Who is Hades? Guide to the Greek God of the Underworld
Hades is the god the Greeks were most reluctant to name. He rules the underworld, receives the dead, and is one of the three brothers who took the world by lot after the Titanomachy. But he does not live on Olympus, and the Greeks preferred to call him by titles rather than his true name. Plouton, the Rich One. The Unseen. He That Receives Many. Even naming him was thought to draw his attention, and his attention was not something anyone wanted.
Key Takeaways
- Hades is the Greek god of the underworld, ruler of the realm of the dead, and one of the three brother gods who divided the cosmos after defeating the Titans.
- He is the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, older than his brothers Zeus and Poseidon, and was among the children Cronus swallowed and Rhea rescued.
- His kingdom is also called Hades, sharing a name with him; the Greeks were often reluctant to distinguish the god from the place.
- His queen is Persephone, whom he abducted from the upper world; she spends half the year with him and half with her mother Demeter, giving the Greeks their explanation for the seasons.
- His symbols include the two-pronged bident, the cornucopia (as Plouton, god of the earth’s mineral wealth), and the three-headed dog Cerberus who guards the underworld’s gate.
- He was rarely depicted in Greek art and rarely worshipped with public temples; the Greeks preferred euphemistic names for him.
- Hades is not the Greek devil. He is not evil. He administers a realm, and the tradition is careful to distinguish his authority from cruelty.
Who is Hades?
Hades is the Greek god of the underworld. He rules the realm where all mortal souls go after death - not as a place of punishment (that is Tartarus, a specific deeper section of the underworld), but simply as the destination.
Definition - Hades
The Greek god of the underworld and its ruler. Hades is the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, brother of Zeus and Poseidon, and husband of Persephone. His name means “the unseen.” His kingdom takes his name, and he shares his throne with Persephone for half of each year. His Roman equivalent is Pluto (or Dis).
His name in Greek is Haides, from a root meaning “unseen” - the god no one looks at, the god whose realm cannot be seen from the surface. It is also his defining attribute: he wears a helmet of invisibility, forged for him by the Cyclopes, which he wears when he leaves the underworld. When Perseus goes to kill Medusa, he borrows this helmet from Hades.
Where his brothers Zeus and Poseidon are active gods, appearing in dozens of stories, Hades is quiet. He does not seduce mortals. He does not intervene in human affairs on a whim. He administers.
Hades’s kingdom: the geography of the underworld
The underworld is not one place. It has geography, and the Greek tradition describes it in detail.
The souls of the dead enter through the river Acheron, crossed on the ferry of Charon (who requires an obol, a small coin, as fare - which is why the Greeks placed a coin in the mouth of a corpse). Beyond the river lies the gate, guarded by the three-headed dog Cerberus, who allows the dead to enter but not to leave.
Within the underworld, the shades of the dead lead a diminished existence. Most go to the Asphodel Meadows, a neutral, colourless place where they wander. The virtuous go to the Elysian Fields, a paradise. The wicked go to Tartarus, deep beneath the underworld, where specific sinners suffer specific punishments: Tantalus reaching for water and fruit that recede, Sisyphus pushing his boulder, Ixion bound to a spinning wheel. Read the myth of Tantalus, the myth of Sisyphus, and the myth of Ixion.
The five rivers of the underworld each have a role: Styx (hate, the boundary), Acheron (woe), Cocytus (lamentation), Phlegethon (fire), and Lethe (forgetfulness). The oath sworn on the Styx is binding on gods and mortals alike, and even Zeus is bound by it.
Hades and Persephone
The one story in which Hades is the central actor is the abduction of Persephone.
Persephone is the daughter of Demeter, goddess of the harvest, and Zeus. She is young, beautiful, and living in the upper world with her mother. Hades sees her and wants her. He asks Zeus, who neither approves nor forbids - a Greek shrug - and takes it as consent. He rises through the earth in his chariot and pulls Persephone down into the underworld.
Demeter searches for her daughter. When she learns what has happened, she withdraws her gifts from the world. The earth stops producing food. The gods grow alarmed as mortals begin to starve, because starving mortals cannot make offerings. Zeus is forced to intervene. He sends Hermes to the underworld to negotiate Persephone’s return.
Hades is willing to release her, but only after tricking her into eating six pomegranate seeds. Anyone who eats the food of the dead cannot return to the upper world permanently. A compromise is struck: Persephone will spend six months of each year with Hades in the underworld, and six months with her mother above. When she is below, Demeter mourns and the earth is barren. When she is above, Demeter rejoices and the earth flowers.
This is the Greek explanation of the seasons. It is also the Greek explanation for how Persephone became queen of the underworld. She is not only Hades’s wife but a full ruler alongside him. When mortal heroes descend to the underworld and negotiate for the release of the dead, they usually address Persephone as much as Hades. Read the story of Hades and Persephone, the abduction of Persephone, Demeter’s search for Persephone, and Demeter and the seasons.
Hades and the mortals who visit
A handful of mortals descend to the underworld and return - a category of hero-story called katabasis (going down).
Orpheus descends to retrieve his wife Eurydice, dead from a snakebite. He plays music so beautiful that Hades and Persephone agree to let her go, on one condition: he must walk out ahead of her and not look back until they reach the surface. At the last moment, he looks back. She vanishes for good. Read the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.
