ANCIENT GREEKS IDEAS ABOUT THE AFTERLIFE
Perserpone with Hades When it came to question of what happens after death, the ancient Greeks looked to Hades, god of the underworld, brother of Zeus and Poseidon. But Hades did not make the afterlife seem so appealing. The poet Homer described Hades as a place of “moldering horror” where ordinary people — and even heroes — went after they died. This place was immersed in misty darkness and sequestered by the dreaded River Styx.
Ancient Greek developed secret cults in part to help them deal psychologically with gloomy view of the afterlife and these cults in turn have helped shape the way we think of what happens after death today. Caroline Alexander wrote in National Geographic, Sympathetic interest in the human condition eventually led the Greeks to adopt new forms of religion and new cults. No longer seen as a joyless fate, the afterlife became more of a personal quest. Mystery cults, shrouded in secrecy, promised guidance for what would come after death. The mystery rites were intensely emotional and staged like elaborate theater. Those of the great gods on the Greek island of Samothrace took place at night, with flickering torch fire pointing the way for initiates. Guarded on pain of death, the rituals remain mysterious to this day. Believing that the dead could exert bad or good influence from the afterlife, ancient Greeks sought their ancestors’ favor with honors and offerings. Many also believed that their own fate after death was directly related to their initiation into the right cults. [Source Caroline Alexander, National Geographic, July 2016]
Hades, the Ancient Greek Underworld
Hades was both the name of the Greek Underworld and the god that presided over it. After usurping the throne Zeus repelled attacks by giants and conspiracies by other gods. After the dethronement of the Titans a lottery with himself and his brothers Poseidon and Hades was held to decided who would occupy the heavens, the sea and the Underworld . Zeus won. He chose the heavens while Poseidon and Hades were awarded the sea and the Underworld respectively. The word “Hades” came from the Greek “ term a des” , meaning “the unseen” or concealed. It inhabitants were known as ‘shades.”
As a place Hades was a depressing Underworld where people went after they died. It wasn’t hell. It wasn’t a place of punishment for the wicked. It was more like purgatory. It was a place everyone went. No one received extreme forms of punishments other than famous mythological figures like Tantalus, Ixion and Tityos. Tantalus was a friend of Zeus who betrayed him and was condemned to the Underworld, where he sat for eternity next to a pool of water and fruit trees but was unable to drink or eat.
House of Hades was the official name for the Ancient Greek underworld and for the Palace of Hades. The Palace of Hades is where Hades, Persephone, the Furies, and others live. It was visited by Heracles, Orpheus, Theseus and Perithoos while they were alive during their heroic adventures. It is the goal of the Orphic initiate. The entrances to the 'House of Hades' were: 1) Taenarum at the southern tip of the Peloponnesus, in Spartan territory, used by Hercules and Orpheus; 2) Alcyonian Lake, near Lerna in Argos; cf the Hydra of Lerna; and 3) Lake Avernus, in Italy, near Pozzuoli on the north shore of the Bay of Naples, [Source: John Adams, California State University, Northridge (CSUN), “Classics 315: Greek and Roman Mythology class ++]
Styx, Acheron and Entrances to the Underworld
The Roman poet Virgil said the Styx sprang from the Acheron the principal river of Tartarus — the Greek equivalent of Hell. Ancient Greeks believed Charon the ferryman took souls to Hades across Acheron, the “river of woe.” In Homer’s Odyssey, the slain hero Achilles says from the underworld: “I would rather serve as laborer to a serf, to a landless man who has no great livelihood, than rule all the perished dead.”
