Greek PantheonRealm
The Underworld
The realm of the dead beneath the earth, ruled by Hades and Persephone, which Greek poets filled over time with rivers, gates, judges, and the dog Cerberus; the Odyssey's Book 11 is its earliest great portrait.
About The Underworld
House of Hades
Greek poets send the dead below the earth to a house, not a devil's empire. Homer's Odysseus digs a trench at the world's edge and the shades drink blood to speak (Odyssey 11). Later the geography hardens: judges, rivers, gates, and Hades as a lawful king. Mystery cults promised a better lot; ordinary graves did not. Virgil's Aeneid 6 is the Roman tour. There is no single canonical map, only overlapping itineraries.
On the map
The Underworld among other places of the Greek Pantheon.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Homer, Odyssey 11
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.
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