Heracles descends to fetch Cerberus as his twelfth and final labor, wrestling the three-headed dog into submission and bringing it briefly to the surface before returning it. He also frees the hero Theseus from the underworld during the same visit; Theseus and his friend Pirithous had gone down to abduct Persephone and been imprisoned in stone chairs for the impiety. Read the twelve labors of Heracles and the myth of Pirithous and Hippodamia.
Odysseus descends only to the edge of the underworld, where he summons and speaks with the shades of the dead - his mother, his old comrade Achilles, the seer Tiresias. Achilles tells him he would rather be the lowest labourer on earth than king of all the dead. Read Odysseus’s journey home and the tale of Tiresias.
Hades tolerates these visits with reluctant patience. He does not usually harm the visitor, but he does not welcome them either. His preference is to be left alone.
Hades as Plouton: god of wealth
Alongside his role as king of the dead, Hades is also worshipped as Plouton (or Plutus, in some contexts), the god of the wealth that comes from beneath the earth: minerals, gems, crops. This is why the English word “plutocracy” comes from his name.
The association makes sense in the Greek imagination. The underworld and the earth’s mineral wealth are both underground. The dead go into the earth, and so do the seeds that will grow into next year’s grain. Hades receives both.
In this aspect he is invoked at harvest, at mining, at any time the earth’s underground bounty is being requested or thanked for. This is a gentler face of the god, and it may be why the Greeks felt safer using the name Plouton than Hades.
Hades compared to other underworld gods
Underworld gods appear in most mythologies, and the Greek Hades sits in a family that shares many features.
| Tradition | Underworld god | Realm | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greek | Hades | The underworld / Hades | Brother of Zeus; rules with Persephone |
| Roman | Pluto / Dis | Underworld | Cognate to Hades; also god of wealth |
| Egyptian | Osiris | Duat | Once alive, killed by Set, becomes judge of the dead |
| Norse | Hel | Helheim | Daughter of Loki; rules those who did not die in battle |
| Sumerian | Ereshkigal | Kur | Queen of the dead; sister of Inanna |
The parallel with the Norse Hel is especially striking. Both figures rule the underworld. Both have names that are also the names of their realms. Both preside over the general dead, distinct from those who die in battle or as heroes. The pattern of “the god whose name is the place” seems to be an old Indo-European convention.
Read the stories
Hades appears in fewer stories than his more active brothers, but the underworld is a setting for many. Some entry points:
- The Story of Hades and Persephone
- The Abduction of Persephone
- Demeter’s Search for Persephone
- Orpheus and Eurydice
- The Myth of Sisyphus and His Eternal Punishment
- The Myth of Tantalus
- Hermes as the Guide of Souls to the Underworld
Hades is the god the Greeks preferred not to think about, and the god they could not stop thinking about. He is the endpoint of every mortal life, and the least visible of the three brothers who divided the world. What he presides over is not evil, not punishment for most, not oblivion. It is simply the place where the dead go, and Hades is there to receive them, quietly, and without ceremony.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Hades the Greek devil?
No. Hades is the god of the underworld and its ruler, but he is not evil, and the underworld is not primarily a place of punishment. Most souls go to the neutral Asphodel Meadows. Only specific sinners are punished, and those are confined to Tartarus, a deep section of the underworld separate from Hades’s main realm. The equation of Hades with the Christian devil is a much later confusion.
Why did Hades abduct Persephone?
The tradition offers no motive beyond desire and Zeus’s tacit approval. Hades wanted Persephone. He asked her father Zeus, who did not object, and took her. The abduction is one of the darker Olympian stories, and the Greek tradition preserves it without softening it. Persephone eventually becomes queen of the underworld in her own right, ruling alongside Hades, but the beginning of their marriage is a kidnapping.
What is Cerberus?
Cerberus is the three-headed dog who guards the entrance to the underworld. He allows the dead to enter but prevents anyone from leaving. He is offspring of the monsters Typhon and Echidna, and appears in several stories, most notably as the target of Heracles’s twelfth and final labor, in which the hero must fetch Cerberus from the underworld and bring him briefly to the surface.
Is Hades the same as Pluto?
Yes, in essence. Pluto (Latin Pluto or Dis) is the Roman equivalent of Hades, ruling the same underworld with the same wife (Proserpina, cognate to Persephone). The Romans took over the Greek myths with minor adjustments. The name “Pluto” itself comes from Hades’s alternate Greek title Plouton (“the rich one”), used to emphasise his gentler aspect as god of the earth’s wealth.
Does Hades ever leave the underworld?
Rarely, and always significant when he does. He rises from the underworld to abduct Persephone, and he attends the great council of the gods on rare occasions. Most of the time he remains in his kingdom. His helmet of invisibility, forged by the Cyclopes, allows him to move through the upper world without being seen when he chooses to.
What is Tartarus?
Tartarus is a deep pit beneath the underworld, distinct from Hades’s main realm. It is where the Titans were imprisoned after their defeat by Zeus, and where specific sinners like Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Ixion suffer eternal punishments. Tartarus is often personified as its own primordial deity, older than the Olympian order.