Hades and the Underworld Flashcards
Who is Hades? What is he the god of?
-“The Wealthy One” / Hades = “Unseen One” / Roman name: Pluto (god of the fertility of the earth & “wealth” of the dead)
-Ruler of the realm of the dead
-Married to Persephone
-Weapon: Helm of Darkness
Hades (the place; also Tartarus or Erebus)
-Located beyond the western sea and/or under the earth
-Tartarus/Erebus: place for the Damned, Titans, and truly awful mortals
-Elysium: place of Paradise for heroes and people judged well; island of the Blessed, paradise on earth; ruled over by Cronus
-Rivers: Styx (river of hate), Acheron (of woe), Lethe (of forgetfulness), Cocytus (of wailing), Phlegethon (of fire)
Charon, the ferryman
-Looks like a groff, often angry
-Does not really like people
-Those who are not buried properly cannot get into his boat
-People were buried with coins as a bribe to Charon, to get across the river Styx
Cerberus, watchdog
-Eurystheus: taskmaster
-Three headed, has snakes around his head
-Born from Echidna and Typhon: same litter as Scylla
Visitors
-Hercules
-Theseus
-Orpheus
-Aeneas
-Odysseus
-Er
-Hermes psychopompos: leads ghosts into the Underworld
Tartarus
-Meaning of “deep place”
-A prison for the Titans
-A place of punishment for a few mortals
-Tityus: tried to rape Leto // stretched over 9 acres of land and has his liver eaten every day
-Tantalus (tantalizing): held a banquet for the gods and tried to feed them his son // in a pool of water; if he wants to eat, the food recedes; if he wants to drink, the water recedes
-Sisyphus: greedy king of Corinth who tried to trick Persephone into sending him back to earth because he was not given a proper burial // has to roll a stone up a mountain only for it to fall down again
-Ixion: tried to rape Hera; tricked by Zeus and “impregnates” a cloud that looks like her // constantly rolled around in or like a wheel
–>His son Centaurus mates with horses, creating Centaurs
Underworld and Afterlife
-Sources: Homer’s Odyssey 11; Plato’s The Republic; Vergil’s The Aeneid
-Rulers: Hades and Persephone
-Judges: Minos and Rhadamanthys
Book 11 (The Odyssey): The Underworld
-Alt. name: Nekuia (“book of the dead”)
-Land of the Dead is west beyond the Ocean
-Ritual to enter the Underworld
-Create a pit and a pour a mixture of honey, milk, sweet wine, water, white barley
-Sacrifices: a barren heifer, sacrificial pyre, and a jet-black sheep
-Who/what Odysseus sees
-Shades without voice or memory
-Elepenor, a comrade who was not buried properly
-Tiresias
-Anticlea (his mom): her report of the Underworld
-Achilles: humanistic passage / asks about his son Neoptolemus
-The Greek heroes who dies at Troy
-Sights: Minos, the Damned
Vergil’s Aeneid
-Aeneas’ descent to the Underworld
-Rewards and punishment for justice and injustice
-The evil that the dead suffer in Tartarus
-The good rejoice in the Elysian Fields
-Souls of those yet to be born await their time
Vergil’s Aeneid
-Aeneas’ descent to the Underworld
-Rewards and punishment for justice and injustice
-The evil that the dead suffer in Tartarus
-The good rejoice in the Elysian Fields
-Souls of those yet to be born await their time
