Hades (; , , later ), in the ancient Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the dead and riches and the King of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous.. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also made him the last son to be regurgitated by his father.Reckoning by this reverse order is preferred by Poseidon in his speech at Homer, Iliad 15.187. He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated, overthrew, and replaced their father's generation of gods, the Titans,Apollod. 1.2.1 and claimed joint sovereignty over the cosmos. Hades received the underworld, Zeus the sky, and Poseidon the sea, with the solid earth, which was long the domain of Gaia, available to all three concurrently.
Roman-era mythographers eventually equated the Etruscan god Aita, and the Roman gods Dis Pater and Orcus, with Hades, and merged all these figures into Pluto, a Latinisation of Plouton (), itself a euphemistic title (meaning "the rich one") often given to Hades.
Name
The origin of Hades's name is uncertain but has generally been seen as meaning "the unseen one" since antiquity. An extensive section of Plato's dialogue Cratylus is devoted to the etymology of the god's name, in which Socrates is arguing for a folk etymology not from "unseen" but from "his knowledge (eidenai) of all noble things". Modern linguists have proposed the Proto-Greek form *Awides ("unseen").According to Dixon-Kennedy, p. 143 (following Kerényi 1951, p. 230) says "...his name means 'the unseen', a direct contrast to his brother Zeus, who was originally seen to represent the brightness of day". Ivanov, p. 284, citing Beekes 1998, pp. 17–19, notes that derivation of Hades from a proposed *som wid- is semantically untenable; see also Beekes 2009, p. 34. The earliest attested form is Aḯdēs (), which lacks the proposed digamma. Martin Litchfield West argues instead for an original meaning of "the one who presides over meeting up" from the universality of death.West, M. L., Indo-European Poetry and Myth, OUP, 2007, p. 394.
In Homeric and Ionic Greek, he was known as Áïdēs.Bailly, s.v. Ἅιδης. Other poetic variations of the name include Aïdōneús () and the inflected forms Áïdos (, gen.), Áïdi (, dat.), and Áïda (, acc.), whose reconstructed nominative case *Áïs () is, however, not attested.Bailly, s.v. *Ἄϊς. The name as it came to be known in classical times was Háidēs (). Later the iota became silent, then a subscript marking (), and finally omitted entirely ().See Ancient Greek phonology and modern Greek.
Perhaps from fear of pronouncing his name, around the 5th century BC, the Greeks started referring to Hades as Plouton ( Ploútōn, ), with a root meaning "wealthy", considering that from the abode below (i.e., the soil) come riches (e.g., fertile crops, metals and so on).Bailly, s.v. Πλούτων. Plouton became the Roman god who both rules the underworld and distributed riches from below. This deity was a mixture of the Greek god Hades and the Eleusinian icon Ploutos, and from this he also received a priestess, which was not previously practiced in Greece. More elaborate names of the same genre were Ploutodótēs (, ) or Ploutodotḗr (, ), meaning "giver of wealth".Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, 806, note. Translated by Smyth, Herbert Weir (1922) in Loeb Classical Library, Volume 145.
Epithets of Hades include Agesander (, ) and Agesilaos (, ), both from ágō (, "lead", "carry" or "fetch") and anḗr (, "man") or laos (, "men" or "people"), describing Hades as the god who carries away all.Callimachus, Hymn. in Pallad. 130, with Friedrich Spanheim's note; Hesychius of Alexandria s.v.; Aeschyl. ap. Athen. iii. p. 99 Nicander uses the form Hegesilaus (, ).Nicander, ap. Athen. xv. p. 684
He was also referred to as Zeus katachthonios (Ζεὺς καταχθόνιος, ),"Ζεύς" in: An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon by Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott. meaning "the Zeus of the underworld", by those avoiding his actual name, as he had complete control over the underworld.
Mythology Early years
In Greek mythology, Hades, the god of the Greek underworld, was the first-born son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. He had three older sisters, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera, as well as a younger brother, Poseidon, all of whom had been swallowed whole by their father as soon as they were born. Zeus was the youngest child and through the machinations of their mother, Rhea, he was the only one that had escaped this fate. Upon reaching adulthood, Zeus managed to force his father to disgorge his siblings. After their release, the six younger gods, along with allies they managed to gather, challenged the elder gods for power in the Titanomachy, a divine war. Armed with the helm of invisibility forged for him by the Cyclopes, Hades with his siblings and other divine allies defeated the Titans and became rulers in their place. The war lasted for ten years and ended with the victory of the younger gods. Following their victory, according to a single famous passage in the Iliad (Book XV, ln.187–93), Hades and his two brothers, Poseidon and Zeus, drew lotsWalter Burkert, in The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age, 1992, (pp 90ff) compares this single reference with the Mesopotamian Atra-Hasis: "the basic structure of both texts is astonishingly similar." The drawing of lots is not the usual account; Hesiod (Theogony, 883) declares that Zeus overthrew his father and was acclaimed king by the other gods. "There is hardly another passage in Homer which comes so close to being a translation of an Akkadian epic," Burkert concludes (p. 91). for realms to rule. Zeus received the sky, Poseidon received the seas, and Hades received the underworld,Poseidon speaks: "For when we threw the lots I received the grey sea as my abode, Hades drew the murky darkness, Zeus, however, drew the wide sky of brightness and clouds; the earth is common to all, and spacious Olympus." Iliad 15.187 the unseen realm to which the souls of the dead go upon leaving the world as well as any and all things beneath the earth.
