Hades
Hades is the brother of Zeus and Poseidon, ruling the realm of the dead after the three drew lots for the sky, sea, and underworld once the Titans were defeated. Though feared, he is not an evil figure in Greek tradition - he is a stern but scrupulously fair ruler who keeps the dead where they belong and rarely leaves his own realm.
Hades, Olympian ruler of the underworld
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Core Myth
Hades was a son of Kronos and Rhea, swallowed at birth along with his siblings and later freed when Zeus forced Kronos to disgorge them. After the Titanomachy, Homer has Poseidon describe how the three brothers divided the world by drawing lots: Zeus received the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the underworld, with the earth and Olympos held in common. Hades ruled the realm of the dead from his dark palace beyond the river Styx, aided by his three-headed guard dog Cerberus, who let shades in but none out. His most famous myth is the abduction of Persephone, daughter of Demeter, whom he carried down to the underworld to be his queen with Zeus's tacit consent; the Homeric Hymn to Demeter tells this story from Demeter's side, as a mother's search rather than Hades's own adventure. Though feared by mortals, Hades was not considered evil in the way later religious traditions would frame a lord of the dead - he was an impartial ruler who enforced the boundary between the living and the dead rather than punishing the dead himself, a task left to judges like Minos. Few heroes dared enter his realm and return, though Heracles, Orpheus, and Odysseus each made the journey and came back alive.
How did Hades become ruler of the underworld?
After Zeus and his siblings defeated the Titans, Poseidon explains in the Iliad, the three brothers divided the world by drawing lots: Zeus won the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the underworld, while the earth and Olympos stayed common ground to all three. Hades did not choose the underworld out of any particular wish for it; it was simply what the lot gave him.
Homer, Iliad 15.187-193
Is Hades an evil god in Greek mythology?
No, not in the way the name later came to suggest in other traditions. Greek sources present him as stern and largely unmoved by pleading, but fundamentally fair: he enforces the rule that the dead stay dead and does not single anyone out for extra punishment, which is instead handled by underworld judges like Minos. His grimness is a function of his office, not a moral flaw.
Homer, Iliad 9.158-159
Why did Hades abduct Persephone?
The Homeric Hymn to Demeter tells the story from her mother's side: Hades desired Persephone and asked Zeus for her, and Zeus agreed without telling Demeter, letting Hades seize the girl while she gathered flowers in a meadow. Demeter's grief and search, not Hades's reasoning, is the center of the hymn's own account.
Homeric Hymn to Demeter 1-20
Did anyone ever escape from the underworld once Hades held them?
A small number of mortals entered and returned, though almost never with what they came for. Orpheus persuaded Hades and Persephone to release his wife Eurydice on condition he not look back at her before reaching the surface, and lost her when he broke the condition. Heracles retrieved Cerberus and Odysseus consulted the dead and left again, but neither took anyone back from the realm of the dead itself.
Virgil, Georgics 4.453-527
Why is Hades sometimes called Plouton or Pluto instead?
Plouton, "the wealthy one," was a common euphemism avoiding the god's own grimmer name, tying him to the material riches - precious metals and buried seed-grain alike - that come from beneath the earth rather than to death directly. This is the form of the name that passed into Roman religion and then into English as Pluto, and it eventually influenced a further blurring with Plutus, a separate and minor god of wealth.
Homer, Iliad 9.569
Later Traditions
In later tradition, Hades was increasingly called Plouton, "the wealthy one," a euphemism reflecting his dominion over the earth's buried mineral riches and its buried seed-grain alike, and this is the form of his name that survives directly into English as Pluto. In Roman religion, he was identified with the native god Dis Pater as well as with the borrowed Greek name Pluto, and Roman writers extended his wealth-association further by linking him to Plutus, the minor god of material riches, sometimes blurring the two figures together.
Lineage
See the full family tree7 recorded relations, each with the ancient line behind it.
Parents
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Kronos swallowed each child at birth; Zeus alone escaped and later forced the others back up.
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Also Connected
4 recorded connections, each with the ancient line behind it.
Connected
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Charon calls Hades "our monarch" while recalling that Heracles once dragged Cerberus, the guardian of hell's gate, from his throne in chains.
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Dione cites Hades's wounding by Heracles as precedent while comforting the wounded Aphrodite.
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Homer's Odyssey uses "Erebus" as another name for the shadowy region beneath the earth where the dead go, overlapping with the domain Hesiod elsewhere assigns to Hades.
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Theocritus's Idylls calls her "Hecate of the earth," feared even by dogs when she approaches among the dead, tying her firmly to the same chthonic realm Hades rules.
Where Accounts Differ
- whether Hades counts as one of the twelve Olympians
- Hades is sometimes excluded from the twelve Olympians since he resides in the underworld rather than on Mount Olympus, an exclusion the ancient sources themselves do not treat as settled - some lists include him, some substitute Hestia or Dionysus for the twelfth seat instead.
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Mythology
Appears In
Equivalent Figures
Related Terms
Referenced By
Sources
- Homeric Hymn to Demeter 1-20
- Homer, Iliad 15.187-193
- Homer, Odyssey 11.20-50
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)