59 Fun Facts About Hades

Which all-seeing deity told Demeter that Hades had carried off her daughter?

Helios had watched it all from his chariot in the sky, and he told her to stop grieving: Hades was no unworthy son-in-law, being her own brother and lord of a third of the world.

Which two gods are Hades's brothers, with whom he divided the cosmos?

Zeus and Poseidon took the sky and the sea, but in the Iliad Poseidon bristles at an order from Zeus, insisting that the three are equals and that the earth still belongs to them all.

Persephone was doing what when Hades carried her off to be his queen?

Persephone was picking flowers in a meadow when Hades burst from the earth in his chariot and seized her, an abduction her father Zeus had sanctioned.

What is the name of the three-headed dog that guards the underworld?

Cerberus fawns on the dead as they arrive but devours any who try to leave; Hesiod, the first to describe him, gave him fifty heads before later writers settled on three.

Hades was a son of which couple, who ruled the gods before Zeus?

Cronus and Rhea ruled before the Olympians; Cronus had seized that throne by attacking his own father, Uranus, with a sickle that his mother Gaia made for the purpose.

What did Hades's father do to him and his siblings at birth?

Swallowed them whole: he feared a prophecy that his own child would overthrow him, but the youngest was hidden, a swaddled stone went down instead, and that son later forced him to disgorge the rest.

Which magical item did the Cyclopes forge for Hades to use in the war against his father's generation?

The Cyclopes forged Hades a helm of invisibility, the Cap of Hades; Athena wears it in the Iliad to hide from Ares, and Perseus borrows it against the Gorgons.

How did the three brothers decide who would rule sky, sea and underworld?

The story comes from a single famous passage in Book 15 of the Iliad.

What did Hades secretly give Persephone to eat, binding her to the underworld?

A pomegranate seed: a spirit of the underworld named Ascalaphus saw her eat it and told, and for informing on her he was turned into an owl.

In Greek myth, Persephone's time in the underworld explains what?

The changing seasons, as the myth is usually read: while Persephone is below, her grieving mother lets nothing grow; the Homeric Hymn keeps her there for a third of the year, Ovid for a full half.

Which dreaded goddesses of the underworld hounded those who killed their own kin?

The Furies were so dreaded that Greeks avoided their real name and called them the Eumenides, the 'gracious ones', instead; they hounded Orestes for killing his own mother.

Which god does Zeus send down to persuade Hades to release Persephone?

Hermes, the messenger god, is sent by Zeus in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter; he finds Hades with Persephone beside him and drives her back up in the chariot.

Which musician charmed Hades into freeing Eurydice, on condition he did not look back?

Orpheus played his lyre so movingly that Hades and Persephone let Eurydice follow him out, on condition he not look back before reaching daylight; he looked, and lost her.

Which king of Corinth was condemned in the underworld to roll a boulder uphill forever?

Sisyphus, in one telling, trapped Death himself so that nobody could die; in the underworld his boulder rolls back down each time he gets it near the top.

Which friend of Theseus went to the underworld to steal Persephone and was trapped there?

Pirithous, king of the Lapiths, wanted Persephone for his bride; once the two friends sat down in the underworld they could not get up again, and in Apollodorus's telling Heracles later pulled only Theseus free.

What did Greeks do when they prayed to Hades?

Beat the ground with their hands: in the Iliad, Meleager's mother kneels and pounds the earth as she calls on Hades and Persephone to bring death on her own son.

Before fetching the hound of Hades, Heracles was initiated into which town's mysteries?

Eleusis: Apollodorus says Heracles was purified for killing the centaurs and initiated into the mysteries at Eleusis before descending for the hound.

Hades is said to have complained to Zeus about which healer who kept raising the dead?

Asclepius, son of Apollo, grew so skilled that he revived the dead; in Diodorus's telling Hades protested that his realm was emptying, and Zeus struck the healer down with a thunderbolt.

Hades's nymph lover, a rival of Persephone, was turned into which plant?

Mint: the nymph Minthe became the mint plant; Ovid has Persephone transform her, while Oppian says Demeter trampled her for boasting she outshone Persephone.

Persephone and Aphrodite both wanted which beautiful youth, who had to divide his year between them?

Adonis, in Apollodorus's telling, was hidden in a chest as a baby and left with Persephone, who refused to give him back; Zeus split his year in three, and Adonis gave his own free third to Aphrodite.

Who ferries the dead across the river into Hades's realm in exchange for a coin?

