The Underworld

Hidden deep within the earth and ruled by the god Hades and his wife Persephone, the Underworld was the kingdom of the dead in Greek mythology, the sunless place where the souls of those who died went after death. Homer knows the rivers Acheron, Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus, a branch of the Styx, in it, and later writers add the Lethe. In Virgil’s Aeneid it has regions such as Tartarus (for the worst transgressors), Elysium (for the blessed), the Fields of Mourning (for those whom love wasted away), while Homer places the souls of most dead in the Asphodel Meadow.

The Geography of the Underworld

Much of what we know about how the Ancient Greeks and Romans imagined the Underworld we know from Homer’s “Odyssey” (book 11 and the opening of book 24) and Virgil’s “Aeneid” (book 6). However, even these two visions differ, so we have to piece the Greek Underworld together from several writers; there was no single, official map.

Entrances

According to Homer, the Underworld was located beyond the earth-encircling river of Ocean, in the land of the Cimmerians, which the sun never looks upon (Odyssey 11.13–19). Circe tells Odysseus to beach his ship by Ocean, near a grove of Persephone, and walk to the house of Hades, where Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus flow into the Acheron (Odyssey 10.508–515). However, other authors tell us that there were places within the known world that could be used as portals to the kingdom of the dead:

A cavern near the town of Taenarum. At the tip of the middle promontory of the Peloponnese, on the headland of Taenarum, Pausanias saw a temple like a cave, and he reports that some Greek poets say Heracles brought the hound of Hades up from the Underworld there, though he adds that no road leads underground through the cave (Pausanias 3.25.4–6). Virgil sends Orpheus to Hades by the jaws of Taenarus to bring back Eurydice (Georgics 4.467–470).
The bottomless Alcyonian Lake at Lerna. Pausanias says that the Argives believed Dionysus went down to Hades through this lake to bring up his mother Semele, with the way shown to him by Palymnus, and that the lake has no bottom (Pausanias 2.37.5).
The volcanic Lake Avernus. Located in southern Italy near Naples, Avernus gave its name to the Underworld in Roman poetry; it is by a cave near this lake, guided by the Sibyl of Cumae, that Aeneas descends to the Underworld in Virgil’s “Aeneid” (Aeneid 6.236–263).

Rivers

By all accounts, the Underworld was a chill and shadowy place, watered by the streams of infernal rivers. Homer names three: Acheron, Cocytus (a branch of the Styx) and Pyriphlegethon (Odyssey 10.513–515). Later writers add the Lethe, and the number of five rivers is a later tally rather than Homer’s.

The Styx. In Virgil it winds nine times round the dead (Aeneid 6.439). It is the river by which the gods swear their great oath: Hesiod says that if a god swears falsely by the water of the Styx, he lies breathless for a year and is shut out of the gods’ company for nine more (Theogony 775–806).
The Acheron. Homer’s river into which the others flow (Odyssey 10.513–515); in Virgil it carries its sands into the Cocytus (Aeneid 6.295–297).
The Cocytus. A branch of the Styx in Homer (Odyssey 10.513–515).
The Phlegethon. Homer’s Pyriphlegethon, “fire-blazing” (Odyssey 10.513); Virgil describes it as a river of flame around Tartarus (Aeneid 6.550–551).
The Lethe. A river of forgetfulness, not found in Homer: in Virgil the souls who are to be born again drink from it “long oblivion” so that they may return to the upper world without memory (Aeneid 6.703–751). Plato’s Myth of Er also has the souls drink from the river of Carelessness (Republic 10.621a–b).

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Underworld's Structure

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. In Homer, the dead are shades, with no strength in their limbs and no wits; they must drink the blood of sacrificed animals before they can speak to Odysseus (Odyssey 11.23–50, 11.152–224). Achilles even says that he would rather be a servant to a poor man on earth than ruler of all the dead (Odyssey 11.488–491). Plato’s Myth of Er shows another view, in which souls are rewarded or punished for a thousand years and then choose a new life (Republic 10.614–621).

