AÏDES (Pluto)

AÏDES (Pluto).

Aïdes, Aïdoneus, or Hades, was the son of Cronus and Rhea, and the
youngest brother of Zeus and Poseidon. He was the ruler of that
subterranean region called Erebus, which was inhabited by the shades or
spirits of the dead, and also by those dethroned and exiled deities who
had been vanquished by Zeus and his allies. Aïdes, the grim and gloomy
monarch of this lower world, was the [131]successor of Erebus,
that ancient primeval divinity after whom these realms were called.

The early Greeks regarded Aïdes in the light of their greatest foe,
and Homer tells us that he was “of all the gods the most detested,” being
in their eyes the grim robber who stole from them their nearest and
dearest, and eventually deprived each of them of their share in
terrestrial existence. His name was so feared that it was never mentioned
by mortals, who, when they invoked him, struck the earth with their
hands, and in sacrificing to him turned away their faces.

The belief of the people with regard to a future state was, in the
Homeric age, a sad and cheerless one. It was supposed that when a mortal
ceased to exist, his spirit tenanted the shadowy outline of the human
form it had quitted. These shadows, or shades as they were called, were
driven by Aïdes into his dominions, where they passed their time, some in
brooding over the vicissitudes of fortune which they had experienced on
earth, others in regretting the lost pleasures they had enjoyed in life,
but all in a condition of semi-consciousness, from which the intellect
could only be roused to full activity by drinking of the blood of the
sacrifices offered to their shades by living friends, which, for a time,
endowed them with their former mental vigour. The only beings supposed to
enjoy any happiness in a future state were the heroes, whose acts of
daring and deeds of prowess had, during their life, reflected honour on
the land of their birth; and even these, according to Homer, pined after
their career of earthly activity. He tells us that when Odysseus visited
the lower world at the command of Circe, and held communion with the
shades of the heroes of the Trojan war, Achilles assured him that he
would rather be the poorest day-labourer on earth than reign supreme over
the realm of shades.

The early Greek poets offer but scanty allusions to Erebus. Homer
appears purposely to envelop these realms in vagueness and mystery, in
order, probably, to heighten the sensation of awe inseparably connected
with [132]the lower world. In the Odyssey he
describes the entrance to Erebus as being beyond the furthermost edge of
Oceanus, in the far west, where dwelt the Cimmerians, enveloped in
eternal mists and darkness.

In later times, however, in consequence of extended intercourse with
foreign nations, new ideas became gradually introduced, and we find
Egyptian theories with regard to a future state taking root in Greece,
which become eventually the religious belief of the whole nation. It is
now that the poets and philosophers, and more especially the teachers of
the Eleusinian Mysteries, begin to inculcate the doctrine of the future
reward and punishment of good and bad deeds. Aïdes, who had hitherto been
regarded as the dread enemy of mankind, who delights in his grim office,
and keeps the shades imprisoned in his dominions after withdrawing them
from the joys of existence, now receives them with hospitality and
friendship, and Hermes replaces him as conductor of shades to Hades.
Under this new aspect Aïdes usurps the functions of a totally different
divinity called Plutus (the god of riches), and is henceforth regarded as
the giver of wealth to mankind, in the shape of those precious metals
which lie concealed in the bowels of the earth.

The later poets mention various entrances to Erebus, which were for
the most part caves and fissures. There was one in the mountain of
Taenarum, another in Thesprotia, and a third, the most celebrated of all,
in Italy, near the pestiferous Lake Avernus, over which it is said no
bird could fly, so noxious were its exhalations.

In the dominions of Aïdes there were four great rivers, three of which
had to be crossed by all the shades. These three were Acheron (sorrow),
Cocytus (lamentation), and Styx (intense darkness), the sacred stream
which flowed nine times round these realms.

The shades were ferried over the Styx by the grim, unshaven old
boatman Charon, who, however, only took those whose bodies had received
funereal rites on earth, and who had brought with them his indispensable
toll, which was a small coin or obolus, usually placed under the [133]tongue of a dead person for this purpose.
If these conditions had not been fulfilled, the unhappy shades were left
behind to wander up and down the banks for a hundred years as restless
spirits.

On the opposite bank of the Styx was the tribunal of Minos, the
supreme judge, before whom all shades had to appear, and who, after
hearing full confession of their actions whilst on earth, pronounced the
sentence of happiness or misery to which their deeds had entitled them.
This tribunal was guarded by the terrible triple-headed dog Cerberus,
who, with his three necks bristling with snakes, lay at full length on
the ground;—a formidable sentinel, who permitted all shades to
enter, but none to return.

The happy spirits, destined to enjoy the delights of Elysium, passed
out on the right, and proceeded to the golden palace where Aïdes and
Persephone held their royal court, from whom they received a kindly
greeting, ere they set out for the Elysian Fields which lay beyond.^[47] This blissful region was
replete with all that could charm the senses or please the imagination;
the air was balmy and fragrant, rippling brooks flowed peacefully through
the smiling meadows, which glowed with the varied hues of a thousand
flowers, whilst the groves resounded with the joyous songs of birds. The
occupations and amusements of the happy shades were of the same nature as
those which they had delighted in whilst on earth. Here the warrior found
his horses, chariots, and arms, the musician his lyre, and the hunter his
quiver and bow.

