named after Minthe, who according to the myth became the concubine of Hades, was trampled underfoot by Core (Persephone) and was transformed into garden mint (Strabo 8.3.14).

Other Myths

Heracles and Hades

Homer tells how Heracles shot Hades with an arrow at Pylos, and Hades went to Olympus in pain to be healed by Paieon (Iliad 5.395–402; Apollodorus, Library 2.7.3). Later, as his twelfth labour, Heracles went down to the house of Hades through Taenarum, found Theseus and Pirithous, freed Theseus, and with Pluto’s permission overcame Cerberus without weapons and brought him up to Eurystheus (Library 2.5.12).

Orpheus and Eurydice

When his wife Eurydice died of a snake bite, Orpheus went down to Hades and persuaded Pluto to send her back up, on the condition that he should not turn round until they reached his house. He disobeyed, looked back, and she returned to the dead (Apollodorus, Library 1.3.2).

Theseus and Pirithous

Theseus went down to Hades to help Pirithous win Persephone as a bride. Hades, pretending to entertain them, had them sit on the Chair of Forgetfulness, where they grew fast to their seats. Heracles later brought Theseus back up, but Pirithous remained bound for ever (Apollodorus, Epitome 1.23–24; Library 2.5.12).

Hades in the Bible

As the realm of the dead, Hades is named ten times in the New Testament in its original Greek text. Older translations such as the King James Bible usually render it as “hell”.

Hades: Myths and Hidden Truths

Hades is often pictured as an evil ruler, but the ancient sources do not make him a devil or the punisher of the living. In the Odyssey, Odysseus sees Minos, a son of Zeus, sitting with a golden sceptre to give judgement to the dead in the house of Hades (Odyssey 11.568–571); Hades is the lord of the place, not the judge.

Hades and Thanatos

Hades is not Death. Hesiod makes Thanatos, a son of Night and brother of Sleep, a separate deity who lives in the dark house below the earth, and he describes him as having a heart of iron (Theogony 758–766).

Plouton

Because wealth, crops and metals come from the earth, Hades was also called Plouton, the giver of wealth (Plato, Cratylus 403a). The Homeric Hymn to Demeter likewise says that Demeter and Persephone send Ploutos to the households they love (Hymn to Demeter 486–489).

Hades’ Infrequent Worship

Hades had far fewer temples and festivals than the other Olympians. In Homer, those who prayed to him struck the earth with their hands: Althaea does so when she calls on Hades and dread Persephone to bring death to her son (Iliad 9.568–572).

Hades Sources

The story of the abduction of Persephone is fully told in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Other ancient sources for Hades are Homer (Iliad 5.395–402, 5.844–845, 9.158–159, 9.457, 9.568–572, 15.187–193; Odyssey 11.568–571), Hesiod (Theogony 311, 453–506, 629–636, 758–774), the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Apollodorus (Library 1.2.1, 1.3.2, 1.5.3, 1.6.2, 2.5.12, 2.7.3; Epitome 1.23–24), Plato (Cratylus 403a–404b) and Strabo (8.3.14).

See Also: Demeter, Persephone, Zeus, Poseidon, Cronus, Rhea, Cerberus, Hecate, Styx