However, this all changed at some stage, and according to later writers, the Underworld was divided into several different regions:

Tartarus

In “The Iliad” Zeus tells the gods that he will hurl any god who disobeys him into “murky Tartarus, far, far away, where is the deepest gulf beneath the earth, whose gates are of iron and its threshold of bronze, as far beneath Hades as heaven is above earth” (Iliad 8.10–16). Hesiod likewise measures Tartarus by a bronze anvil that would fall nine days from heaven to earth and nine more from earth to Tartarus (Theogony 720–725). It was originally the prison of the rebels against the divine order: the Titans, whom Zeus cast down there (Theogony 717–735), and, in Apollodorus, the Cyclopes, whom Uranus bound and cast into Tartarus (Library 1.1.2). Later it came to house the worst offenders, who endure punishments fitting their crimes. Some of Tartarus’ most famous inhabitants are Tityos, Tantalus and Sisyphus, whom Odysseus sees in the Underworld (Odyssey 11.576–600), and Ixion, bound to a wheel (Pindar, Pythian 2.21–48).

The Fields of Mourning

As we read in the “Aeneid,” the Fields of Mourning are reserved for the souls of those “whom ruthless love did waste away;” here, they “wander in paths unseen, or in the gloom of dark myrtle grove: not even in death have they forgot their griefs of long ago” (Aeneid 6.440–444). Virgil names Phaedra, Procris, Eriphyle, Evadne, Pasiphae, Laodamia, Caeneus and, of course, Dido (Aeneid 6.445–476). Homer, who does not know the Fields of Mourning as a place, nevertheless mentions Phaedra and Procris among the women Odysseus sees (Odyssey 11.321).

The Asphodel Meadows

We don’t know that much about the Asphodel Meadow – it could have been a realm of neutrality – but we do know that it is where the shades dwell in Homer: Hermes leads the souls of the dead Suitors past Oceanus, the White Rock, the gates of the Sun and the land of dreams to the meadow of asphodel, where the spirits dwell, and where they find Achilles (Odyssey 24.1–14). In Book 11, Odysseus tells Achilles: “Grieve not at all that thou art dead”, for he rules mightily among the dead (Odyssey 11.482–486). “If I could choose,” replies Achilles memorably, “I would rather be a paid servant in a poor man’s house and be above ground than king of kings among the dead” (Odyssey 11.488–491). Achilles then strides away over the meadow of asphodel (Odyssey 11.539), and Orion is seen driving wild beasts over it (Odyssey 11.572–575).

The Elysian Fields

Other authors place the exceptional dead in a wholly different realm called Elysium or the Isles of the Blessed (if the two are one and the same), where only certain mortals were privileged with a life free of toil and pain. In Homer, Proteus tells Menelaus that he will be taken to the Elysian plain at the ends of the earth, where fair-haired Rhadamanthus lives and life is easiest for men, with no snow, storm or rain (Odyssey 4.561–569). Hesiod places the heroes on the Isles of the Blessed near Ocean, with Cronus as their king (Works and Days 166–173). Pindar says that Rhadamanthus rules there, with Cronus beside him, and counts Peleus, Cadmus and Achilles among its inhabitants (Olympian 2.68–83). It was a land of eternal sunlight and flowery meadows; in Virgil, the fields are bright with their own sun and stars (Aeneid 6.637–678).

The Journey of a Soul After Death

Hermes

Upon death, a soul was led by Hermes near the entrance of the Underworld: Homer shows him calling up the Suitors’ ghosts with his golden wand and leading them down the dank ways (Odyssey 24.1–14).

Charon

In Virgil, a ferry rowed by Charon, the infernal boatman, takes the souls across the Acheron to the Underworld proper; Charon is a squalid old man who takes only those who have been buried and keeps the unburied waiting on the shore for a hundred years (Aeneid 6.298–330). Aeneas was only able to enter the Underworld once his guide, the Sibyl of Cumae, showed Charon the golden bough, Aeneas’ gift for Persephone (Aeneid 6.136–148, 6.384–416).

Cerberus

After the boat ride, the souls entered through the gates of the Underworld; the gates were guarded by the multiheaded dog Cerberus, who, in Hesiod, fawns on those who go in but does not let them out again, and devours anyone he catches trying to leave (Theogony 767–774). Hesiod gives him fifty heads (Theogony 312); later writers say three (Pausanias 3.25.6).

The Judges

The souls then appeared before judges. In Homer Odysseus sees Minos, golden sceptre in hand, giving judgment to the dead (Odyssey 11.568–571). In Plato, Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus judge the dead in a meadow at a fork in the road, one path leading to the Isles of the Blessed and the other to Tartarus (Gorgias 523e–524a). Most souls seem to have ended up in the Asphodel Meadow; for better or for worse, others were singled out for special treatment.