59 Fun Facts About Hades

In Greek mythology, Hades is the god of what?

Hades is the god of the dead and the underworld; his name became so synonymous with his realm that the Greeks used 'Hades' for the place as well as the god.

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

Zeus and Poseidon are Hades's brothers, the three sons of Cronus; Zeus took the sky, Poseidon the sea and Hades the underworld, with the earth common to 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, the hound of Hades, guards the gates of the underworld so the dead cannot leave; Hesiod makes him the offspring of Typhon and Echidna.

Hades was the eldest son of which Titan couple?

Hades's parents were the Titans Cronus and Rhea; in Hesiod's Theogony Rhea bears Cronus six children, and Hades is the elder of her sons.

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

Cronus swallowed them whole at birth, fearing a prophecy that a child would overthrow him; Rhea hid the infant Zeus and gave Cronus a swaddled stone instead.

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?

Hades gave Persephone a pomegranate seed to eat; in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, tasting food in the underworld bound her to return there every year.

Per the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, what fraction of the year is Persephone in the underworld?

One third: the Homeric Hymn to Demeter has Zeus rule that Persephone spend a third of each year below with Hades and two thirds with her mother.

Persephone's mother, who cursed the land with famine after the abduction, is which goddess?

Demeter, goddess of grain, withheld the harvest and brought famine until Zeus arranged her daughter's return; she and Persephone were the central figures of Greece's most famous mystery cult.

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 mortal king was punished by rolling a boulder uphill forever after twice cheating death?

Sisyphus, king of Corinth, chained Death so that nobody could die until Ares freed him, then tricked his way back to life; his boulder rolls down forever.

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

Pirithous, king of the Lapiths, dragged Theseus along to carry off Persephone; Hades seated them on chairs they could not rise from, and only Theseus was later freed by Heracles.

Who was the only living hero to wound Hades, shooting him with an arrow at Pylos?

Heracles shot Hades with an arrow at Pylos, as Dione recalls in Iliad Book 5; the wounded god went up to Olympus to be healed by Paean, physician of the gods.

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.

Which demigod physician was killed by Zeus, at Hades's urging, for raising the dead?

Asclepius, son of Apollo, raised the dead; Diodorus says Hades complained to Zeus that his subjects were dwindling, and Zeus killed the healer with a thunderbolt.

Hades's nymph lover, trampled by a jealous Persephone, became 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.

Which nymph, a daughter of Oceanus loved by Hades, became the poplar of Elysium?

Leuce: Servius says Hades carried off the Oceanid Leuce and, when she died, made the white poplar grow in Elysium in her memory; Heracles wore its leaves on returning from the underworld.

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.

Which underworld river did even the gods swear their oaths upon?

Styx: in Hesiod's Theogony the gods swear their binding oaths by the water of Styx, and a god who breaks one lies breathless for a year. The name means 'hateful'.

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.

Which of the underworld's rivers is the river of fire?

Phlegethon, 'the flaming one', is the river of fire; in Aeneid Book VI it encircles Tartarus with torrents of flame, and Homer calls it Pyriphlegethon.

How many rivers run through the realm of Hades?

Each carries a symbolic meaning: sorrow, lamentation, fire, oblivion and hate.

In which region of the underworld do the shades of ordinary heroes wander, twittering like bats?

The Fields of Asphodel: in the Odyssey the shades of Achilles and of the slain suitors gather on the asphodel meadow, and only a libation of blood briefly restores their wits.

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

Tartarus is the pit where Zeus imprisoned the Titans and where sinners such as Tantalus suffer; Hesiod places it as far below the earth as heaven is above it.

Who are the three judges who sit in the forecourt of Hades's palace?

Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus: in Plato's Gorgias, Aeacus judges the dead from Europe and Rhadamanthus those from Asia, with Minos settling disputed cases, at a meadow where three roads meet.

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

'The unseen one': the Greeks explained the name as a- (not) plus idein (to see), an etymology Plato already discusses in the Cratylus around 400 BC.

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.

How many black horses drew Hades's chariot?

Four: Claudian's De Raptu Proserpinae names Hades's four black horses as Orphnaeus, Aethon, Nycteus and Alastor.

Which object, showing the underworld's gates stay locked, is one of Hades's attributes in art?

A key: Hades is depicted holding the key that keeps the gates of the underworld locked, since no one may leave; he also appears with a sceptre and a cornucopia.

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

Thanatos, son of Nyx and twin brother of Hypnos (Sleep), was death personified; in the Iliad the twins carry the body of Sarpedon home to Lycia.

Which philosopher declared that Hades and Dionysus were the same god?

