Underworld Gods and Goddesses

Gods and Goddesses of the Underworld

The Greek underworld was ruled by Hades and Persephone and served by a crowd of lesser powers. Death and Sleep were twin sons of Night, Charon ferried the dead across the water, Hermes guided them, three judges decided where they went, and the Furies punished crimes against the family. Each of these figures has a separate set of sources.

Hades

Hades, son of Cronus and Rhea, took the dark realm below when he and his brothers divided the world: Zeus received the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the underworld, with earth shared by all (Homer, Iliad 15.187 ff.). The Homeric Hymn to Demeter calls him Aidoneus, “Ruler of Many and Host of Many”, who received his third share when the division was first made (lines 17–18, 84–87). The name Hades could refer both to the god and to his house.

Persephone

Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter (Hesiod, Theogony 912–914). According to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Zeus gave her to Hades without telling her mother, and Hades seized her as she gathered flowers. Demeter searched for her and Hecate and Helios told her what had happened. Zeus then sent Hermes to bring Persephone back, but because she had eaten a pomegranate seed she had to spend part of each year below (Hymn 2 to Demeter; Apollodorus 1.5.3). In the Odyssey (10.491; 11.213 ff.) she is the queen of the dead, and heroes who go to the underworld, such as Odysseus, address her as well as Hades. Apollodorus (1.3.1) gives a variant in which her mother is Styx.

Hecate

Hesiod (Theogony 404–452) calls Hecate a daughter of the Titans Perses and Asteria. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter she hears Persephone’s cry from her cave and joins Demeter in the search, and after Persephone is found she becomes her attendant and companion (lines 438–440). That role is the reason she is placed among the powers below, though Hesiod gives her honour in sky, earth and sea alike.

Nyx, Thanatos and Hypnos

Hesiod (Theogony 211–225) says Nyx, Night, bore without a partner Moros (Doom), Ker, Thanatos (Death), Hypnos (Sleep) and the tribe of Dreams, as well as the Fates, Nemesis and Strife. Nyx is herself a child of Chaos, and Erebus is her brother (Theogony 123). Hesiod places the house of Night in the underworld (Theogony 744–766), and describes Thanatos and Hypnos living there: Sleep is gentle to mortals, but Death has an iron heart and brazen feelings without pity.

The two brothers appear together in the Iliad (16.453 ff., 16.681 ff.), where Apollo gives the body of the dead Sarpedon to “swift messengers, Sleep and Death, twin brothers” to carry home to Lycia. In Euripides’ Alcestis (19 ff.), Thanatos arrives with a sword to take Alcestis to the house of Hades, and Apollo, who favours the house of Admetus, argues against him.

Hermes, Guide of Souls

Hermes leads the souls of the dead to the underworld. At the opening of Odyssey 24 he gathers the ghosts of the suitors with his golden wand and leads them down. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (334 ff.) Zeus sends him to Hades to bring Persephone back to her mother. Later writers call him psychopompos, “guide of souls” (Diodorus 1.96.6).

Charon

Charon is the aged ferryman who takes the dead across the river Acheron in his boat. Pausanias (10.28) describes the painting by Polygnotus at Delphi, which showed him as an old man at the oars and quoted an old poem, the Minyas, in which the boat is the one “that the old ferryman Charon used to steer”. In Aristophanes’ Frogs (140, 270) the fare is two obols. Virgil gives the fullest portrait: a grim and squalid ferryman with a mass of grey beard and eyes of flame, who takes across only the buried dead and leaves the unburied to wander the shore for a hundred years (Aeneid 6.298–330). Apuleius, in the tale of Psyche, has him demand his coin from the dead person’s mouth before he will row (Metamorphoses 6.18). Homer and Hesiod never mention Charon, and the early sources give him no parents. Writers also speak of the river Styx, the water by which the gods swear their great oath; Hesiod (Theogony 361, 775 ff.) makes Styx an Oceanid and says the gods’ oath is sworn on her water.

Cerberus

The hound of Hades guards the gate. Hesiod (Theogony 310–312) makes Cerberus a child of Typhaon and Echidna, with fifty heads and a voice of bronze, and says that he fawns on those who enter but devours anyone who tries to leave (Theogony 769–773). Apollodorus (2.5.12) gives him three dog heads, a serpent’s tail and snakes along his back; Heracles brought him up from the underworld as his last labour and took him back again.

The Judges of the Dead

Homer shows Minos in the underworld, holding a golden sceptre and giving judgement among the dead (Odyssey 11.568 ff.). Plato (Gorgias 523e–524a) names three judges, all sons of Zeus: Minos and Rhadamanthus from Asia, and Aeacus from Europe. They sit in a meadow at the crossroads where one road leads to the Isles of the Blessed and the other to Tartarus. Rhadamanthus judges those from Asia, Aeacus those from Europe, and Minos decides when the other two are unsure. In Homer (Odyssey 4.563–564) Rhadamanthus instead dwells in the Elysian plain at the ends of the earth. Minos and Rhadamanthus have their own pages.

The Erinyes

The Erinyes, also called the Furies, were born from the blood of Uranus when Cronus wounded him: Alecto, Tisiphone and Megaera (Apollodorus 1.1.4). In Aeschylus (Eumenides 321 ff.) they call themselves daughters of Night. They pursue those who have shed kindred blood, as they pursue Orestes in the Eumenides.

See Also: Hades, Persephone, Hecate, Thanatos, Hypnos, Charon, Hermes, Nyx, Cerberus, Minos, Rhadamanthus