POOR OLD HADES

                       by Bev Truter

Hades, the old Greek god of the underworld, has been getting a
very bad press lately in several text games I've played over the
last few years. In particular, the game MYTH (the PC PD version,
not the Magnetic Scrolls' version) dealt so unfairly with poor old
Hades that I was prompted to rush to his defence, hence this
article. I have quoted liberally from David Stapleton's excellent
'A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology.'

Hades was one of the sons of Cronus and Rhea, and brother to Zeus
and Poseidon. His realm was the nether world, the portion he drew
when the three brothers cast lots after the overthrow of Cronus.
Poseidon got the sea (prior to this he was thought of as the god
of earthquakes, rivers and rain); Zeus drew the heavens, or sky;
and Hades was allotted the regions beneath the earth. The earth
and Olympus became the concern of all three brothers.

Hades was an implacably just god: he should never be thought of as
the Devil, which was a concept totally alien to Greek thought.
The Greeks believed that people commit evil deeds of their own
accord, without any prompting from a good or evil source. Nor was
Hades a punisher of people: he was never feared in that way
because the Greeks never thought along those lines. Anyone who was
arrogant or stupid or foolhardy enough to offend the gods was
punished by the gods, Hades having neither more nor less to do
with it than the other gods.

The word Hades means "The Unseen", and he was also referred to as
Pluto, meaning "The Rich". Both words are descriptions, so Hades
had no real name. He was the god to whom all must go, sooner or
later, but the living shrank from giving a name to a god who would
become their lord upon death. Hades was accorded universal
respect, and given reverence by those who cared for the condition
of the departed.

In the earlier traditions his realm was in the West, a common
belief among ancient peoples since the sun set there. In later
traditions his realm was placed underground, and everyone, after
proper burial, arrived at one of the rivers of Hades. There, at
the river Styx or Acheron, they could be rowed across by Charon.
Most of the dead would go to the Plain of Asphodel, where they
continued a shadowy existence of their former lives since they
were bodiless. A fortunate few who had earned the favour of the
gods went to Elysium, or The Islands of the Blest. Those who had
offended the gods in some way went to Tartarus, their punishment
already decreed.

Cerberus was the hound of Hades, a monstrous dog that guarded the
entrance to the nether world. Cerberus was described (by Hesiod)
as having fifty heads, not three; but most depictions in art show
Cerberus with the less extravagant three heads.

Overall then, much-maligned Hades is not a kind of "devil" ruling
his kingdom of "hell" where prisoners are eternally punished. Nor
did his realm contain pits of fire and brimstone reeking of
sulphur, which is how his underworld kingdom is described in more
than one myth-related game I've come across. Hades strikes me as
being a much graver, kinder, more serious god than many of the
other gods from the Greek myths. A rather likeable character, I
should imagine! Also, having been a caver in my far-distant youth
(w-e-l-l...not *that* far-distant) I've always had this vision of
Hades' underground kingdom as a sort of vast cave system.
Hmmm...yes...I think he'd be very happy to be a god of caves,
caverns and subterranean rivers.












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