Ploutos

Not to be confused with Aristophanes’ comedy Wealth.

Ploutos (Plutus) was the god of wealth in Greek mythology, and his name means “wealth”. In Hesiod he is the son of the goddess Demeter and the hero Iasion, conceived in a thrice-ploughed field in Crete; he goes over land and sea and makes rich whoever he meets (Hesiod, Theogony 969–974). Later writers picture him as blind, because Zeus blinded him, and show him in statues as a child in the arms of Eirene or Tyche.

Birth and Family

Hesiod ends the Theogony with the unions of goddesses and mortals. Demeter, the goddess, lay in love with the hero Iasion in a thrice-ploughed field in the rich land of Crete and bore Ploutos, “a good one”, who goes everywhere over the earth and the broad back of the sea. Whoever meets him and into whose hands he comes, he makes rich and gives great prosperity (Hesiod, Theogony 969–974). In the Odyssey, Calypso tells the same love story against the gods’ jealousy: Demeter yielded to Iasion in a thrice-ploughed fallow field, and Zeus, hearing of it, killed Iasion with his bright thunderbolt (Homer, Odyssey 5.125–128).

Ploutos and Demeter

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter ends its account of the Eleusinian rites by calling blessed the man who has seen them (Hymn to Demeter 480–482). It adds that Demeter and Persephone, the revered goddesses who live beside Zeus, at once send Ploutos to the great house of any mortal whom they favour; he is the one who gives wealth to mortals (Hymn to Demeter 486–489). Here Ploutos is the gift of the two goddesses, with no parentage stated.

The Blind God

In Aristophanes’ comedy Wealth, Ploutos himself explains how he became blind. As a youth, he had threatened to visit only the just, wise and orderly; Zeus, out of envy of mankind, made him blind so that he could tell none of them apart (Aristophanes, Wealth 87–92). The play follows the farmer Chremylus, who finds the blind god and leads him to the sanctuary of Asclepius to be cured (Wealth 411, 621–747).

In Lucian’s dialogue Timon, Hermes is surprised to find Ploutos lame as well as blind. Ploutos replies that when Zeus sends him to someone he is heavy and slow, so that the person waiting may grow old before he arrives, but when he leaves he is winged and swifter than a dream. He adds that when Pluto sends him instead of Zeus, it is different (Lucian, Timon 20–21). The picture of a lame and winged Ploutos comes from this dialogue.

Ploutos and Pluto

Ploutos is a different god from Plouton, the name by which the lord of the Underworld, Hades, is often called. In Plato’s Cratylus, Socrates explains that Pluto was named as the giver of wealth, because wealth comes up from below out of the earth (Plato, Cratylus 403a). In Lucian’s Timon, Ploutos says that Pluto too is a giver of riches, and that the two are connected (Timon 21).

Ploutos in Art

Pausanias saw at Athens a statue of Eirene (Peace) carrying the boy Ploutos (Wealth) (Description of Greece 1.8.2). At Thebes there was a statue of Tyche (Fortune) with Ploutos in her arms, which he says suggests that she is his mother or nurse. He adds that Cephisodotus had the same idea when he made the image of Peace with Wealth in her arms for the Athenians (Pausanias 9.16.2).

Ploutos Sources

Hesiod, Theogony 969–974; Homer, Odyssey 5.125–128; Homeric Hymn to Demeter 480–489; Aristophanes, Wealth 87–92, 411, 621–747; Lucian, Timon 20–21; Plato, Cratylus 403a; Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.8.2 and 9.16.2.

See Also: Iasion, Demeter, Zeus, Hades, Eirene, Wealth, Asclepius