According to Homer’s Odyssey, the entrance to hell could be found where the Acheron (a real river in northwest Greece) met the Pyriphlegethon and the river Styx. Virgil's account of Acheron in the Aeneid was so influential that Dante mentions Charon in the Inferno. According to Dante, those who are “Uncommitted” and fail to decide between good or evil are punished by eternity on the banks of the Acheron and would stay there in torment for eternity. But like many places, there was a back entrance. In the Metamorphoses Orpheus descended into the netherworld through the gate of Taenarus, in the Peloponnese, in pursuit of his beloved Eurydice. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, May 26, 2018]
Odysseus in the Underworld Back in the days when the world was only inhabited by gods and monsters, the Titans fought the Olympians for control of the universe. During this 10-year Titanomachy, the Titans gained strength by drinking from the Acheron River. Angered by the move, Zeus cursed the river, turning it black and bitter — a fitting fate for one of the five rivers in Greek mythology said to lead into the underworld. In real life, 50-kilometer (32-mile) long Acheron is in Epirus, a region in northwest Greece and now attracts a lot of tourists. [Source Maria Atmatzidou, National Geographic, February 23, 2022]
Rivers of the Underworld: 1) Styx: daughter of Oceanus and Tethys; married to Titan Pallas; children: Zelus (‘Zeal'), Nike (‘Victory'), Kratos (‘Strength'), Bia (‘Force') The inviolable oaths which the gods take are sworn by the River Styx (punishment for violation: one year in a coma, nine years in exile) 2) Lethe: (‘Forgetfulness') is very important in Pythagorean doctrines, which believes in the transmigration of souls; drinking the water must be avoided by Orphics, lest they forget their real divine nature and the secret words by which they can reach Persephone. 3) Phlegethon: (‘River of Flames'). 4) Cocytus (‘Wailing'). Charon, the Ferryman, was stationed at the River Styx. Each spirit had to pay him a coin for transportation across the river to the shores of the Fields of Asphodel. The unburied were not allowed to cross. [Source: John Adams, California State University, Northridge (CSUN), “Classics 315: Greek and Roman Mythology class ++]
Gates of Hades: 1) Entry gates: open to all, but guarded by a descendant of Poseidon, three-headed dog Cerberus, who keeps souls from trying to leave. (b) Exit gates; only believed in by some (Homer and Virgil) The Gates of Ivory and Horn, through which false (but pretty) dreams and true dreams can ascend to the land of the living.
Homer on the House of Hades
Homer wrote in the Iliad XXIII, 61-81, 99-108: “Nay if even in the house of Hades the dead forget their dead, yet will I even there be mindful of my dear comrade...You sleep, Achilleus; you have forgotten me; but you were not careless of me when I lived, but only in death. Bury me as quickly as may be, let me pass through the gates of Hades. The souls, the images of dead men, hold me at a distance, and will not let me cross the river and mingle among them, but I wander as I am by Hades’ house of the -wide gates.
“And I call upon you in sorrow, give me your hand; no longer shall I come back from death, once you give me my rite of burning. No longer shall you and I, alive, sit apart from our other beloved companions to make our plans, since the bitter destiny that was given me when I was born has opened its jaws to take me. And you, Achilleus like the gods, have your own destiny; to be killed under the wall of the prospering Trojans.
“So he spoke, and with his own arms reached for him, but could not take him, but the spirit went underground, like vapour, with a thin cry, and Achilleus started awake, staring, and drove his hands together, and spoke, and his words were sorrowful: ‘Oh, wonder! Even in the house of Hades there is left something, a soul and an image, but there is no real heart of life in it. For all night long the phantom of unhappy Patroklos stood over me in lamentation and mourning, and the likeness to him was wonderful, and it told me each thing I should do.”
Journey to Hades and the Dead
The Greeks believed that the soul was weak and lifeless and needed help to get to Hades. For a long time Hermes performed this duty. Sometimes on the journey the souls were harassed by the Furies. There are also stories about the Erinyes---old hags with snakes for hair, dog heads, black bodies, bat wings and bloodshot eyes---attacking people who had committed particularly nasty crimes such as killing their mother or knocking the sun off course. Once in the Underworld the soul was only a memory of itself
The first thing the Dead had to do when they arrived in the Underworld was cross the river Styx. Greeks traditionally put a coin in the mouth of the dead so they could pay the ferryman to get across the river. After making the crossing the good and the bad walked to the Nether World court where their fate was decided in a "Judgement Day" kind of arrangement by all-knowing judges. The bad sent to the left across the river of fire to the torture chambers of Tartarus and the good were taken to the right towards the blissful Elysian fields. [Source: "The Discoverers" by Daniel Boorstin,∞]
Describing Odysseus’s encounter with his mother in Hades in the Odyssey , Home wrote: “I tried to find some way of embracing my poor mother’s ghost. Thrice I sprung towards her and tried to grasp her in my arms, but each time she flitted from my embrace as it were a dream or phantom.” When Odysseus asked his mother why she didn’t try to embrace him she explained: “All the people are like this when they are dead. The sinews no longer hold the flesh and bones together, these perish in the in the fierceness of consuming fire as soon as life has left the body, and the soul flirts away as though it were a dream.”
