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Pluto (Mythology) Information

In ancient Greek religion and myth, Pluto (Πλούτων, Ploutōn) was a name for the ruler of the underworld; the god was also known as Hades, the name of the underworld itself. He has two major myths: in Greek cosmogony, he received the rule of the underworld in a three-way division of sovereignty over the world, with his brothers Zeus ruling Heaven and Poseidon the Sea; and he abducts Persephone to be his wife and the queen of his realm.[1] In other myths, he plays a secondary role, mostly as the possessor of a quest-object.[2]

The name Ploutōn was frequently conflated with that of Plutus (Πλοῦτος, Ploutos), a god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground, and because as a chthonic god Pluto ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest.[3] Ploutōn became a more positive way to talk about the ruler of the underworld, and the name was popularized through the mystery religions and philosophical systems influenced by Plato, the major Greek source on its meaning.

Pluto (genitive Plutonis) is the Latinized form of the Greek Ploutōn. Pluto's Roman equivalent is Dis Pater, whose name is most often taken to mean "Rich Father." Pluto was also identified with the obscure Roman Orcus, like Hades the name of both a god of the underworld and the underworld as a place. The name Pluto is sometimes used for the ruler of the dead in Latin literature, leading some mythology handbooks to assert misleadingly that Pluto was the Roman counterpart of Hades, rather than an adopted Greek name identified with Dis Pater or Orcus.[4]

Contents

Hesiod's Theogony

The name Plouton does not appear in Hesiod's Theogony, where the six children of Kronos and Rhea are Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Demeter, and Hestia.[5] The male children divide the world into three realms. Hades takes Persephone by force from her mother Demeter, with the consent of Zeus. Ploutos, "Wealth," appears in the Theogony as the child of Demeter and Iasion: "fine Plutus, who goes upon the whole earth and the broad back of the sea, and whoever meets him and comes into his hands, that man he makes rich, and he bestows much wealth upon him." This union, also described in the Odyssey,[6] took place in a fallow field that had been ploughed three times, in what seems to be a reference to a ritual copulation or sympathetic magic to ensure the earth's fertility.[7] "The resemblance of the name Ploutos to Plouton …," it has been noted, "cannot be accidental. Plouton is lord of the dead, but as Persephone's husband he has serious claims to the powers of fertility."[8] Demeter's son merges with her son-in-law, redefining the implacable chariot-driver whose horses trample the flowering earth.[9]

Plouton and Ploutos

Ploutos (or possibly Plouton) with the horn of abundance, in the company of Dionysos (4th century BC)

Plouton was one of several euphemistic names for Hades, described in the Iliad as the god most hateful to mortals.[10] Plato says that people prefer the name Plouton, "giver of wealth," because the name of Hades is fear-provoking.[11] The name was understood as referring to "the boundless riches of the earth, both the crops on its surface — he was originally a god of the land — and the mines hidden within it."[12] What is sometimes taken as "confusion" of the two gods Plouton and Ploutos ("Wealth") held or acquired a theological significance in antiquity; as a lord of abundance or riches, Pluto expresses the positive aspect of the god, symbolized in art by the "horn of plenty" (cornucopia),[13] by means of which Plouton is distinguished from the gloomier Hades.[14]

At the time of Ennius (ca. 239–169 BC), the leading figure in the Hellenization of Latin literature, Pluto was considered a Greek god to be explained in terms of his Roman equivalents Dis Pater and Orcus.[15] It is unclear whether Pluto had a literary presence in Rome before Ennius. Some scholars think that rituals and beliefs pertaining to Pluto entered Roman culture with the establishment of the Saecular Games in 249 BC, and that Dis pater was only a translation of Plouton.[16] Cicero identifies Pluto with Dis, explaining that "The earth in all its power and plenty is sacred to Father Dis, a name which is the same as Dives, 'The Wealthy One,' as is the Greek Plouton. This is because everything is born of the earth and returns to it again."[17]

The geographer Strabo (1st century) makes a distinction between Pluto and Hades. In writing of the mineral wealth of ancient Iberia (Roman Spain), he says that among the Turdetani, it is "Pluto, and not Hades, who inhabits the region down below."[18] In Lucian's discourse On Mourning (2nd century), Plouton's "wealth" is the dead he rules over in the abyss (chasma); the name Hades is reserved for the underworld itself.[19]

Other identifications

In Greek religious practice, Pluto is sometimes seen as the "chthonic Zeus" (Zeus Chthonios[20] or Zeus Catachthonios[21]), or at least as having functions or significance equivalent to those of Zeus but pertaining to the earth or underworld.[22] In ancient Roman and Hellenistic religion, Pluto was identified with a number of other deities, including Summanus, the god of nocturnal thunder;[23] Februus, the god from whose purification rites the month of February takes its name;[24] the syncretic god Serapis, regarded as Pluto's Egyptian equivalent;[25] and the Semitic god Muth (Μούθ). Muth was described by Philo of Byblos as the equivalent of both Thanatos (Death personified) and Pluto.[26] The ancient Greeks did not regard Pluto as "death" per se.[27]

Mythology

See also: Abduction of Persephone.

