Greek God of the Underworld, Hades
Greek God of the Underworld, Hades
Hades was the ruler of the underworld. Hades name means sightless or unseen. He was from the first generation of Olympian gods. His brother Zeus ruled the skies and his other brother Poseidon ruled the sea, which left Hades with the underworld. Hades ia always represented as a stern dark bearded man. He is always shown with tightly closed lips, a crown on his head, his scepter in one hand and a key in the other, the key was to show how closely he guarded those who entered his kingdom. No temples were dedicated to him, and statues of him are very rare.
Hades ruled the underworld alone until he fell in love with the goddess Persephone. Hades abducted Persephone and whisked her away in his chariot, then married her. His most famous trip to Earth was to kidnap his wife. He did not frequent Olympus and remained mostly in his underworld empire and therefore wasn’t considered a ruling dietie.
Hades’s symbol is a double pronged pitchfork which he used to shatter anything not to his liking. His other identifying possessions were the famed helmet which made him invisible, and his dark colored chariot drawn by 4 coal-black horses. Also the guard of the underworld gates was his giant three headed dog with a dragons tail (sometimes with snakes growing out of its back).His name was Cerberus.
Hades also controlled the 5 rivers in the underworld the river are: Acheron (river of sadness), Cocytus (river of lamentation), Lethe (river of forgetfulness), Phlegethon (river of fire), and the Styx river (river of hate).
Everyone was sent to Hades, the three judges decided who had a happy afterlife and who would suffer. Black sheep were sacrificed to Hades at this time. Those who offered the sheep could not look straight at Hades and the judges. They were made to turn their heads away. After the judges decided what your afterlife would be like, you would drink from the Lethe river and forget your past life. It became a Greek custom to bury a person with a coin in their mouth. The coin would be used to pay the ferryman, if you didn’t have a coin you would spend eternity wondering the shores . This is...