Called plouton, giver of wealth,
the wealth found below. Called Hades,
not only for invisbility, am I named, but for my wisdom,
my knowing all noble things. Souls go before me, without their covering,
No soul returns from my kingdom. The road to hades, is the easiest to travel,
the decent is the same from every place. No man takes with him, to my realm, all his
exceeding wealth. I am King of the dead.
Hades, is my name.
Hades is the ancient greek god of the dead and the underworld, a place where human souls
go after death, and is identified with the name, Pluto, by the romans. He was the ruler
of the ivisible world, the unseen one, the infernal zeus. The host of many, the attractor
of men, the grisly god. He was also called the God of Wealth or “the rich one”, because
he possessed the precious metals of the earth.
Hades was the oldest male child of the titans, CRONUS and Rhea.
After being rescued by Zeus from the belly of their father, Cronus, Hades joined him
in the war against the Titans. The Olympians defeated their father and his TITAN
brethren to end their reign, thereby claiming rulership over the universe.
Zeus ruled over the skies, Hades, the underworld, and Poseidon, the seas.
Hades is depicted as a stern and unyielding god, grim and ghastly, unmoved by prayer and
sacrifice.
He often wears a helmet, known as the Helm of Darkness or the Cap of Invisibility, which
grants invisibility to it wearer. Thus, this is why he is called the unseen one.
In his kingdom, Hades sits on a throne made of ebony, and carries a scepter or more sometimes,
the bident, which is a two-pronged fork, modeled after Poseidon’s trident. He was unintrigued
by human affairs and almost never left his kingdom, except on rare occasions, such as
when he traveled to mortal world to abduct Persephone, the daughter of godees, Demeter,
whom he had fallen in love with. The narcissus, the promegranate, and the cypress are some
of his sacred symbols.
The realm of Hades, lies between secret places of the earth, and to get there, one must cross
the oceans. The deceased entered underworld with the help
of Charon, the ferryman of Hades, whose duty was to carry dead souls across the r Acheron
and Styx rivers, that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead.
The underworld had five magical rivers, each with a symbolic meaning. The Phlegethon river
(represented fire), the Lethe river (represented oblivion), the Acheron river(represented sorrow,
or grief), the Cocytus river (represented lamentation), and lastly, the Styx river (represnted
hate), and is the principal river in the underworld, which formed the boundary between the upper
and lower worlds. The Greek gods swore upon the river Styx. So sacred was their oath,
that if any god was guilty of breaking this oath, he was deprived of nectar and ambrosia,
the divine drink and food of the gods.
Hades charged the fearsome three-headed dog, Cerberus, with guarding the entrance to the
Underworld, and the beast is usually beside him.
In addition, he was served by the Furies, whom he gave the responsibility of torturing
the guilty souls for eternity.