The best-known myth involving Pluto or Hades is the abduction of Persephone, also known as Kore ("the Maiden"). The earliest literary versions of the myth are a brief mention in Hesiod's Theogony and the extended narrative of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter; the ruler of the underworld is named as Hades ("the Hidden One") in both these works. In the hymn, Hades is given the epithet "son of Kronos", more commonly used of Zeus. He is an unsympathetic figure, and Persephone's unwillingness is emphasized.[28] Increased usage of the name Plouton in religious inscriptions and literary texts reflects the influence of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which treated Pluto and Persephone as a divine couple who received initiates in the afterlife; Pluto was disassociated from the "violent abductor" of Kore.[29]

The most influential Latin version of the abduction myth is found in the Metamorphoses of Ovid (Book 5), who tells the story again in the Fasti (Book 4).[30] Another major retelling is the long unfinished poem De raptu Proserpinae of Claudian. Ovid uses the name Dis, not Pluto in these two passages,[31] and Claudian uses Pluto only once; translators and editors, however, sometimes supply the more familiar "Pluto" when other epithets appear in the source text.[32] The mythographers Apollodorus (in Greek, 2nd century BC; see below) and Hyginus (in Latin, 1st-century BC)[33] in their accounts name the god as Pluto instead of Hades. The abduction myth was a popular subject for Greek and Roman art, and recurs throughout Western art and literature, where the name "Pluto" becomes common.

Offspring

The Augustan poet Vergil says that Pluto is the father of Allecto, the Fury, whom he hates.[34] In Orphic texts,[35] the Eumenides ("The Kindly Ones") are the offspring of Persephone and Zeus Chthonios, often identified with Pluto, and are distinguished from the Furies (Greek Erinyes).[36] The lack of a clear distinction between Pluto and "chthonic Zeus" confuses the question of whether in some traditions, now obscure, Persephone bore children to her husband. In the late 4th century, Claudian's epic on the abduction motivates Pluto with a desire for children. The poem is unfinished, however, and anything Claudian may have known of these traditions is lost.[37]

Mysteries and cult

Scenes from the Eleusinian narrative, with Persephone in the four-horse chariot of Pluto bottom center (red-figure volute-krater, ca. 340 BC, from Apulia)

As Pluto gained importance within the Eleusinian Mysteries throughout the 5th century BC as an embodiment of agricultural wealth, the name Hades was increasingly reserved for the underworld as a place.[38] Neither Hades nor Pluto was one of the traditional Twelve Olympians, and Hades seems to have received limited cult,[39] perhaps only at Elis, where the temple was opened once a year.[40] At the time of Plato, the Athenians honored Plouton with the "strewing of a couch" (tên klinên strôsai).[41] At Eleusis, Plouton had his own priestess.[42] Pluto was worshipped with Persephone as a divine couple at Knidos, Ephesos, Mytilene, and Sparta as well as at Eleusis, where they were known simply as God (Theos) and Goddess (Thea).[43]

In the ritual texts of the mystery religions preserved by the so-called Orphic or Bacchic gold tablets, the earliest extant examples of which date from the late 5th century BC,[44] the name Hades appears more frequently than Plouton. Hades, however, most often refers to the underground place,[45] and Plouton to the ruler who presides over it with Persephone.[46] After the end of the 4th century BC, the name Plouton begins to appear in Greek metrical inscriptions.[47] Two fragmentary tablets greet Plouton and Persephone jointly,[48] and the divine couple appear as welcoming figures in a metrical epitaph:

I know that even below the earth, if there is indeed a reward for the worthy ones, the first and foremost honors, nurse,[49] shall be yours, next to Persephone and Pluto.[50]

Hesychius identifies Plouton with Eubouleus,[51] but other ancient sources distinguish between these two underworld deities, and in the Mysteries Eubouleus plays the role of a torchbearer, possibly a guide for the initiate's return.[52]