Only later did the idea of a happy afterlife evolve. At first this was only reserved for great heros like Achilles, Menelaus and Diomedes. And later than this it became a place that members of cults who had special rites could go and later than this, ordinary people if they were good.
Judgment Hall and River of Forgetfulness
The "Judgment Hall' is somewhere near the entry gates. All humans go there but its not specified what is judged and there is no reward or punishment! Some scholars believed to the concept is borrowed from some cult. It is part of Plato's view of the Underworld, and may be based on his Pythagorean experiences in Southern Italy. If that is case, Judgment was NOT part of the average Greek's view of the Underworld, and is a late addition to the mythical tradition. The Judges of the Dead were: 1) Minos (ex-king of Knossos on Crete, father of Phaedra and Ariadne); 2) Aeacus, his brother; and 3) Rhadamanthys, his brother. Judging must have started late in the Age of Heroes, since Minos knew the young Theseus, who belonged to the generation before the Trojan War generation, the generation of Jason and the Argonauts. [Source: John Adams, California State University, Northridge (CSUN), “Classics 315: Greek and Roman Mythology class ++]
River Lethe (River of 'Forgetfulness'): Spirits were required to drink from this river in order to lose their memories of the world of the living. Spirits in this Alzheimer's-disease-like state can not remember what has been said moments or seconds earlier. The souls live entirely in the ‘present', with no thought of past or future. The image of ‘forgetfulness' in the Orphic Cult is that of ‘a spring on the left of the Halls of Hades, and beside it a white cypress growing'. Here, after memory is erased the deceased become “the Child of Ge and of starry Ouranos...a god instead of a mortal...who comes...to noble Persephone, that she may be kind and send me to the seats of the Pure.” ++
Plato on Judgement in the Underworld
Plato wrote in “Republic” X, 617-620: And the spindle turned on the knees of Necessity, and up above on each of the rims of the circles a Siren stood, borne around in its revolution and uttering one sound, one note, and from all the eight there was the concord of a single harmony. And there were another three who sat round about at equal intervals, each one on her throne, the Fates, daughters of Necessity, clad in white vestments with filleted heads, Lachesis, and Clotho, and Atropos, who sang in unison with the music of the Sirens, Lachesis singing the things that were, Clotho the things that are, and Atropos the things that are to be. And Clotho with the touch of her right hand helped to turn the outer circumference of the spindle, pausing from time to time. Atropos with her left hand in like manner helped to turn the inner circles, and Lachesis alternately with either hand lent a hand to each. [Source: Plato. Republic, “Plato in Twelve Volumes,” Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969]
“Now when they arrived they were straight-way bidden to go before Lachesis, and then a certain prophet first marshalled them in orderly intervals, and thereupon took from the lap of Lachesis lots and patterns of lives and went up to a lofty platform and spoke, ‘This is the word of Lachesis, the maiden daughter of Necessity, “Souls that live for a day, now is the beginning of another cycle of mortal generation where birth is the beacon of death. No divinity shall cast lots for you, but you shall choose your own deity. Let him to whom falls the first lot first select a life to which he shall cleave of necessity. But virtue has no master over her, and each shall have more or less of her as he honors her or does her despite. The blame is his who chooses: God is blameless. “’ So saying, the prophet flung the lots out among them all, and each took up the lot that fell by his side, except himself; him they did not permit.
