15: Hades

Question 1

Meaning of Hades’ name and who is the queen and king of underworld

Answer 1

• Hades is the king of the underworld and Persephone (L. Proserpina) is the queen of the underworld
• Hades (G.): “unseen” or “invinsible”. Also refers to his realm “The House of Hades”
• Also known as Pluto (G.): “Wealth”, “The Enricher”
• Roman name:
  –> Dis or Dives (L.) = “wealth”
  –> Orcus = “The Place that Confines”

Question 2

Epithets of Hades

Answer 2

• Zeus Katachthonius: “Underground Zeus”
• Polyxenos: “Host to Many”
• Polydegmon: “Receiver of Many”

Question 3

Greek View of Death

Answer 3

Psyche separated from Soma
* Psyche: originally “breath” and later “soul”. Cf. Hermes Psychopompus. L. Anima = “soul”, “spirit”. G. Anemos = “wind” = “to give up the ghost”
* Soma = body: L. Corpus (corpse)

Question 4

Homer’s Odyssey, Book II

Answer 4

• aka Nekuia, “Book of the Dead”, “Summoning of Corpses/Ghosts”
• where Hades is first mentioned
• Katabasis means descent into underworld
• Odysseus’ (Ulysses) Katabasis:
  –> farthest reaches of Oceanus: boundary between living and dead
  –> Summoning of Spirits: spirits require liquids for strength and shades arise from Erebus (darkness), which is another name for Hades

Question 5

Stories of Odysseus’ Katabasis (5)

Answer 5

• As soon as Odysseus cuts the animals’ necks to get to underworld, ghosts appear (these are how he encounters them)
  1. Odysseus and Elpenor: Elpenor was the youngest comrade of Odysseus. He got drunk, went on a roof, slipped, and cracked his neck. When Odysseus visits the underworld Elpenor says to him “do not abandon me “unwept and unburied”
  2. Odysseus and Tiresias: Tiresias alone of dead possesses wits. Needs to drink the scarificed animal blood to prohesy Oydsseus’ destiny of going back home.
  3. Odysseus and Anticleia (mother) who died while away on their journey. He tries 3 to embrance mother and fails
  4. Odysseus and Achilles: gloomy Greek view of the afterlife. Says better a slave on earth than King of the Dead. Cf. to Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost
  5. Odysseus and Ajax: Ajax had rescued corpse of Achilles. Odysseus awarded armour of Achilles, Ajax goes berserk and commits suicide

(ETAAA)

Question 6

Plato’s Myth of Er on morality

Answer 6

• From Republic, Book 10
• Mortal named Er dies in battle. The bodies of those who died in the battle are collected but he remains undecomposed. He revived on his funeral and tells others his journey in the afterlife. Includes the idea that moral people are rewarded and immoral people are punished after death –> Ex: Ardiaeus of Pamphylia, a tyrant who was eternally punished. 1000 year cycle

Question 7

Plato’s Myth of Er on souls

Answer 7

Metempsychosis
* The transmigration of souls where each soul chooses new life
* Necessity and the 3 fates: Lachesis tosses out lots where choice of life belongs to each soul
* Souls drink from river Lethe, the River of Oblivion

Question 8

Aeneas’ Katabasis

Answer 8

• In Vergil’s Aeneid, Book 6
• Greco-Roman myth, religion and philosophy
• Aeneas requires the golden bough (branch) to determine if the underworld is his fate
• The bough is sacred to Proserpina and Aeneas is accompanied by Cumaean Sibyl (priestess of Apollo)
• lake Avernus at Cumae is considered to be the opening to underworld

Question 9

Aeneas and Cumaean Sibyl

Answer 9

• First encounters personified abstractions: Grief, Cares, Old Age, etc.
• Next, monsters of all kinds: Scylla, Gorgons, etc.
• Arrival at River Acheron (“Sorrowful”), the Boundary of Dis’ (Hades) realm
• Charon: Ferryman of Dead who leads souls to underworld, leads them
  –> Later tradition: crosses River Styx (“Hateful”)
• The Sibyl convinces Charon to carry them across the river in exchange for the golden bough

Question 10

Tartarus

Answer 10

• place of punishment within undereworld
• analogue for hell
• surrounded by the river Phlegethon = “flaming” guarded by Tisiphone, one of the Furies/Erinyes. Tisiphone = punisher
• Rhadamanthus, Minos and Aeacus: judge of sinners in Tartarus

Question 11

Who are the great sinners and what did they do

Answer 11

1. Titys: tried to rape Leto. Got eternal punishment to be bound and liver eaten by vultures
2. Tantalus: tried to test the gods and killed and cooked his own son. Eternal punishment to be hungry and thirsty. Name meaning “tantalized” (tease someone)