Magic invocations

The names of both Hades and Pluto appear also in the Greek Magical Papyri and curse tablets, with Hades usually referring to the underworld, and Pluto regularly invoked in connection to Persephone.[53] Five Latin curse tablets from Rome, dating to the mid-1st century BC, promise Persephone and Pluto an offering of "dates, figs, and a black pig" if the curse is fulfilled by the desired deadline. The pig was a characteristic animal sacrifice to chthonic deities, whose victims were typically black or dark in color.[54]

A set of curse tablets written in Doric Greek and found in a tomb addresses a Pasianax, "Lord to All,"[55] sometimes taken as a title of Pluto,[56] but more recently thought to be a magical name for the corpse.[57] Pasianax is found elsewhere as an epithet of Zeus, or in the tablets may invoke a daimon like Abrasax.[58]

Sanctuaries of Pluto

Main article: Ploutonion.

A sanctuary dedicated to Pluto was called a ploutonion (Latin plutonium). The complex at Eleusis for the mysteries had a ploutonion regarded as the birthplace of the divine child Ploutos, in another instance of conflation or close association of the two.[59] Greek inscriptions record an altar of Pluto, which was to be "plastered", that is, resurfaced for a new round of sacrifices at Eleusis.[60] One of the known ploutonia was in the sacred grove between Tralleis and Nysa, where a temple of Plouton and Persephone was located. Visitors sought healing and dream oracles.[61] The ploutonion at Hierapolis, Phrygia, was connected to the rites of Cybele, but during the Roman Imperial era was subsumed by the cult of Apollo, as confirmed by archaeological investigations during the 1960s. It too was a dream oracle.[62]

Iconography

Kevin Clinton attempted to distinguish the iconography of Hades, Plouton, Ploutos, and the Eleusinian Theos in 5th-century vase painting that depicts scenes from or relating to the mysteries. In Clinton's schema, Plouton is a white-haired man holding a scepter or cornucopia, and standing with Persephone, Demeter, or both. Theos is represented by a standing figure, holding a scepter and phiale, in company with Thea. Hades is shown seated or reclining, and holds a scepter or drinking horn. "Confusion and disagreement" about the interpretation of these images still remain.[63]

In Greek literature and philosophy

The name Plouton is first used in Greek literature by Athenian playwrights.[64] In Aristophanes' comedy The Frogs (Batrachoi, 405 BC), in which "the Eleusinian colouring is in fact so pervasive,"[65] the ruler of the underworld is one of the characters, under the name of Plouton. The play depicts a mock descent to the underworld by the god Dionysus to bring back one of the dead tragic playwrights in the hope of restoring Athenian theater to its former glory. Plouton is a silent presence onstage for about 600 lines presiding over a contest among the tragedians, then announces that the winner has the privilege of returning to the upper world.[66] The play also draws on beliefs and imagery from Orphic and Dionysiac cult, and rituals pertaining to Ploutos (Plutus).[67] In a fragment from another play by Aristophanes, a character "is comically singing of the excellent aspects of being dead," asking in reference to the tripartition of sovereignty over the world, "And where do you think Pluto gets his name (i.e. "Rich"), / if not because he took the best portion? /… / How much better are things below than what Zeus possesses!"[68]

To Plato, the god of the underworld was "an agent in th[e] beneficent cycle of death and rebirth" meriting worship under the name of Plouton, a giver of spiritual wealth.[69] Plato discusses the etymology of Plouton through his interlocutor Socrates in the dialogue Cratylus. Socrates says that Plouton gives wealth (ploutos), and his name means "giver of wealth, which comes out of the earth beneath." Because the name Hades is taken to mean "the invisible," people fear what they cannot see; although they are in error about the nature of this deity's power, Socrates says, "the office and name of the God really correspond."

Persephone and Pluto[70] or Hades[71] on a pinax from Locri

He is the perfect and accomplished Sophist, and the great benefactor of the inhabitants of the other world; and even to us who are upon earth he sends from below exceeding blessings. For he has much more than he wants down there; wherefore he is called Pluto (or the rich). Note also, that he will have nothing to do with men while they are in the body, but only when the soul is liberated from the desires and evils of the body. Now there is a great deal of philosophy and reflection in that; for in their liberated state he can bind them with the desire of virtue, but while they are flustered and maddened by the body, not even father Cronos himself would suffice to keep them with him in his own far-famed chains.[72]

Since "the union of body and soul is not better than the loosing,"[73] death is not an evil. Walter Burkert thus saw Pluto as a "god of dissolution."[74] Among the titles of Pluto was Isodaitēs, "divider into equal portions," a title that connects him to the fate goddesses the Moirai.[75] Isodaitēs was also a cult title for Dionysus and Helios.[76]

