Hades

Also known as: Pluto · Family: Olympian gods · Role: god of the underworld · First appears: Apollodorus, Library 1.1

🌐 Also appears in: The Iliad (as Hades) · The Aeneid (as Dis) · The Metamorphoses of Ovid (as Pluto) · Greek Tragedy — The Same Myth, Three Voices (as Hades)

At birth, Cronus swallowed Hades, also called Pluto, along with Hestia, Demeter, Hera, and Poseidon, intending to prevent any of his children from taking the kingship. Hesiod names Hades among these siblings as “strong Hades, pitiless in heart, who dwells under the earth,” alongside Hestia, Demeter, Hera, and Zeus.

After Eurydice died, Orpheus came to Hades and persuaded him to send her up, provided Orpheus did not look back before reaching home. When Orpheus turned and saw her, Eurydice returned. Later, Hades fell in love with Persephone and, with Zeus’s help, secretly carried her away. When Zeus ordered her return, Hades gave her a pomegranate seed; because she swallowed it, Persephone was required to spend one-third of every year with him and the rest with the gods, while Demeter left heaven in anger after learning that Hades had carried her off.

Hades’s helmet was worn by Hermes when Hermes slew Hippolytus. Menoetes, who pastured Hades’s cattle, reported an incident to Geryon, and Heracles wounded Hades while Hades sided with the Pylians. Hades later bade Theseus and Pirithous sit on the Chair of Forgetfulness, where they became held fast; Pirithous remained bound forever.