HADES · Lord of the Underworld

II

Origin

Son of Cronus, eldest of the swallowed. The lots fell, and the dead were given a king.

Hades is the firstborn son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea — first to be devoured, last to be freed. When Cronus, fearing the prophecy that his own children would unseat him, swallowed each newborn in turn, Hades and his elder siblings spent their childhood inside their father's body, until Zeus, hidden away on Crete, returned with a draught that forced Cronus to disgorge them.

After the Titanomachy — the ten-year war that broke the old order — the three sons of Cronus divided the cosmos by lot. To Zeus fell the bright sky; to Poseidon the gray sea; and to Hades the realm beneath the earth: a kingdom no light visits, where every mortal soul will, in time, come down to him.

“We are three brothers… and all things were divided into three parts, and each was given his own domain. To me fell the gray sea forever; to Hades fell the misty darkness.”
Homer, Iliad XV.187–193

Hesiod records the same descent in his cosmogony: Cronus, son of Heaven, supplanted in his turn by his own children ^[1]. From this division, the Greek world ordered itself — sky above, sea between, and beneath them both the silent dominion of Hades.

^[1] Hesiod, Theogony 453–506.

III

Major Myths

Three episodes that shape what the Greeks meant by their Lord of the Dead.

Myth i

The Abduction of Persephone

— and the origin of the seasons

The seasons begin with an abduction. Persephone, daughter of Demeter, was gathering flowers in a meadow of Nysa when the earth opened beneath her. Hades, in a chariot drawn by black horses, drew her down into his kingdom.

Her mother searched the whole earth and, in her grief, withheld the harvest until the world began to starve. Zeus intervened, brokering a return — but before she went, Hades offered her the seed of a pomegranate. She ate six. By that act she was bound: six months each year she dwells with him as Queen of the Underworld; six months she rises to her mother, and the earth wakes.

Homeric Hymn to Demeter; Ovid, Metamorphoses V.385–571.

Myth ii

Orpheus & Eurydice

— the one mercy

There is one story in which Hades relents. Orpheus, the singer whose music halted rivers and tamed beasts, descended after the death of his wife Eurydice. His song moved the iron of the Underworld: Sisyphus's stone fell still, Tantalus forgot his thirst, the Furies wept.

Hades and Persephone, hearing him, granted what they had never granted — Eurydice was given back, on a single condition. He must lead her up to the light, and not, until they had crossed, look behind him.

He looked. She fell back, twice dead, and was gone.

Virgil, Georgics IV.453–527; Ovid, Metamorphoses X.1–85.

Myth iii

Heracles & Cerberus

— the twelfth labour

The twelfth and final labour was to bring up Cerberus, the three-headed hound of Hades, from the gates of the Underworld and present him living before King Eurystheus.

Heracles descended at Taenarum, was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries before he went, and met Hades face to face. The Lord of the Dead permitted the labour on a single condition: Heracles must master the beast with bare hands, using no weapon. He did. He dragged Cerberus into the light of day, showed him to the trembling king, and then — as he had promised — returned him to his post at the gate.

Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.5.12.

IV

Symbols

The objects of his dominion. Each carried a meaning a Greek would have read instantly.

Bident

A two-pronged staff — often, and wrongly, confused with Poseidon's trident. The forked shaft signified Hades' dominion over the earth: the boundary that opens beneath the living.
Cerberus

The three-headed hound. He let every soul enter, but none depart. To pass him living, mortals carried honey-cakes; to pass him at all, mortals first had to be dead.
Helm of Darkness (Kynée)

Forged for Hades by the Cyclopes during the Titanomachy. Whoever wore it became invisible. Hermes borrowed it to slay the giant Hippolytus; Athena wore it against Ares; Perseus took it to behead Medusa.
Cypress

Tall, dark, evergreen. Planted at the entrances of tombs across the Mediterranean world: a tree that does not die in winter, sacred to a god whose kingdom does not end.
Narcissus

The flower Persephone reached for when the earth opened. It blooms pale and bows its head, and from the day of the abduction it has been the flower of the dead.
Pomegranate

The fruit of binding. To eat its seed in the Underworld is to belong to it. Six seeds are six months, and the seasons turn on the count.