“And whoever took up a lot saw plainly what number he had drawn. And after this again the prophet placed the patterns of lives before them on the ground, far more numerous than the assembly. They were of every variety, for there were lives of all kinds of animals and all sorts of human lives, for there were tyrannies among them, some uninterrupted till the end and others destroyed midway and issuing in penuries and exiles and beggaries; and there were lives of men of repute for their forms and beauty and bodily strength otherwise and prowess and the high birth and the virtues of their ancestors, and others of ill repute in the same things, and similarly of women. But there was no determination of the quality of soul, because the choice of a different life inevitably determined a different character. But all other things were commingled with one another and with wealth and poverty and sickness and health and the intermediate conditions. —And there, dear Glaucon, it appears, is the supreme hazard for a man.
“And this is the chief reason why it should be our main concern that each of us, neglecting all other studies, should seek after and study this thing —if in any way he may be able to learn of and discover the man who will give him the ability and the knowledge to distinguish the life that is good from that which is bad, and always and everywhere to choose the best that the conditions allow, and, taking into account all the things of which we have spoken and estimating the effect on the goodness of his life of their conjunction or their severance, to know how beauty commingled with poverty or wealth and combined with what habit of soul operates for good or for evil, and what are the effects of high and low birth and private station and office and strength and weakness and quickness of apprehension and dullness and all similar natural and acquired habits of the soul, when blended and combined with one another, so that with consideration of all these things he will be able to make a reasoned choice between the better and the worse life, with his eyes fixed on the nature of his soul, naming the worse life that which will tend to make it more unjust and the better that which will make it more just. But all other considerations he will dismiss, for we have seen that this is the best choice, both for life and death. And a man must take with him to the house of death an adamantine faith in this, that even there he may be undazzled by riches and similar trumpery, and may not precipitate himself into tyrannies and similar doings and so work many evils past cure and suffer still greater himself, but may know how always to choose in such things the life that is seated in the mean and shun the excess in either direction, both in this world so far as may be and in all the life to come; for this is the greatest happiness for man.
“And at that time also the messenger from that other world reported that the prophet spoke thus: ‘Even for him who comes forward last, if he make his choice wisely and live strenuously, there is reserved an acceptable life, no evil one. Let not the foremost in the choice be heedless nor the last be discouraged.’ When the prophet had thus spoken he said that the drawer of the first lot at once sprang to seize the greatest tyranny, and that in his folly and greed he chose it without sufficient examination, and failed to observe that it involved the fate of eating his own children, and other horrors, and that when he inspected it at leisure he beat his breast and bewailed his choice, not abiding by the forewarning of the prophet. For he did not blame himself for his woes, but fortune and the gods and anything except himself. He was one of those who had come down from heaven, a man who had lived in a well-ordered polity in his former existence, participating in virtue by habit and not by philosophy; and one may perhaps say that a majority of those who were thus caught were of the company that had come from heaven, inasmuch as they were unexercised in suffering. But the most of those who came up from the earth, since they had themselves suffered and seen the sufferings of others, did not make their choice precipitately. For which reason also there was an interchange of good and evil for most of the souls, as well as because of the chances of the lot. Yet if at each return to the life of this world a man loved wisdom sanely, and the lot of his choice did not fall out among the last, we may venture to affirm, from what was reported thence, that not only will he be happy here but that the path of his journey thither and the return to this world will not be underground and rough but smooth and through the heavens. For he said that it was a sight worth seeing to observe how the several souls selected their lives. He said it was a strange, pitiful, and ridiculous spectacle, as the choice was determined for the most part by the habits of their former lives.”
