Curated playlist
Residents of the Greek underworld
- HadesBy around the 5th century BC, the Greeks had largely stopped saying Hades's name aloud.
- CerberusOne ancient Greek writer said Cerberus was not a dog at all, but a large venomous snake.
- PersephonePersephone was gathering flowers when Hades burst through the earth and carried her off.
- StyxThe name Styx means Shuddering, and the Greeks gave it to both a goddess and a river of the Underworld. Few figures in mythology were a person and a place at the same time. Why would the rulers of Olympus bind their promises to a stream?…
- PatroclusPatroclus, the Greek hero of the Trojan War, was once described by the ancient writer Philostratus down to the flare of his nostrils. Philostratus gave him an olive complexion, black eyes, fine eyebrows and moderately long hair. He said…
- TartarusIn Hesiod's Theogony, Tartarus was a god as well as a pit. It ranked third among the first gods.
- ErinyesIn Aeschylus's Oresteia, Athens put a man on trial for killing his mother. The Erinyes accused him.
- HecatoncheiresIn Homer, gods call a hundred-armed giant Briareus and mortals call him Aegaeon. The mortal name points to the sea.
- OrpheusOrpheus walked into the underworld to bring back his dead wife, Eurydice. He lost her when he looked back.
- HecateIn the 1st century CE, Ovid wrote of Hecate: "Look at Hecate, standing guard at the crossroads, one face looking in each direction." Hecate belonged to ancient Greek religion and mythology. Artists usually showed her with torches, a key,…