Charon, the ferryman, rows the buried dead across the river; an obol was placed in the corpse's mouth to pay his fare.

By the water of which river did even the gods swear their oaths?

Styx: in Hesiod's Theogony the gods swear their binding oaths by its water, and a god who breaks one lies breathless for a year, then is shut out of their feasts for nine more.

Which underworld river's name means 'oblivion', its waters erasing memory?

Lethe, whose name means forgetfulness, wiped away memory of earthly life; in Aeneid Book VI souls drink its water before being reborn, while Orphic initiates sought the pool of Mnemosyne instead.

In Greek myth, the underworld river Phlegethon ran with what?

Fire: in the Aeneid its torrents of flame circle the fortress of the damned; Dante kept the river in his Inferno but turned it to boiling blood, a bath for the violent.

Whose shade refused to speak to Odysseus in the underworld, still bitter over losing the contest for Achilles's armour?

Ajax had killed himself after the dead Achilles's armour was awarded to Odysseus instead; when Odysseus begs his forgiveness among the dead, Ajax turns away without a word.

In the Odyssey, the souls of the dead dwell in which part of the underworld?

The Fields of Asphodel: in the Odyssey even Achilles's shade strides off across this meadow, after telling Odysseus he would rather be a poor man's hired hand than king of all the dead.

Which part of the underworld is reserved for the punishment of the impious and evil?

Tartarus is where Zeus locked away the enemies he beat in the war for heaven, behind a fence of bronze, as far below the earth as the sky is above it.

Which three kings became the judges of the dead in the underworld?

Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus were all sons of Zeus; in Plato's Gorgias he sends Rhadamanthus to judge the dead of Asia and Aeacus those of Europe, with Minos settling any doubtful case.

What was Hades's name generally understood to mean since antiquity?

The unseen one: Greeks heard a- (not) and idein (to see) in the name, though Plato's Socrates argues that it more probably comes from 'knowing' all noble things.

What does Plouton, the Greek euphemism used for Hades, mean?

'The rich one': Plouton comes from ploutos, 'wealth', because crops and precious metals come from beneath the earth; the name avoided speaking the dreaded Hades aloud.

What colour of animal was sacrificed to Hades?

Black animals: chthonic gods received dark victims, and in Odyssey Book 11 Odysseus offers the dead a ram and a black ewe, turning his face away as the blood ran into the pit.

In Disney's Hercules, who sold her soul to Hades to save a boyfriend who then left her?

Megara, or Meg, traded her freedom to bring her boyfriend back, only for him to leave her for someone else; it is why she is still working for Hades when Hercules meets her.

In ancient art Hades sometimes holds which object, a sign that nobody leaves his realm?

A key: Pausanias saw Hades shown holding one at Olympia and was told the reason, that he keeps the underworld locked so that no one ever comes back.

Who was the actual Greek personification of death, distinct from Hades?

Thanatos was death personified and the twin brother of Hypnos, or Sleep; in the Iliad the twins carry the body of the slain Sarpedon home to Lycia for burial.

Which sculptor carved Hades seizing Persephone, his fingers sinking into her marble thigh?

Bernini carved it at about 23 for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who promptly gave it away to another cardinal; it only came back to the Borghese collection in 1908.

Which two Roman underworld gods were identified with the Greek Hades?

Dis Pater and Orcus were Roman names for the god of the dead, each identified with the Greek Hades; Orcus's name may live on in the fairy-tale word 'ogre'.

According to Hesiod, what did Hades do when the monster Typhon attacked the Olympians?

Trembled in fear below: Hesiod says the battle shook earth, sea and sky so hard that even the lord of the dead quaked; in later tellings Zeus pinned the beaten monster under Mount Etna.

In Virgil's Aeneid, what must Aeneas find and carry to be let into the underworld alive?

A golden bough: the Sibyl of Cumae sends him to find it in a dark wood as a gift for the queen of the dead, and it comes away in the hand only for someone fated to make the journey.

Which mortal was sent to the underworld to fetch a little of Persephone's beauty for the goddess Venus?

Psyche got her box of beauty but could not resist opening it on the way back; inside was only a deathly sleep, which felled her until Cupid came to wake her.

By what name did the Romans know Hades's queen?

Proserpina: in Ovid's Roman telling her abduction is Venus's doing, since the goddess has Cupid shoot the king of the dead with an arrow so that love will rule the underworld too.