Elysian Fields and Fields of Asphodel
The Fields of Asphodel were a murky gloomy plain, covered with gray plants which produce dead-white or pale yellow flowers with no dramatic scent. Virtually all the dead go to the Fields of Asphodel. The exceptions are heroes, who: 1) very occasionally go to OLYMPUS (Herakles, Asklepios, Ganymede); 2) occasionally (according to Hesiod and Homer) go to the Isles of the Blessed, where the Hesperides guard the golden Apples of Immortality; or 3) are specially assigned to a punishment in Tartarus. In most cases, however, they are sent to the Elysian Fields. [Source: John Adams, California State University, Northridge (CSUN), “Classics 315: Greek and Roman Mythology class ++]
One view of the Elysian Fields
The Elysian Fields were like “an exclusive suburb” of the Underworld, presided over by Hades and Persephone, but reserved for the Hesiodic “Fourth Generation.” such as the Heroes (offspring of a god and a human). Even so, it was no heaven. It was a gloomy place. Achilles (in Homer's Odyssey, Book 11) said he would rather to be a slave of the poorest dirt farmer in Boeotia than be King of the Underworld. In the Elysian Fields there are athletic contests and heroic banquets, one way it is different from the Fields of Asphodel. ++
Homer: The Mead of Asphodel, Where the Spirits Dwell
Homer wrote in Odyssey XXIV, 1-18: “Meanwhile Cyllenian Hermes called forth the spirits of the wooers. He held in his hands his wand, a fair wand of gold, wherewith he lulls to sleep the eyes of whom he will, while others again he wakens even out of slumber; with this he roused and led the spirits, and they followed gibbering. And as in the innermost recess of a wondrous cave bats flit about gibbering, when one has fallen from off the rock from the chain in which they cling to one another, so these went with him gibbering, and Hermes, the Helper, led them down the dank ways. Past the streams of Oceanus they went, past the rock Leucas, past the gates of the sun and the land of dreams, and quickly came to the mead of asphodel, where the spirits dwell, phantoms of men who have done with toils. [Source: Homer. “The Odyssey” translated by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919.
“Here they found the spirit of Achilles, son of Peleus, and those of Patroclus, of peerless Antilochus, and of Aias, who in comeliness and form was the goodliest of all the Danaans after the peerless son of Peleus. So these were thronging about Achilles, and near to them drew the spirit of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, sorrowing; and round about him others were gathered, the spirits of all those who were slain with him in the house of Aegisthus, and met their fate. And the spirit of the son of Peleus was first to address him, saying: “Son of Atreus, we deemed that thou above all other heroes wast all thy days dear to Zeus, who hurls the thunderbolt, because thou wast lord over many mighty men in the land of the Trojans, where we Achaeans suffered woes. But verily on thee too was deadly doom to come all too early, the doom that not one avoids of those who are born. Ah, would that in the pride of that honor of which thou wast master thou hadst met death and fate in the land of the Trojans. Then would the whole host of the Achaeans have made thee a tomb, and for thy son too wouldst thou have won great glory in days to come; but now, as it seems, it has been decreed that thou shouldst be cut off by a most piteous death.”
“Then the spirit of the son of Atreus answered him: “Fortunate son of Peleus, godlike Achilles, that wast slain in the land of Troy far from Argos, and about thee others fell, the best of the sons of the Trojans and Achaeans, fighting for thy body; and thou in the whirl of dust didst lie mighty in thy mightiness, forgetful of thy horsemanship. We on our part strove the whole day long, nor should we ever have stayed from the fight, had not Zeus stayed us with a storm. But after we had borne thee to the ships from out the fight, we laid thee on a bier, and cleansed thy fair flesh with warm water and with ointment, and many hot tears did the Danaans shed around thee, and they shore their hair.
Another view of the Elysian Fields
"And thy mother came forth from the sea with the immortal sea-nymphs, when she heard the tidings, and a wondrous cry arose over the deep, and thereat trembling laid hold of all the Achaeans. Then would they all have sprung up and rushed to the hollow ships, had not a man, wise in the wisdom of old, stayed them, even Nestor, whose counsel had before appeared the best. He with good intent addressed their assembly, and said: “‘Hold, ye Argives; flee not, Achaean youths. 'Tis his mother who comes here forth from the sea with the immortal sea-nymphs to look upon the face of her dead son.’ “So he spoke, and the great-hearted Achaeans ceased from their flight. Then around thee stood the daughters of the old man of the sea wailing piteously, and they clothed thee about with immortal raiment.
