The Roman conception of this deity differed little from that of the Greeks, having been, in fact, borrowed entirely from a Greek source. By them he was called Pluto, or Pater Dis. He had no temple in Rome, but had, in common with Proserpina, a subterranean altar in the Campus Martius, which was uncovered and used once a-year. Only black animals were sacrificed to him.
Artists naturally hesitated to portray a being whose very name they feared to pronounce, and consequently antique statues of Hades are very rare. His characteristic features—a grim expression of countenance, tightly-closed lips, and long tangled hair—are embodied in a marble head, in the possession of Prince Chigi at Rome, of which we give an engraving (Fig. 46). His principal attributes are a sceptre, a votive bowl, and sometimes a two-pronged fork, or a key.
17. The Lower World.—To our consideration of Hades we must add some remarks on the ideas which the ancient Greeks and Romans had of the other life and of the abodes of the dead. It may be well to remark, at the outset, that the Romans do not originally appear to have believed in a kingdom of the dead in the interior of the earth, and that all their ideas on this subject were borrowed from the writings of the Greeks. Neither do their ideas on this subject, nor even those of the Greeks, appear to have been invariably the same at all times. Even in the poetry of Homer we come across two very different views as to the situation of the realms of the dead. According to that which we find in the Iliad, it was situated beneath the disc-shaped earth, only a thin layer separating it from the upper world. This is made evident on the occasion of the great battle of the gods in the 20th book, where we read—
“Pluto, the infernal monarch, heard alarmed,
And, springing from his throne, cried out in fear,
Lest Neptune, breaking through the solid earth,
To mortals and immortals should lay bare
His dark and drear abode of gods abhorred.”
According to another view which prevails in the Odyssey, the world of shadows was not situated beneath the earth, but lay far to the westward, on the other side of Oceanus, or on an island in the same; so indefinite and vague were men’s ideas as to the locality of the kingdom of death in the time of Homer, and so undeveloped were their conceptions as to the lives of departed souls. The lower world appears as a desolate, dismal region, where departed spirits lead a shadowy, dreamy existence, to reach which is no happiness. There is no difference in their lots; for we as yet hear nothing of the judgment of the dead. The Elysian fields, to which the special favourites of the gods were transferred, form no part of the lower world in Homer, but were supposed to lie in an entirely distinct region in the far West (the isles of the blest). Later on, the outlines of the lower world become more clearly defined. It was now supposed to be a region in the centre of the earth, with several passages to and from the upper world. Through it flowed several rivers—Cocytus, Pyriphlegethon, Acheron, and Styx. The last of these encompassed the lower world several times, and could only be crossed by the aid of Charon, the ferryman, who was depicted as a sullen old man with a bristling beard. The Greeks therefore used to place an obolus (small copper coin) in the mouths of their dead, in order that the soul might not be turned back by Charon for lack of money. On the farther side of the river the portals were watched by the dreadful hell-hound Cerberus, a three-headed monster, who refused no one entrance, but allowed none to leave the house of Pluto. All souls, on reaching the lower world, had to appear before the tribunal of Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Æacus. Those whose lives had been upright were then permitted to enter Elysium, where they led a life of uninterrupted bliss; whilst those who on earth had been criminal and wicked were consigned to Tartarus, where they were tormented by the Furies and other evil spirits. Those whose lives had not been distinctly good or bad remained in the asphodel meadow, where as dim shadows they passed a dull, joyless existence.
The punishments of great criminals in the infernal regions were a fruitful theme for the imagination of the poets. The most celebrated criminals were Tityus, Tantalus, Sisyphus, Ixion, and the Danaids. We have said that the idea of the judgment of the dead is not found in the earliest legends. Hence we must expect to find, in some cases, that the crimes supposed to have drawn down the wrath of the gods were either later inventions, or had very little connection with the punishment inflicted. Thus to take the case of Tantalus, the original idea appears to have been the burning sun looking upon sweet fruits and streams of water, and drying them up instead of being able to enjoy them. It is possible that another part of the legend, the offering of his children for the gods of heaven to eat, may have a similar origin. So the story of Sisyphus seems to point to the sun daily toiling up the steep hill of heaven, yet ever obliged to recommence his weary task. So the name Ixion seems to be derived from a word meaning wheel, and to be yet another allusion to the orb of day. As men began to forget the reality underlying these words, and to think that some real person suffered these woes, it was only natural that they should try to find a reason. Generally, perhaps always, some point in the story could be twisted into a crime deserving of punishment (compare the legend of Œdipus). The punishment of Tityus, who had offered violence to Leto, consisted in being chained to the earth, whilst two vultures continually gnawed at his ever-growing liver. Tantalus, the ancestor of the Atridæ, Agamemnon and Menelaus, had been deemed worthy to hold intercourse with the gods, until he thought fit to put their omniscience to the test by setting before them the flesh of his son Pelops. This crime he was condemned to expiate by the torments of continual hunger and thirst. Above his head were suspended the most beautiful fruits; but when he attempted to snatch them, a gust of wind blew them beyond his reach. At his feet flowed a stream of the purest water; but when he tried to quench his thirst, it suddenly vanished into the ground. Sisyphus, formerly king of Corinth, had provoked the wrath of the gods by his numerous crimes, and was condemned, in consequence, to roll a block of stone up a high mountain, which, on reaching the top, always rolled down again to the plain. Ixion, a not less insolent offender, was bound hand and foot to an ever-revolving wheel. Lastly, the Danaids, or daughters of Danaus, who, at their father’s command, had slain their husbands on the wedding night, were condemned to pour water continually into a cask full of holes, which could never be filled.