In Greek mythology, Hades (in ancient Greek Ἅιδης / Aidês), brother of Zeus and Poseidon, is the master of the Underworld (in the Greco-Roman sense of the term). He is married to Persephone.
It corresponds to the Ptolemaic Serapis and the Roman Pluto, which is later.
Family
He is the son of Cronus and Rhea. Her siblings are Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Zeus and Poseidon. He is swallowed up with his siblings by his father except for Zeus saved by Rhea, who forces Cronos to regurgitate them.
According to the Souda, a late Byzantine lexicon (10th-11th century), he would have a daughter named Macaria, goddess of "happy" death.
Myth
He participates in the titanomachy, during which the Cyclopes make him the kunea, a marvelous helmet allowing him to make himself invisible. Subsequently, he receives sovereignty over the underworld and the Underworld when sharing the world with his two brothers.
He is sometimes counted among the twelve Olympians, although this is contrary to mainstream tradition. Hades is otherwise quite discreet in mythology, being mainly linked to legends involving heroes (Orpheus, Theseus and Heracles are among the few mortals to meet him). Moreover, he rarely leaves his kingdom:once to abduct Persephone and another time to recover on Olympus the wound inflicted by an arrow of Heracles.
He owns herds that graze on the island of Erythia, the red island, guarded by the shepherd Menoetes.
Abduction of Persephone
Hades kidnapped Persephone, with the agreement of Zeus, while she was picking flowers in the company of nymphs in the plain of Enna (Sicily). Her mother Demeter searched for her everywhere on Earth and unleashed a great famine. Zeus was then forced to attempt a reconciliation and ordered his brother to return Persephone to her mother before the entire Earth starved to death. He sent Hermes to take the message to Hades. The latter agreed to let her go on condition that she had not yet tasted the food of the Dead. And since Persephone had not eaten anything since her abduction, Hades, forced to respect his brother's advice, hid his annoyance and sent her back to her mother. Persephone's tears immediately stopped flowing. But just as she was setting out for Eleusis, one of Hades' gardeners, named Ascalaphos, reported to Hades that he had seen him pick a pomegranate and eat seven seeds. Persephone had eaten the food of the Underworld and was to stay in the dark realm forever. Zeus again intervened and offered Persephone to spend six months of the year in the Underworld and six months on Earth. which was accepted. Since that time, spring and summer have been associated with the months when Persephone is on Earth, giving joy to Demeter, and autumn and winter with the months she spends in the Underworld, her mother pining for her daughter.
Other loves
According to Ovid and Strabo, Hades falls in love with Menthe, a nymph from the Underworld. But this affair greatly displeased Persephone, who trampled on the unfortunate Menthé. Hades (or Persephone herself) transformed it into a plant:mint.
Leucé, another nymph daughter of Ocean, is kidnapped by Hades and changed by Persephone (or Hades) into a white poplar.
Worship
Black sheep were sacrificed to him, and those who offered the sacrifice turned their faces away. His cult was not very developed and there are few statues representing him.
There were very few places of worship intended for him. The only notable one is at Elis in the northwest of the Peloponnese and another at Eleusis. Sheep or black bulls were sacrificed to him during the night only. Euripides indicates that Hades was not subject to ritual libations.
Iconography
He always remained the god of the dead, feared and hated, represented as a mature, bearded, fierce man, often seated on a throne and holding a patera and a scepter, with the three-headed dog, Cerberus, or a snake at his feet. .
Etymology
An etymological explanation often given for the word "Hades" breaks it down into a privative α + ἰδεῖν / ideĩn (form of the verb εἴδω / eídô, "to see"), which would mean "invisible". However, from a linguistic point of view, the hypothesis does not hold. Indeed, the privative prefix, resulting from the vocalization of an *n, is necessarily short, whereas Ἅιδης includes an initial ᾱ (long alpha). The suction is also troublesome. It is therefore only a popular etymology, already existing in antiquity. No hypothesis concerning the name of the god is really convincing.
Epicleses, attributes and sanctuaries
* Epithets:Polydegmon (“the one who receives many guests”), Plouton (“the one who enriches”), Eubouleus (“the Good Counselor”), Aïdôneus (Ἅιδωνευς, “the one whom we don't see"), Klymenos ("Famous"), Pylartes ("with firmly closed doors"), Stygeros ("horrible"), Zeus Katachtonios or Zeus Chthonios ("the Zeus of the Underworld").
* His attributes:the serpent, Cerberus, the kunea, the cornucopia, the two-forked spear, the cypress.
* Sanctuaries:Samothrace (under the name of Axiokersos, husband of Persephone-Axiokersa), Elis and Eleusis.