“And the Muses, nine in all, replying to one another with sweet voices, led the dirge. There couldst thou not have seen an Argive but was in tears, so deeply did the clear-toned Muse move their hearts. Thus for seventeen days alike by night and day did we bewail thee, immortal gods and mortal men, and on the eighteenth we gave thee to the fire, and many well-fatted sheep we slew around thee and sleek kine. So thou wast burned in the raiment of the gods and in abundance of unguents and sweet honey; and many Achaean warriors moved in their armour about the pyre, when thou wast burning, both footmen and charioteers, and a great din arose.
"But when the flame of Hephaestus had made an end of thee, in the morning we gathered thy white bones, Achilles, and laid them in unmixed wine and unguents. Thy mother had given a two-handled, golden urn, and said that it was the gift of Dionysus, and the handiwork of famed Hephaestus. In this lie thy white bones, glorious Achilles, and mingled with them the bones of the dead Patroclus, son of Menoetius, but apart lie those of Antilochus, whom thou didst honor above all the rest of thy comrades after the dead Patroclus. And over them we heaped up a great and goodly tomb, we the mighty host of Argive spearmen, on a projecting headland by the broad Hellespont, that it might be seen from far over the sea both by men that now are and that shall be born hereafter.”
Tartarus
Tartarus in the Underworld was a hell-like place but only certain gods, not mortals, were sent there. Greece was so filled with wicked people that philosophers wondered whether the Underworld was large enough to accommodate all the ones who died since the beginning of time. This gave rise to the belief that maybe Tartarus was is in the southern hemisphere not underground, which in turn discouraged explorers from heading south. The Roman historian Pliny pointed out that it was also strange that even though the route to Hades was well-mapped no miners ever came across it. [Source: "The Discoverers" by Daniel Boorstin]
Tartarus
Tartarus: was a prison area below the ‘House of Hades', presided over by Kronos (Zeus' father and predecessor) who is as much a prisoner there as anyone else (In some myths, Kronos is released and returned to Olympos, like Prometheus). The place is guarded by the Hundred-Handed Giants. Humans who are guilty of special crimes against the gods and their code are sent here for eternal punishment. [Source: John Adams, California State University, Northridge (CSUN), “Classics 315: Greek and Roman Mythology class ++]
Among those condemned to Tartarus were: 1) Tityus: sent at Apollo's request for having molested his mother Leto and stretched out like Prometheus(over nine acres of land; 2) Tantalus: (Odyssey 11. 582-92, son of Zeus and Plouto (a female), king of Sipylus in Lydia, and father of Pelops and Niobe, who was sentenced for cannibalism, stealing secrets of the gods and betraying trust of Zeus; 3) Phlegyas, king of Orchomenos, father of Ixion and Coronis (Apollo's girl-friend), who set fire to a temple of Apollo!; 4) Ixion, who visited Olympus, tried to rape Hera and murdered a guest-friend, Dioneus at his home a (violation of hospitality); 5) Sisyphus: king of Corinth, son of Aeolus (son of Hellen, the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha), who attacked travellers and betrayed the secrets of the gods. ++
Plato on Tartarus and Traveling Through the Underworld
Plato wrote in “Republic” X, 615-617: “‘For indeed this was one of the dreadful sights we beheld; when we were near the mouth and about to issue forth and all our other sufferings were ended, we suddenly caught sight of him and of others, the most of them, I may say, tyrants. But there were some of private station, of those who had committed great crimes. And when these supposed that at last they were about to go up and out, the mouth would not receive them, but it bellowed when anyone of the incurably wicked or of those who had not completed their punishment tried to come up. And thereupon,’ he said, ‘savage men of fiery aspect who stood by and took note of the voice laid hold on them and bore them away. But Ardiaeus and others they bound hand and foot and head and flung down and flayed them and dragged them by the wayside, carding them on thorns and signifying to those who from time to time passed by for what cause they were borne away, and that they were to be hurled into Tartarus. [Source: Plato. Republic, “Plato in Twelve Volumes,” Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969]
“And then, though many and manifold dread things had befallen them, this fear exceeded all—lest each one should hear the voice when he tried to go up, and each went up most gladly when it had kept silence. And the judgements and penalties were somewhat after this manner, and the blessings were their counterparts. But when seven days had elapsed for each group in the meadow, they were required to rise up on the eighth and journey on, and they came in four days to a spot whence they discerned, extended from above throughout the heaven and the earth, a straight light like a pillar, most nearly resembling the rainbow, but brighter and purer. To this they came after going forward a day's journey, and they saw there at the middle of the light the extremities of its fastenings stretched from heaven; for this light was the girdle of the heavens like the undergirders of triremes, holding together in like manner the entire revolving vault. And from the extremities was stretched the spindle of Necessity, through which all the orbits turned. Its staff and its hook were made of adamant, and the whorl of these and other kinds was commingled.