In a secluded vale of Elysium there flowed a gentle, silent stream,
called Lethe (oblivion), whose waters had the effect of dispelling care,
and producing utter forgetfulness of former events. According to the
Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls, it was supposed that
after the shades had inhabited Elysium for a thousand years they were
destined to animate other bodies on [134]earth, and before
leaving Elysium they drank of the river Lethe, in order that they might
enter upon their new career without any remembrance of the past.

The guilty souls, after leaving the presence of Minos, were conducted
to the great judgment-hall of Hades, whose massive walls of solid adamant
were surrounded by the river Phlegethon, the waves of which rolled flames
of fire, and lit up, with their lurid glare, these awful realms. In the
interior sat the dread judge Rhadamanthus, who declared to each comer the
precise torments which awaited him in Tartarus. The wretched sinners were
then seized by the Furies, who scourged them with their whips, and
dragged them along to the great gate, which closed the opening to
Tartarus, into whose awful depths they were hurled, to suffer endless
torture.

Tartarus was a vast and gloomy expanse, as far below Hades as the
earth is distant from the skies. There the Titans, fallen from their high
estate, dragged out a dreary and monotonous existence; there also were
Otus and Ephialtes, those giant sons of Poseidon, who, with impious
hands, had attempted to scale Olympus and dethrone its mighty ruler.
Principal among the sufferers in this abode of gloom were Tityus,
Tantalus, Sisyphus, Ixion, and the Danaïdes.

TITYUS, one of the earth-born giants, had insulted Hera on her
way to Peitho, for which offence Zeus flung him into Tartarus, where he
suffered dreadful torture, inflicted by two vultures, which perpetually
gnawed his liver.

TANTALUS was a wise and wealthy king of Lydia, with whom the
gods themselves condescended to associate; he was even permitted to sit
at table with Zeus, who delighted in his conversation, and listened with
interest to the wisdom of his observations. Tantalus, however, elated at
these distinguished marks of divine favour, presumed upon his position,
and used unbecoming language to Zeus himself; he also stole nectar and
ambrosia from the table of the gods, with which he regaled his friends;
but his greatest crime consisted in killing his own son, [135]Pelops, and
serving him up at one of the banquets to the gods, in order to test their
omniscience. For these heinous offences he was condemned by Zeus to
eternal punishment in Tartarus, where, tortured with an ever-burning
thirst, he was plunged up to the chin in water, which, as he stooped to
drink, always receded from his parched lips. Tall trees, with spreading
branches laden with delicious fruits, hung temptingly over his head; but
no sooner did he raise himself to grasp them, than a wind arose, and
carried them beyond his reach.

SISYPHUS was a great tyrant who, according to some accounts,
barbarously murdered all travellers who came into his dominions, by
hurling upon them enormous pieces of rock. In punishment for his crimes
he was condemned to roll incessantly a huge block of stone up a steep
hill, which, as soon as it reached the summit, always rolled back again
to the plain below.

IXION was a king of Thessaly to whom Zeus accorded the
privilege of joining the festive banquets of the gods; but, taking
advantage of his exalted position, he presumed to aspire to the favour of
Hera, which so greatly incensed Zeus, that he struck him with his
thunderbolts, and commanded Hermes to throw him into Tartarus, and bind
him to an ever-revolving wheel.

The DANAÏDES were the fifty daughters of Danaus, king of Argos,
who had married their fifty cousins, the sons of Ægyptus. By the command
of their father, who had been warned by an oracle that his son-in-law
would cause his death, they all killed their husbands in one night,
Hypermnestra alone excepted. Their punishment in the lower world was to
fill with water a vessel full of holes,—a never-ending and useless
task.

Aïdes is usually represented as a man of mature years and stern
majestic mien, bearing a striking resemblance to his brother Zeus; but
the gloomy and inexorable expression of the face contrasts forcibly with
that peculiar benignity which so characterizes the countenance of the
mighty ruler of heaven. He is seated on a throne of ebony, with his
queen, the grave and sad Persephone, [136]beside him, and wears a
full beard, and long flowing black hair, which hangs straight down over
his forehead; in his hand he either bears a two-pronged fork or the keys
of the lower world, and at his feet sits Cerberus. He is sometimes seen
in a chariot of gold, drawn by four black horses, and wearing on his head
a helmet made for him by the Cyclops, which rendered the wearer
invisible. This helmet he frequently lent to mortals and immortals.

Aïdes, who was universally worshipped throughout Greece, had temples
erected to his honour in Elis, Olympia, and also at Athens.

His sacrifices, which took place at night, consisted of black sheep,
and the blood, instead of being sprinkled on the altars or received in
vessels, as at other sacrifices, was permitted to run down into a trench,
dug for this purpose. The officiating priests wore black robes, and were
crowned with cypress.

The narcissus, maiden-hair, and cypress were sacred to this
divinity.

PLUTO.

Before the introduction into Rome of the religion and literature of
Greece, the Romans had no belief in a realm of future happiness or
misery, corresponding to the Greek Hades; hence they had no god of the
lower world identical with Aïdes. They supposed that there was, in the
centre of the earth, a vast, gloomy, and impenetrably dark cavity called
Orcus, which formed a place of eternal rest for the dead. But with the
introduction of Greek mythology, the Roman Orcus became the Greek Hades,
and [137]all the Greek notions with regard to a
future state now obtained with the Romans, who worshipped Aïdes under the
name of Pluto, his other appellations being Dis (from dives, rich)
and Orcus from the dominions over which he ruled. In Rome there were no
temples erected to this divinity.