Hades
Lord of the Underworld
HAY-deez
Ruler of the dead, who took the underworld by lot and rules it exactly as the terms were written, no more, no less.
The Story
Hades is not a devil and the underworld is not a hell. He drew the third portion when the brothers divided the cosmos, and he administers it: implacable, literal, and almost never leaving. The Greeks preferred not to say his name at all, calling him Plouton, the wealthy one, for the seeds and metals that come out of the ground.
He appears in remarkably few myths, and almost all of them are about someone trying to get something back out of his kingdom. He grants the request roughly twice, both times with a condition, and both times the condition is broken.
Did You Know?
- The name is usually read as the unseen one. It belongs to the god, not the place, calling the underworld Hades is a later shorthand.
- Greeks avoided saying it, preferring Plouton, the rich one, on the reasoning that a god of the dead who hears his name might look up. That euphemism is the root inside plutocracy.
- He has effectively no temples. Sacrifices to him were made at night, with black animals, and the blood poured into a pit rather than onto an altar.