Heraclitus of Ephesus, in fragment 15, says that Hades and Dionysus, for whom the Greeks sing the phallic hymn, are one and the same.

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

Dis Pater and Orcus: the Romans merged these two native underworld gods with the Greek Hades under his euphemistic name, and the Etruscan Aita was folded in too.

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

He trembled in fear below: Hesiod's Theogony (line 850) says that as Zeus fought Typhon, Hades trembled where he rules the dead, along with the Titans in Tartarus.

In Roman myth, the entrance to the underworld used by Aeneas was at Avernus, a crater near which city?

Cumae: in Aeneid Book VI Aeneas lands at Cumae, consults its Sibyl, and descends through the cave by Lake Avernus, a volcanic crater lake a few kilometres from the city.

Which two daughters of Orion sacrificed themselves to end a plague and became comets?

Menippe and Metioche: Antoninus Liberalis tells how Orion's daughters stabbed themselves with their loom shuttles to end a plague in Boeotia, and Hades and Persephone turned them into comets.

Persephone's Latin name, used by the Romans, is what?

Proserpina: the Romans took the name from Greek Persephone; Ovid tells her abduction in the Metamorphoses and Fasti, and she was also identified with the Italic goddess Libera.

By what other name, meaning 'the maiden', is Persephone known as a vegetation goddess?

Kore, 'the Maiden', was Persephone's cult title in the Mysteries, where mother and daughter were worshipped together as 'the Two Goddesses'.

In Hesiod's Theogony, the underworld's guard dog is described with how many heads?

Fifty: Hesiod's Theogony (line 312) calls the hound of Hades fifty-headed; Pindar gave him a hundred heads, and later writers settled on three.

Which studio developed the 2020 roguelike video game Hades?

Supergiant Games, the San Francisco studio behind Bastion and Transistor, developed Hades; it entered early access in December 2018 and launched fully in September 2020.

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

His name comes from a fragment of Aeschylus that makes Zagreus a son of Hades.

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

A Hugo Award: Hades won the one-off Best Video Game category at the 2021 Hugo Awards, the first video game ever to receive the science-fiction honour.

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

Nyx raised the prince as her own son; he later learns his true mother is Persephone, whom Hades hid away in the mortal world.

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

James Woods voiced Hades; his fast-talking, used-car-salesman take on the god was singled out by critics, and he reprised the role in the Kingdom Hearts games.

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 tell Hades that when the planets align in eighteen years he can free the Titans and conquer Olympus, unless Hercules fights against him.

In Odyssey Book 11, whose shade is the first to approach Odysseus at the blood pit?

Elpenor, Odysseus's youngest comrade, had fallen from Circe's roof and lay unburied; his shade comes first and begs for burial before Tiresias appears.

In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, on which plain was Persephone when Hades seized her?

Nysa: the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, composed around 600 BC, has Hades spring from the earth on the Nysian plain to seize Persephone; Ovid later moves the scene to Sicily.

Which underworld sinner stands in a pool that drains away whenever he stoops to drink?

Tantalus: in Odyssey Book 11 Odysseus sees him standing in a pool whose water vanishes when he bends to drink, with fruit-laden branches blown out of reach above him.

Which two plants were among Hades's ordinary attributes in art?

Narcissus and cypress: the narcissus was the flower that lured Persephone in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, and the cypress was the Greek tree of mourning planted at tombs.

By what name was Hades known in Homeric and Ionic Greek?

Aides (Aïdes): Homer's Iliad and Odyssey use this Ionic form of the name, alongside the longer Aidoneus; Attic Greek contracted it to Hades.

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

Zeus Katachthonios, 'Zeus beneath the earth': in Iliad Book 9 Phoenix's father prays to 'Zeus of the underworld and dread Persephone', using the brother's name as a euphemism.

In Aeneid Book VI, how long must the unburied dead wait on the river's near shore?

A hundred years: in Aeneid Book VI the Sibyl explains that the unburied dead must wander the near shore for a hundred years before they may cross.

In Apollodorus's account, whom did Heracles fight to bring Alcestis back from the dead?

Hades: Apollodorus says Heracles fought Hades himself to bring Alcestis back from the dead; Euripides's play instead has him wrestle Death at her tomb.

In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, which goddess becomes Persephone's attendant after her return?

Hecate: at the end of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hecate, who had heard Persephone's cries, embraces her and becomes her companion and attendant from then on.

How does the Sibylline oracles' folk etymology explain the name Hades?

From Adam: the Sibylline Oracles, a mix of Greco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian material, derive the name Hades from Adam, said to be the first man to enter it.