House of erebus9/2/2023 ![]() ![]() In the Iliad the realm of Haides lies directly beneath the earth. The gates were guarded by the Hound of Haides ( kynos Aidou) (8.361 ff). After the rites were complete the soul ( psykhê) crossed the river (23.63 ff) and passed through the gates ( pylai) of Haides to join the company of the spirits of the dead. It is called dôma Aidao "the house (domain) of Haides" or domoi Aidao "the dwelling-places of Haides." Aïdao itself is literally "the unseen." The ghosts of the unburied dead could cross the river and haunt the earth until they received the proper funereal rites-in this way the ghost of Patroklos (Patroclus) visits Akhilleus (Achilles) in his sleep and demands burial (23.63 ff). In Homer's Iliad the dead descend into a murky, subterranean realm ruled by the gods Haides and Persephone. Later poets sometimes use Tartaros as a simile for Haides as well as the adjectives Akherousian and Stygian derived from the names of its rivers.įor the gods and spirits of the realm of Haides see the Gods of the Underworld page.ĬLASSICAL LITERATURE QUOTES REALM OF HADES IN THE ILIAD Heracles, Cerberus and Hecate in the Underworld, Apulian red-figure volute krater C4th B.C., Staatliche Antikensammlungen However it was uncommon and for the most part purely descriptive. The term Erebos-meaning "the dark"-was sometimes used to describe the realm. The dead were often described roaming across the leimôn asphodelon or "fields of asphodel." The asphodel is a pale-grey plant which is edible though very bland and the ancients regarded it as a food of last resort. The plural form domoi Haidou also needs to be rendered as something more than just "the house of Hades." The adjective haidou, however, also means "unseen" or "invisible" and domos is simply a "dwelling-place," "domain" or "realm." So "the unseen realm" would also be a reasonable translation. The dead passed through the pylai Haidou or "gates of Hades" to enter his realm. Souls were judged and assigned to a suitable afterlife and in some versions cast into a cycle of purgatory and reincarnation.ĭomos Haidou is usually translated into English as "House of Hades" and indeed the god of the underworld is frequently described as a Homeric king living in a royal palace and possessing orchards, fields and herds of cattle. ![]() ![]() In the classical period, the mystic religions and prophets-such as the Orphics and Pythagoreans-, as well as the philosophers, modified the land of the dead to incorporate an Elysian paradise for the good and a Tartarean hell for the wicked. Kharon (Charon), the ferryman of the dead, first appears in the lost epic of the Minyad, ponting souls across the Akherousian Mere in a skiff. In his Works and Days and Catalogues, Hesiod introduces the Islands of the Blessed-a paradise realm reserved for the great heroes of myth. Haides and Tartaros were again quite distinct-Tartaros was the cosmic pit beneath the earth whereas Haides was the land of the dead on the gloomy, outermost edge of the earth. It was a cosmic meeting-place of the ways where the great sky dome descended to rest its edge upon the earth and, from below, the walls of the Tartarean pit rose to enclose the lower, hidden half of the cosmos. The realm lay at the farthest ends of the flat earth, beyond the river Okeanos and the Land of Evening. A judge named Minos received the dead from Hermes Psykhogogos (Guide of Souls) and sentenced the most wicked to eternal torment. The land of the dead was enclosed by the Akherousian Lake and three rivers-the Styx, Kokytos (Cocytus) and Pyriphlegethon. It was located at the ends of the earth, on the far shore of the earth-encircling river Okeanos (Oceanus), beyond the gates of the sun and the land of dreams. In the Odyssey the realm of Haides is described in greater detail. The land of Haides was quite distinct from Tartaros- prison-house of the Titanes-which is described as lying as far beneath Haides as the earth beneath the heavens. The ghosts of the unburied were allowed to return to the realm above to visit the living in the form of dreams and demand a proper burial. The dead crossed a river, passed through gates guarded by the Hound, and presented themselves before the king and queen of the underworld, Haides and Persephone. In the Iliad the realm is a damp and mouldy place hidden inside the hollows of the earth. ![]() The Homeric poets knew of no Elysian Fields or Tartarean Hell, rather all shades-heroes and villians alike-came to rest in the gloom of Haides. It was a dark and dismal realm where bodiless ghosts flitted across the grey fields of asphodel. The DOMOS HAIDOU (House of Hades) was the land of the dead-the final resting place for departed souls. Dwellings of Hades Hades and Persephone in the Underworld, Apulian red-figure krater C4th B.C., Staatliche Antikensammlungen ![]()
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