Hey Everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video we’re going to be discussing
Tartarus. Tartarus was the great abyss, the bottomless chasm, the deep dark that existed
beneath Gaia. It was one of the primordial deities, which meant that it was both person
and place, simultaneously existing as a god and as the manifestation of one of the aspects
of creation.
As a place, Tartarus was usually featured in Greek mythology as the infernal plane of
the underworld, reserved for unforgivable sinners and dangerous enemies, such as the
Titans and the monster Typhon.
Tartarus was one of the five first-generation primordial deities, which meant that he - along
with Gaia, the personification of the earth, Eros, the personification of love and desire,
Erebus, the personification of darkness, and Nyx, the personification of night - was one
of five deities to emerge from Chaos, the great void that existed before all else.
According to Hesiod, earth existed equidistant between the heavens and Tartarus. He said
that an anvil dropped from the heavens would take nine days and nine nights to plummet
to earth, and that the same anvil would again take nine days and nine nights to plunge through
the darkness from Earth to the depths of Tartarus.
Hesiod also described the outer limits of Tartarus, which he said was fenced in bronze
and wrapped in darkness - triple wrapped, in fact, like a tripled-banded necklace.
Tartarus, as envisioned by the Roman poet Virgil, more so resembled the conceptualization
of hell the devil ruled over. Per his description, the gates of Tartarus were wrought of indestructible
adamant, and there was an iron tower that loomed over them, with the Fury Tisiphone
keeping watch. The gates existed at the bottom of a cliff that bristled with stone spikes.
Tartarus itself was enclosed by three walls, which were, in turn, surrounded by Phlegethon,
a river of fire, and the anguished cries of those tormented within pierced the ears of
those nearby.
Tartarus was one of three places the dead could be sent. There was Elysium, which was
a paradisiacal land reserved for those who had distinguished themselves, like heroes
and kings. Earlier on, Elysium was located at the edge of the earth and those who earned
a place there were transported to it by the gods. Later, though, mostly as a consequence
of Virgil’s depiction of the underworld in the Aeneid, Elysium, while its conceptualization
as a paradisiacal land remained intact, was relocated, becoming one of the planes of the
underworld, instead of a separate land. There was the Asphodel Meadows, which was where
those whose lives were defined by mediocrity - neither damning themselves with sin nor
immortalizing themselves with lofty deeds - were sent. And there was Tartarus, which
was where those wicked and wretched, those whose lives were stains on the great mosaic
of mortal existence, were condemned to.
In the underworld, There were three judges, each a son of Zeus, who determined where each
person was sent after they died. Aeacus was said to judge Westerners, Rhadamanthus, Easterners,
and Minos had the deciding vote.
The punishments dispensed in Tartarus were unique to each person and depended on what
sins a person was guilty of in the mortal world. Sisyphus was condemned to roll a boulder
up a hill, perpetually, as the boulder would always roll back down to the bottom upon reaching
the top. Ixion was bound to a flaming wheel and thereby condemned to spin in agony for
all eternity. Tantalus was cursed to stand in a pool next to a tree with low-hanging
fruit, but the branches would move out of arm’s reach each time he tried to grab and
pick one. Ocnus was sentenced to forever weave rope that was constantly eaten by a Donkey.
And king Phlegyas was set in rock, immobilized and entombed, and had a feast placed in front
of him; unable to eat, he continuously shouted not to despise the gods, cautioning others.
Because of his description, which was as the deepest and foulest place in all of creation,
Tartarus’ appearances in Greek mythology were sparse. Though he was also a god, he
almost exclusively featured as an infernal plane of existence in which the vile, amoral,
and sacrilegious individuals were sent. One of his most human moments was his union with
Gaia that produced Typhon, the most powerful monster in all of Greek mythology, a monster
with such terrifying appearance that it almost escapes description. A tangled mass of 100
serpent heads writhed from his shoulders. The sounds of every fearsome beast thundered
from him, and his eyes were pits filled with fire that blazed like open furnaces. By Echidna,
sometimes referred to by the moniker, mother of monsters, he sired many of the monsters
in Greek mythology. And Echidna, by Apollodorus’ account, is also a child of Tartarus, though
other versions of her parentage, such as Hesiod’s, have her as the daughter of Ceto, a sea goddess.
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