MYTHOLOGY

Hades (Greek)

King of the underworld and the dead, and god of regret. His consort is Persephone. His attributes are the drinking horn or cornucopia, key, sceptre, and the three-headed dog Cerberus. The screech owl was sacred to him. He was one of three sons of Cronus and Rhea, and thus sovereign over one of the three realms of the universe, the underworld. As a chthonic god, however, his place among the Olympians is ambiguous. In the mystery religions and Athenian literature, Pluto (Plouton, "the Rich") was his preferred name, with Hades more common for the underworld as a place. The Romans translated Plouton as Dis Pater ("the Rich Father") or Pluto.

Abode The Underworld

Symbol Cerberus, Drinking horn, scepter, Cypress, Narcissus, key

Consort Persephone

Parents Cronus and Rhea

Siblings Poisedon, Demeter, Hestia, Hera, Zeus, Chiron

Children Macaria, Melinoe and Zagreus

Roman equivalent Dis Pater, Orcus

Hades (/ˈheɪdiːz/; from Ancient Greek Ἅιδης/ᾍδης) was the ancient Greek god of the underworld. Eventually, the god's name came to designate the abode of the dead. In Greek mythology, Hades is the oldest male child of Cronus and Rhea considering the order of birth from the mother, or the youngest, considering the regurgitation by the father. The latter view is attested in Poseidon's speech in the Iliad.[1] According to myth, he and his brothers Zeus and Poseidon defeated the Titans and claimed rulership over the cosmos, ruling the underworld, air, and sea, respectively; the solid earth, long the province of Gaia, was available to all three concurrently.

Later, the Greeks started referring to the god as Plouton (see below), which the Romans Latinized as Pluto.[2] The Romans would associate Hades/Pluto with their own chthonic gods, Dis Pater and Orcus. The corresponding Etruscan god was Aita. He is often pictured with the three-headed dog Cerberus. In the later mythological tradition, though not in antiquity, he is associated with the Helm of Darkness and the bident.

The term "Hades" in Christian theology (and in New Testament Greek) is parallel to Hebrew sheol (שאול, "grave, dirt-pit"), and refers to the abode of the dead. The Christian concept of hell is more akin to and communicated by the Greek concept of Tartarus, a deep, gloomy part of Hades used as a dungeon of torment and suffering.

GOD OF THE UNDER WORLD

In Greek mythology, Hades the god of the underworld, was a son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. He had three sisters, Demeter, Hestia, and Hera, as well as two brothers, Zeus, the youngest of the three, and Poseidon, collectively comprising the original six Olympian gods. 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. 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 (xv.187-93), Hades and his two brothers, Poseidon and Zeus, drew lots[16] for realms to rule. Zeus got the sky, Poseidon got the seas, and Hades received the underworld,[17] 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 trickery and violent abduction. The myth, particularly as represented in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, connected the Eleusinian Mysteries with the Olympian pantheon. Helios told the grieving Demeter that Hades was not unworthy as a consort for Persephone: