- Greek:
- Aïdes (“the Unseen”)
- Also called:
- Pluto or Pluton (“the Wealthy One” or “the Giver of Wealth”)
Hades
What is Hades the god of?
How many wives did Hades have?
Is Hades evil or misunderstood?
Hades, in ancient Greek religion, god of the underworld. Although frequently associated with the 12 Olympians in the Greek pantheon, Hades did not reside on Mount Olympus. Instead, he lived a shadowy and largely solitary life in the underworld, which became synonymous with him. Hades is distinct from Thanatos, the personification of death.
Family and rise to power
Hades was the eldest son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea and brother of the deities Zeus, Poseidon, Demeter, Hera, and Hestia. He was swallowed at birth by his father, who had been warned that he would be overthrown by one of his children. Poseidon, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera met the same fate. However, Rhea hid the infant Zeus and tricked Cronus into swallowing a stone instead. Zeus was eventually instrumental in liberating his siblings and, along with Hades and Poseidon, deposed Cronus. The brothers were equipped with weapons made by the Cyclopes: Hades received a helmet or cap that granted invisibility, Zeus the thunderbolt, and Poseidon the trident.
After Cronus was overthrown by his sons, his kingdom was divided among them, and the underworld fell by lot to Hades. There he ruled with his queen, Persephone, over the infernal powers and over the dead in what was often called “the house of Hades,” or simply Hades. He was aided by the many-headed dog Cerberus. Though Hades supervised the trial and punishment of the wicked after death, he was not normally one of the judges in the underworld, nor did he personally torture the guilty, a task assigned to the Furies (Erinyes).
" height="20" alt="HEW Logo">
In mythology
Hades and Persephone
The myth of Persephone’s abduction by Hades served to explain seasonal change. On a rare visit aboveground, Hades fell in love with the beautiful Persephone, daughter of Demeter. When Persephone was picking flowers with her companions, Hades enticed her away by causing a singularly lovely flower to bloom. He appeared in his chariot from belowground as she was about to pluck the flower and spirited her away. Bereft, Demeter neglected her duties as the deity of agriculture and caused a famine.
Hades was eventually identified as Persephone’s captor by the goddess Hecate and either Hyperion, the Titan god of light, or Helios, the all-seeing sun god. As the earth grew increasingly barren and Demeter remained resolutely absent despite the entreaties of the other gods, Zeus sent Hermes to the underworld to secure Persephone’s release. Hades agreed to return Persephone on the condition that she had not eaten any food during her captivity. Persephone was discovered to have eaten (or been tricked by Hades into eating) one or more pomegranate seeds, depending on the account, and was required to spend part of the year in the underworld. In the Greek mythologizing of the seasons, winter was interpreted as the duration of Persephone’s return to Hades, while spring and summer months denoted the time she spent with Demeter.
Other myths
In the story of Orpheus’s descent into the underworld to retrieve his bride, Eurydice, Hades was so entranced by Orpheus’s music that he allowed Eurydice to leave on the condition that the couple not look back during the journey from the underworld. He famously did look back, and Eurydice disappeared. Hades appeared briefly in the 12th and final labor of the hero Heracles, whose task was to fetch Cerberus from the underworld. Hades allowed Heracles to take Cerberus. While in the underworld, Heracles met and freed the hero Theseus, who, along with his friend Pirithous, had been imprisoned by Hades for attempting to abduct Persephone. In the myth of Perseus’s slaying of Medusa, Hades’ helmet of invisibility helped Perseus escape pursuit by the dead Medusa’s enraged Gorgon sisters, Stheno and Euryale.
Attributes and representation
Hades was depicted as stern and pitiless, unmoved by prayer or sacrifice (like death itself). Forbidding and aloof, he never quite emerged as a distinct personality from the shadowy darkness of his realm, not even in the myth of his abduction of Persephone.
The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.
SUBSCRIBE
Those dark and unknowable aspects were complemented by an opposite and beneficial aspect. The god of the underworld was usually worshipped under a euphemistic epithet such as Clymenus (“the Renowned”) or Eubouleus (“Good Counsellor”). He was often called Zeus with the addition of a special title (e.g., chthonios, “chthonian Zeus”). His title Pluto or Pluton (“Wealth”) may have originated through Hades’ partial amalgamation with a god of the earth’s fertility or because he gathered all living things into his treasury at death.
Hades appeared in ancient Greek art, in which representations of gods and mythological narratives reflect the religious beliefs and storytelling traditions of the time. Scenes involving Hades, Persephone, and the underworld gave visual form to beliefs about the gods and the realm of the dead.
In the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the word Hades is used for Sheol, denoting a dark region of the dead. Tartarus, originally denoting an abyss far below Hades and the place of punishment in the lower world, later lost its distinctness and became almost a synonym for Hades.