Myth Topic 11
Myths of Death
Greeks—Bleak
conception of the afterlife
Homer's Odyssey (Book 11)
Vergil's Aeneid (Book 6)
Hades—“the unseen one”
Pluto—“the
enricher” (Romans:
also “Dis / Dives” rich”)
realm:
Orcus
Kidnaps and marries his
niece Persephone
daughter
of Demeter
connection
of death and fertility
Erinyes—Furies
retribution
Odyssey:
Lines 596 ff.:
The Interior of Hades
Description of
Hades proper
Minos the Judge
Those in Torment
Tityos
raped
Leto
vulture
eating his liver
Tantalus
tested
gods (father of Pelops)
trickster
Tricked death
A fixed list: nobody is added
this
is for really famous people; not ordinary dead
Meets the ghost
of Heracles
Other possibility
of afterlife mentioned in Homer
—Elysium (Elysian
Fields)
for
Menelaus, Odyssey, 4.590-599
See also Odyssey 24.1-212
the
ghosts of the suitors are “welcomed” to Hades