Tartarus's mouth
And the nature of the whorl was this: Its shape was that of those in our world, but from his description we must conceive it to be as if in one great whorl, hollow and scooped out, there lay enclosed, right through, another like it but smaller, fitting into it as boxes that fit into one another, and in like manner another, a third, and a fourth, and four others, for there were eight of the whorls in all, lying within one another, showing their rims as circles from above and forming the continuous back of a single whorl about the shaft, which was driven home through the middle of the eighth. Now the first and outmost whorl had the broadest circular rim, that of the sixth was second, and third was that of the fourth, and fourth was that of the eighth, fifth that of the seventh, sixth that of the fifth, seventh that of the third, eighth that of the second; and that of the greatest was spangled, that of the seventh brightest, that of the eighth took its color from the seventh, which shone upon it. The colors of the second and fifth were like one another and more yellow than the two former. The third had the whitest color, and the fourth was of a slightly ruddy hue; the sixth was second in whiteness. The staff turned as a whole in a circle with the same movement, but within the whole as it revolved the seven inner circles revolved gently in the opposite direction to the whole, and of these seven the eighth moved most swiftly, and next and together with one another the seventh, sixth and fifth; and third in swiftness, as it appeared to them, moved the fourth with returns upon itself, and fourth the third and fifth the second.
Portal to the Underworld in Turkey
According to Archaeology magazine: For the ancient Mesopotamians, hell was a distant place, across an ocean of death, located at the end of the world. But for the ancient Greeks and their Neolithic ancestors, the gates to the underworld were not that far away at all. [Source: Eric A. Powell, Archaeology magazine, July-August 2013]
In 2013, University of Salento archaeologists announced the discovery of one such portal at the Greco-Roman city of Hierapolis in southwestern Turkey. The team located a cave at the site that emits poisonous gases and was thought in antiquity to be an entrance to Hades. Known as “Pluto’s Gates,” for the god of the underworld, the cave is near a temple where the archaeologists found a column bearing a dedication to the god and his wife Persephone.
“Not far away, excavations at a cave at Alepotrypa in southern Greece suggest that the Greek concept of the underworld, on display at Hierapolis, may have originated in the Neolithic period. The entrance to this cave collapsed 5,000 years ago, preserving evidence that Neolithic people lived there, and that others made pilgrimages there from afar to bury their dead. Millsaps College archaeologist Michael Galaty, who works at the site with a team led by Greek archaeologist Giorgos Papathanassopoulos, says his colleagues believe the site took on mythological significance. “Giorgos thinks that when the cave collapsed and everyone left, they took this cultural memory with them of an underground realm where they buried the dead,” says Galatay. “This could be the source of the Greek fascination with the underworld.”
Deadly Fumes from the Portal to the Underworld in Turkey
Hierapolis (modern day Pamukkale) is located in the southwestern part of Turkey. There is small shrine there known as Pluto’s gate. In ancient times, pilgrims led sacrificial animals to smokey grotto and when they went in deep enough the animal would die but the priests who escorted the animals in somehow emerged unscathed. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, May 26, 2018]
In turns out “Pluto’s Gate” is built atop a fault that emits carbon dioxide, which can be deadly to animals. Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: In 2013, archeologists investigating the site revealed: As you go deeper into the cave, the level of noxious fumes gradually rose to lethal levels. The animals were being suffocated by carbon dioxide. Because the fumes settled lower in the cave the animals were more likely to die than the priests. The ancient geographer Strabo notes that the shrine was filled with a “misty and dense” vapor and that that the priests appeared to “hold their breath.” But in general, the fact that the animals died was taken as proof that it was in fact a place of supernatural power.
