miliharmony.blogg.se - Kingdom of the dead odyssey

Some of Tartarus’ most famous inhabitants were Sisyphus, Tantalus, Ixion, and Tityos. In “The Iliad” Zeus claims that Tartarus is “as far beneath Hades as heaven is above earth” and that it “is the deepest gulf beneath the earth, the gates whereof are of iron and the threshold of bronze.” Originally the dungeon of the rebels against the divine order (the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires during the reign of Cronus, and the Titans once Zeus came to power), Tartarus eventually ended up housing the worst of perpetrators, destined here to eternally endure punishments fitting their earthly crimes.

However, this all changed at some stage, and according to later writers, the Underworld was divided into at least four different regions: Tartarus And this is how sometimes the Underworld is described by ancient authors: nothing more than a joyless realm where the dead were supposed to slowly fade into nothingness or, as we learn from Plato’s Myth of Er, prepare themselves for a reincarnation back to earth. And for most of them, the Underworld couldn’t have been a particularly pleasant place: it was rather like living through the same dismal nightmare over and over again, battling for breath in a world inhabited by shadows, barren of hope, ill-lit and desolate. Initially, it seems that the Ancient Greeks believed that all souls, regardless of how exemplary or dishonorable their earthly lives might have been, ended up in the same place after death.

What is the Trojan Horse? Underworld's Structure.

The river of oblivion and forgetfulness, out of which the dead souls are obliged to drink so that they can forget their earthly lives in preparation for a possible reincarnation. The river of fire, possibly leading to the depths of Tartarus. The river of sorrow and pain, black and deep. Circling the Underworld seven times, Styx was the river of hatred and unbreakable oaths the gods are often depicted as taking vows by its waters. Located in southern Italy near the city of Naples, Avernus was sometimes used as a synonym for the Underworld in Roman times it is through a cave found near this lake that Aeneas descends to the Underworld in Virgil’s “Aeneid.” Riversīy all accounts, the Underworld was a chill and shadowy place, watered by the streams of five infernal rivers: Guarded by the fearsome Hydra, the Alcyonian Lake was supposedly used by Dionysus to enter the Underworld and search for his mother Semele some even say that Hades abducted Persephone in its very vicinity.

The bottomless Alcyonian Lake at Lerna.

Situated at the tip of the middle promontory of Peloponnese (known back then as Cape Tanaerum, and called Cape Matapan today), the cave exists to this very day it was through this cave that Heracles dragged Cerberus out of Hades and Orpheus tried to bring Eurydice back to the world of the living.

A cavern near the ancient town of Tenarus.However, some other authors inform us that there were quite a few places within the known world one could use as portals to enter the kingdom of the dead: EntrancesĪccording to Homer, the Underworld was located beyond the earth-encircling river of Ocean, at the far western end of the world.

Much of what we know about how the Ancient Greeks and Romans imagined the Underworld we know from Homer’s “Odyssey” and Virgil’s “Aeneid.” However, even these two visions are somewhat conflicting, so, sometimes, we have to resort to assumptions to reconstruct the Greek Underworld in its entirety.