Hades obtained his wife and queen, Persephone, through abduction at the behest of Zeus. This myth is the most important one Hades takes part in;Grant and Hazel, p. 236. it also connected the Eleusinian Mysteries with the Olympian pantheon, particularly as represented in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, which is the oldest story of the abduction, most likely dating back to the beginning of the 6th century BC. Helios told the grieving Demeter that Hades was not an unworthy groom or son-in-law given his status among the gods, as her own brother and king on his own right:
King of the underworld
Despite connotations of death as evil, Hades was more altruistically inclined in Platonic philosophy. Hades was portrayed as passive and seldomGreek Anthology 7.13, by Leonidas of Tarentum or Meleager of Gadara:
'As Erinna, the maiden honey-bee [worshipper], the new singer in the poets’ quire, was gathering the flowers of the Muses, Hades carried her off to wed her. That was a true word, indeed, the girl spoke when she lived: "Hades, thou art an envious god."' portrayed negatively; his role was often maintaining relative balance. That said, he was also depicted as ruthless, hateful, and stern, and he held all of his subjects equally accountable to his laws. He was the key-holding jailor, the souls of the dead were his prisoners.Grant and Hazel, p. 235. Any other individual aspects of his personality are not given, as Greeks refrained from giving him much thought to avoid attracting his attention.Tripp, p. 257.
Hades ruled the dead, assisted by others over whom he had complete authority. The House of Hades was described as full of "guests", though he rarely left the underworld.Gayley, p. 47. He cared little about what happened in the world above, as his primary attention was ensuring none of his subjects ever left his domain.
He strictly forbade his subjects to leave his domain and would become quite enraged when anyone tried to leave, or if someone tried to steal the souls from his realm. His wrath was equally terrible for anyone who tried to cheat death or otherwise crossed him, as Sisyphus and Pirithous found out to their sorrow. While usually indifferent to his subjects, Hades was very focused on the punishment of these two people; particularly Pirithous, as he entered the underworld in an attempt to steal Persephone for himself, and consequently was forced onto the "Chair of Forgetfulness". Another myth is about the Greek god Asclepius, who was originally a demigod, son of Apollo and Coronis, a Thessalian princess. During his lifetime, he became a famous and talented physician, who eventually was able to bring the dead back to life. Feeling cheated, Hades persuaded Zeus to kill him with a thunderbolt. After his death, Asclepius was brought to Olympus where he became a god.Gayley, p. 104. Hades was only depicted outside of the underworld once in myth, and even that is believed to have been an instance where he had just left the gates of the underworld, which was when Heracles shot him with an arrow as Hades was attempting to defend the city of Pylos.Tripp, p. 256. After he was shot, however, he traveled to Olympus to heal. Besides Heracles, the only other living people, who ventured to the underworld, were also heroes: Odysseus, Aeneas (accompanied by the Sibyl), Theseus with Pirithous, Psyche (in a late romance), and Orpheus, to whom Hades showed uncharacteristic mercy at Persephone's urging, who was moved by Orpheus's music.Gayley, pp. 165–166. None of them were pleased with what they witnessed in the realm of the dead. In particular, the Greek war hero Achilles, whom Odysseus conjured with a blood libation, said:
Abduction of Persephone
The consort of Hades was Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter.Guirand, p. 190. Persephone did not submit to Hades willingly, but was abducted by him while picking flowers in the fields of Nysa (her father, Zeus, had previously given Persephone to Hades, to be his wife, as is stated in the first lines of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter). In protest of his act, Demeter cast a curse on the land and there was a great famine; though, one by one, the gods came to request she lift it, lest mankind perish and cause the gods to be deprived of their receiving gifts and sacrifices, Demeter asserted that the earth would remain barren until she saw her daughter again. Zeus then sends for his son, Hermes, and instructs him to go down to the underworld in hopes that he may be able to convince Hades to allow Persephone to return to Earth, so that Demeter might see Persephone and cause the famine to stop. Hermes obeys and goes down to Hades's realm, wherein he finds Hades seated upon a couch, Persephone seated next to him. Hermes relays Zeus's message, and Hades complies, saying,
Afterwards, Hades readies his chariot, but not before he secretly gives Persephone a pomegranate seed to eat; Hermes takes the reins, and he and Persephone make their way to the Earth above, coming to a halt in front of Demeter's temple at Eleusis, where the goddess has been waiting. Demeter and Persephone run towards each other and embrace one another, happy that they are reunited. Demeter, however, suspects that Persephone may have eaten food while down in the underworld, and so she questions Persephone, saying:
Persephone does admit that she ate the food of the dead, as she tells Demeter that Hades gave her a pomegranate seed and forced her to eat it. Persephone's eating the pomegranate seed binds her to Hades and the underworld, much to the dismay of Demeter. Zeus, however, had previously proposed a compromise, to which all parties had agreed: of the year, Persephone would spend one third with her husband.Guirand, p. 175.
It is during this time, when Persephone is down in the underworld with her husband, that winter falls upon the earth, "an aspect of sadness and mourning."Guirand, p. 176.