By what other name, meaning 'the maiden', was Persephone worshipped?

Kore simply means 'girl' or 'maiden' in Greek, which is why art historians use the same word for the standing maiden statues of early Greek sculpture.

Whose shade turns away from Aeneas in silence in the underworld, having killed herself when he sailed away?

Dido, queen of Carthage, hears his tearful excuses with her eyes fixed on the ground, then slips away without a word to the shade of her first husband, Sychaeus.

Which studio developed the 2020 roguelike video game Hades?

Supergiant Games first built the game around Theseus and the Labyrinth, then switched heroes when the team decided that Hades's little-known son made a better lead.

In the video game Hades, the player controls which son of Hades trying to escape the underworld?

Zagreus seems to be a son of Hades in a surviving scrap of a lost Aeschylus play; later writers such as Nonnus made him the first Dionysus instead, the child of Zeus and Persephone.

The video game Hades was the first game to win which honour, in a special 2021 category?

A Hugo Award: the 2021 convention tried out a one-off Best Video Game prize, Hades won it, and a permanent Hugo category for games followed in 2024.

In the video game Hades, which goddess does the hero initially believe is his mother?

Nyx raised the prince as her own, and Hades forbade anyone in his house to speak the name of the boy's real mother, Persephone, who had left the underworld in grief.

Who voices the villainous Hades in Disney's Hercules (1997)?

James Woods plays him as a wisecracking schemer out to overthrow Zeus, a long way from the stern, unbending god of the myths.

In Disney's Hercules, what are the names of Hades's two bumbling minions?

Pain and Panic, Hades's shape-shifting imps, were sent to kill the infant Hercules; he keeps his strength because they fail to make him drink the last drop of the potion.

In Disney's Hercules, Hades plans to free which beings to conquer Olympus during a planetary alignment?

The Titans: the Fates warn Hades that the plan fails if Hercules fights, which is why he sends his imps to get rid of the baby, eighteen years before the planets align.

In the Odyssey, Odysseus sails to the land of the dead to consult the shade of which prophet?

Tiresias is the one he came for, but the first shade to reach him is Elpenor, a crewman left unburied on Circe's island, who begs him to go back and hold a funeral.

Ovid sets Hades's abduction of Persephone beside a lake near Enna, on which Italian island?

Sicily: Ovid puts the scene at a deep lake near Enna in the island's heart, and has her mother light two pine torches at Mount Etna to search for her through the night.

Which underworld sinner stands in a pool that drains away at every attempt to drink?

Tantalus stands chin-deep in water that drains away when he stoops, under fruit the wind whips out of reach; his torment gave English the word 'tantalise'.

Which dark evergreen, tied in antiquity to death and the underworld, still lines Mediterranean cemeteries?

Cypress: Ovid traces the tree to Cyparissus, a boy so crushed at killing his tame stag that he begged to mourn forever; as he became the tree, Apollo declared it would stand wherever others grieve.

In one telling, Hades let Heracles take the hound that guards his gates on what condition?

That he use no weapons: in Apollodorus's telling Heracles locked his arms round the hound's head until it yielded, hauled it up to show King Eurystheus, and then dutifully carried it back down again.

Which epithet of Hades, avoiding his real name, likens him to his brother as king of the underworld?

Zeus Katachthonios means 'Zeus beneath the earth': in Iliad Book 9 Phoenix says his father's curse on him was fulfilled by 'Zeus of the nether world and dread Persephone', a way of not speaking the god's real name.

In Virgil's Aeneid, who is the father whose shade Aeneas enters the underworld to meet?

Anchises, whom Aeneas had carried out of burning Troy, greets his son in tears; three times Aeneas tries to embrace him, and three times the shade slips through his arms like a breeze.

Which queen died in place of her husband Admetus and was won back from death in a play by Euripides?

Alcestis died for Admetus when even his parents refused; in the play a visiting hero ambushes Death at her tomb and wins her back, while another version has Persephone send her up again.

In the Homeric Hymn about her abduction, which goddess becomes Persephone's attendant after she returns?

Hecate hears Persephone's cries from her cave and, torch in hand, joins the mother's search; after the reunion she becomes Persephone's attendant and companion from then on.

Which sisters are said to pour water into a leaking jar forever in the underworld for killing their husbands?

The Danaids, daughters of Danaus, killed their bridegrooms on the wedding night on their father's orders; in the usual telling only Hypermnestra spared her husband, and later poets added the endless punishment.