Hello and welcome back to a new chapter of Greek mythology 101. Today we will learn about the god of the underworld, Hades. You will probably recognize him from Disney’s Hercules, and you’ll probably know about his dog with three heads known as Cerburus. I hope you will enjoy this chapter!

Hades is a brother of Zeus and a child of Cronus. That means he was also swallowed by his father at birth. As we learned in the first and fourth article, Zeus is the king of gods and rules over the sky with his lightning, and Poseidon rules over the sea, so it would make sense that Hades rules over the underworld and the dead. 

The next thing you need to know about Hades is his relationship with Persphone, the goddess of agriculture and spring. Persephone became the queen and wife of Hades when Zeus and Hades abducted her. Hades then gave her three pomegranate seeds which bond her to the underworld for six months each year, which is how the ancient Greeks explained winter.

The underworld is the domain Hades rules. When someone dies their soul will come out of their body and will be collected by Hermes to be dropped off at the underworld, but if you don’t have a proper burial your soul will roam the earth forever. The underworld is separated by rivers, the main rivers are the Styx river the entrance, the Acheron river the river of misery, the Pyriphlegethon river the river of fire that is connected with punishment, the Cocytus river of wailing, and the Lethe river the river of forgetfulness. 

The underworld has four main areas. The first one we will be talking about is the field of Asphodel which is where souls who have done nothing great or evil will go. The Elysian fields are where the souls of blessed and honored people go.  While the Elysium is where heroes, good mortals, and demigods go after they’ve had a hero’s life. The last place in the underworld is what most people have heard of, it is Tartarus. Tartarus is the place where the Titans were cast to and where the worst and evilest people get cast to. It is also guarded by Cerberus, three headed watchdog who has snakes for tails. 

Hades was not in many battles, only in the fight against the titans.  Hades was feared by a lot of people, but was he actually that bad? Well, because he was the god of death, Hades most people were scared, but at some point in time there were cults forming for Hades. They would sacrifice black animals like black sheep and serpent plus others to try and not see death.

This chapter is probably shorter than all of the other ones, but that’s because Hades stayed in his realm for most of the battles in mythology so there aren’t that many stories about him. I still hope you enjoyed this chapter of Greek mythology 101 and look forward to the next!