V

Family & Relationships

A house, a court, a list of enmities — the people through whom the god is known.

Father Cronus

Mother Rhea

Sister Hestia

Sister Demeter

Sister Hera

Self Hades

Brother Poseidon

Brother Zeus

Lord Hades

Consort · daughter of Demeter Persephone

— of the realm —

Charon, ferryman of the Acheron · Thanatos, death · Hypnos, sleep · Hecate, queen of crossroads · The Erinyes, the Furies

— rivals & adversaries —

Apollo, over the slaying of Asclepius · Heracles, who broke into the realm · Sisyphus, who chained Thanatos

VI

Modern Legacy

The god survives in the names of planets, of elements, of eons — and in the words for the dark.

Astronomy

Pluto

The dwarf planet named for the Roman Plūtō — “the giver of wealth,” from the metals and the grain that rise from the earth. Discovered 1930. Re‐classified 2006. Photographed at last in 2015 by New Horizons.

Chemistry

Plutonium (Pu·94)

Named in the chain Uranium — Neptunium — Plutonium, after the gods of sky, sea, and underworld. A heavy, radioactive element with a name fit for what it does.

Geology

The Hadean Eon

Earth's first chapter, 4.6 to 4.0 billion years ago. Molten surface, no atmosphere, no oceans. Named for the god — a world too hellish to be anywhere else.

Culture

Supergiant's Hades (2020)

A roguelike retelling the mythology from the perspective of Zagreus, son of Hades, attempting to escape the Underworld. Widely cited as one of the finest mythological video games ever made.

Language

The words for the dark

“Rich as Hades.” “The hadal zone,” the deepest trenches of the ocean, below six thousand metres. And, through long mistranslation, the English word that has stood in for his kingdom for two thousand years.

VII

Sources

A bibliography — primary sources first, by century; modern scholarship beneath.

Primary Sources

Homer. The Iliad. 8th century BCE. Cited XV.187–193 for the division of the cosmos by lot.
Hesiod. Theogony. c. 700 BCE. Cited 453–506 for the genealogy of the Olympians and the swallowing of the children of Cronus.
Anonymous. Homeric Hymn to Demeter. 7th–6th century BCE. The foundational narrative of the abduction of Persephone.
Apollodorus. Bibliotheca (The Library). 1st–2nd century CE. Cited 2.5.12 for the twelfth labour of Heracles.
Virgil. Georgics. Book IV. 29 BCE. Cited 453–527 for the descent of Orpheus.
Ovid. Metamorphoses. 8 CE. Cited V.385–571 (Persephone) and X.1–85 (Orpheus & Eurydice).

Secondary Sources

Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Translated by John Raffan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.
Hard, Robin. The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology. Based on H. J. Rose's Handbook of Greek Mythology. London: Routledge, 2004.
Larson, Jennifer. Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide. New York: Routledge, 2007.

Images

Carracci, Agostino. Pluto. 1591–1593. Galleria Estense, Modena. Hero plate. Photograph via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Goya, Francisco de. Saturno devorando a su hijo (Saturn Devouring His Son). 1819–1823. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Plate I. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Bernini, Gian Lorenzo. The Rape of Proserpina. 1621–1622. Galleria Borghese, Rome. Plate II. Photograph by Daderot, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0.
Corot, Jean-Baptiste-Camille. Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld. 1861. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Plate III. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons (Google Art Project).
Rubens, Peter Paul. Hercules and Cerberus. c. 1636. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Plate IV. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Andokides Painter (attrib.). Attic black-figure amphora: Heracles and Cerberus. c. 530 BCE. Louvre, Paris (F 204). Plate V. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Greek, Locri Epizephirii. Pinax with Persephone and Hades Enthroned. 500–450 BCE. Cleveland Museum of Art. Plate VI. Photograph by Daderot, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0.
NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute. Pluto in true color. 14 July 2015. Plate VII. Public domain — NASA Photojournal, PIA19857.