Many people have wondered, what’s after death? Is it Heaven and Hell? Reincarnation? Niflheim and Hel? The Duat? Nobody knows for sure but the Greeks had their own version of the afterlife, Hades, or the underworld.
Named after the god of the dead, Hades, the underworld’s proper name is Hades or the House of Hades. It’s generally split into three different regions, Tartaros, Elysium(Elysian Fields), and The Fields of Asphodel(Asphodel Meadows), with five rivers. But before we get into the geography of the underworld, we have to understand how the dead souls get there.
Typically, when a person dies, a coin is put into the person’s mouth because it comes into use later. Supposedly, either Hermes, the god of messengers and roads, or Thanatos, the god of death, will guide the dead soul onto the shore of the Styx, which is on the border of the underworld. Docked on the shore is a boat, with a ferryman aboard it called Charon. The coin that was put into the person’s mouth now comes into use, as Charon takes the coin as payment to cross the river Styx. If a dead soul does not have a coin or any form of payment, he/she gets left on the shore, and wanders the living world as ghosts. Having crossed the river Styx, a soul is then judged by three demi-god ministers of Hades, Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Aeacus. If deemed virtuous enough, the soul then moves on to Elysium(Elysian Fields). If deemed evil enough, the soul moves on to Tartaros, but if deemed not worthy or evil enough, the soul moves on to the Fields of Asphodel.
So what are these places? Elysium, also called the Elysian Fields or the Island of the Blessed is a final resting place for the souls of heroes and virtuous people. There are two versions. The first is described to be an afterlife island paradise located in the western stream of the River Oceanus, while the second, less known, is a realm seperated from the rest of the Underworld by the river Lethe. The fields of this realm were an afterlife for initiates of the Mysteries who had lived virtuous lives(the Mysteries were initiations into the cults of Demeter and Persephone). Next, the Fields of Asphodel(a kind of flower) or the Asphodel Meadows are a place in which ordinary souls reside once they are judged by the three judges. These souls have not led a life of particular virtue, but have also not lived a life full of sin, so they are sorted into the Fields of Asphodel, where they stay forever. Finally, Tartaros or Tartara is often described as a great pit in the Underworld or far beneath the Underworld that contained the souls of wicked men or otherwicked beings that have also been imprisoned in Tartaros. Some of the infamous prisoners of the Underworld are Sisyphus, Tantalus, Ixion, the Danaids, the Titans, and Typhoeus.
Thus, the general geography of the Underworld is laid out. The five rivers of the Underworld will be explained next article! Thanks for reading!
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