One of the ironies here is that the same animals that suffocated the sacrificial victims, also powered the delightful hot springs at Pamukkale. Meghan Henning, a professor of theology at the University of Dayton and author of several works on hell told The Daily Beast, “The most likely place to find a hellmouth in the ancient world then, is adjacent to a natural hot spring or other natural source of sulfuric gases. So today's tourist attraction was antiquity's portal to the netherworld.”
The Plutonium (Pluto's Gate) in Hierapolis, Phrygia, Turkey is a sacred cave believed to be an entrance to the underworld and the oldest local sanctuary. It was described by Strabo (629-30) as an orifice in a ridge of the hillside, in front of which was a fenced enclosure filled with thick mist immediately fatal to any who entered except the eunuchs of Kybele. The Plutoneion was mentioned and described later by numerous ancient writers, in particular Dio Cassius (68.27), who observed that an auditorium had been erected around it, and Damascius ap. Photius (Bibl. 344f), who recorded a visit by a certain doctor Asclepiodotus about A.D. 500; he mentioned the hot stream inside the cavern and located it under the Temple of Apollo. There is, in fact, immediately below the sidewall of the temple in a shelf of the hillside, a roofed chamber 3 m square, at the back of which is a deep cleft in the rock filled with a fast-flowing stream of hot water heavily charged with a sharp-smelling gas. In front is a paved court, from which the gas emerges in several places through cracks in the floor. The mist mentioned by Strabo is not observable now. The gas was kept out of the temple itself by allowing it to escape through gaps left between the blocks of the sidewalls.
Portals to the Underworld in Italy
Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: Virgil might mention Charon, but his version of the journey to underworld takes place in Italy. Aenus, the mythological founder of Rome, descends into underworld through a crater near Cumae. Virgil describes Aeneas’s trip to Acheron, a place of flames, dead birds, and the portal to the “nether king” in the groves of Avernus (Virgil, Aeneid 6.83–330). The name Avernus means “birdless” which is likely connected to the idea that birds who flew over the lake would die from brimstone poisoning.
The ‘entrance to the underworld’ is available to visitors today. A keyhole shaped entrance into the rock leads to the cave of the Sibyl, who acted as Aeneas’ guide. (This was same Sibyl who offered King Tarquin of Rome prophecies about Rome’s destruction, and who also appears on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel). The cave most frequently visited today was uncovered in 1932 but is unlikely to have been contemporaneous with Virgil. There might still be reason to fear the dangers in the Sibylline grotto, however; in 2010 Italian police reported that the caves were being used as a mafia hideout. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, May 26, 2018]
If you were looking for a more central portal to hell, you could try the Lacus Curtius, a pit in the Roman Forum in the very heart of Rome. It’s likely that if you were strolling through this popular archeological tourist site, you might walk right by this rather inconspicuous pit. The Roman historian Livy, however, writes that it was once a broad chasm that suddenly appeared in the middle of the city. According to Livy, a prophesy dictated that the chasm would not close and the Roman Republic would be destroyed unless the city sacrificed the things that had made it strong (as with many oracles it was a pretty vague prediction).
One Marcus Curtius, the likely namesake for the site, had an epiphany that Rome’s power lay both in the courage of her people and her military might. So, dressed in full armor and bearing arms he rode his horse into the pit and down into the underworld. The chasm closed behind him and all was well. Burying people alive as means of securing the safety of the group is something of a theme in Roman history, but this particular legend appears to have generated the idea that you could use the lacus to commune with the dead and, perhaps, even bribe them. The Roman Republic did, eventually end, and during the Imperial period and the reign of Augustus, citizens would through into the pit in order to secure the emperor’s safety. All of which makes it a kind of supernatural version of the Trevi fountain.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History, Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT Classics Online classics.mit.edu ; Gutenberg.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Live Science, Discover magazine, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Discoverers" and "The Creators" by Daniel Boorstin. "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP and various books and other publications.
Last updated September 2024