In ordering his ideal city, Plato proposed a calendar in which Plouton was honored as a benefactor in the twelfth month, implicitly ranking him as one of the twelve principal deities.[77] In the Attic calendar, the twelfth month, more or less equivalent to June, was Skirophorion; the name may be connected to the rape of Persephone.[78]

Theogonies and cosmology

Euhemerism and Latinization

In the theogony of Euhemerus (4th century BC), the gods were treated as mortal rulers whose deeds were immortalized by tradition. Ennius translated Euhemerus into Latin about a hundred years later, and a passage from his version was in turn preserved by the early Christian writer Lactantius.[79] Here the union of Saturn (the Roman equivalent of Kronos) and Ops, an Italic goddess of abundance, produces Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Pluto, and Glauca:

Then Saturn took Ops to wife. Titan, the elder brother, demanded the kingship for himself. Vesta their mother, with their sisters Ceres [Demeter] and Ops, persuaded Saturn not to give way to his brother in the matter. Titan was less good-looking than Saturn; for that reason, and also because he could see his mother and sisters working to have it so, he conceded the kingship to Saturn, and came to terms with him: if Saturn had a male child born to him, it would not be reared. This was done to secure reversion of the kingship to Titan's children. They then killed the first son that was born to Saturn. Next came twin children, Jupiter and Juno. Juno was given to Saturn to see while Jupiter was secretly removed and given to Vesta to be brought up without Saturn's knowledge. In the same way without Saturn knowing, Ops bore Neptune and hid him away. In her third labor Ops bore another set of twins, Pluto and Glauce. (Pluto in Latin is Diespiter;[80] some call him Orcus.) Saturn was shown his daughter Glauce but his son Pluto was hidden and removed. Glauce then died young. That is the pedigree, as written, of Jupiter and his brothers; that is how it has been passed down to us in holy scripture.

In this theogony, which Ennius introduced into Latin literature, Saturn, "Titan,"[81] Vesta, Ceres, and Ops are siblings; Glauca is the twin of Pluto and dies mysteriously young. There are several mythological figures named Glauca; the sister of Pluto may be the Glauca who in Cicero's account of the three aspects of Diana conceived the third with the equally mysterious Upis.[82]

Apollodorus

The theogony presented by the 2nd-century BC Greek mythographer Apollodorus for the most part follows Hesiod (see above), but Apollodorus uses the name Plouton instead of Hades and says that the three brothers were each given a gift by the Cyclopes to use in their battle against the Titans: Zeus thunder and lightning; Poseidon a trident; and Pluto a helmet (kyneê).[83] The helmet is assumed to be the magical Cap of Invisibility (aidos kyneê), but Apollodorus is the only author who says it was a possession of Pluto.[84] Apollodorus also uses the name Plouton in his account of the abduction.

Orphic and philosophical systems

The Orphic theogonies are notoriously varied,[85] and Orphic cosmology influenced the varying Gnostic theogonies of late antiquity.[86] Clementine literature (4th century AD) preserves a theogony with explicit Orphic influence that also draws on Hesiod, yielding a distinctive role for Pluto. When the primordial elements came together by orderly cyclonic force, they produced a generative sphere, the "egg" from which the primeval Orphic entity Phanes is born and the world is formed. The release of Phanes and his ascent to the heavenly top of the world-egg causes the matter left in the sphere to settle in relation to its relative weight, creating the tripartite world of the traditional theogonies:[87]

Its lower part, the heaviest element, sinks downwards, and is called Pluto because of its gravity, weight, and great quantity (plêthos) of matter. After the separation of this heavy element in the middle part of the egg the waters flow together, which they call Poseidon. The purest and noblest element, the fire, is called Zeus, because its nature is glowing (ζέουσα, zeousa). It flies right up into the air, and draws up the spirit, now called Metis, that was left in the underlying moisture. And when this spirit has reached the summit of the ether, it is devoured by Zeus, who in his turn begets the intelligence (σύνεσις, sunesis), also called Pallas. And by this artistic intelligence the etherial artificer creates the whole world. This world is surrounded by the air, which extends from Zeus, the very hot ether, to the earth; this air is called Hera.[88]

This cosmogony interprets Hesiod allegorically, and so the heaviest element is identified not as the Earth, but as the netherworld of Pluto.[89] (In modern geochemistry, plutonium is the heaviest primordial element.) Supposed etymologies are used to make sense of the relation of physical process to divine name; Plouton is here connected to plêthos (abundance).[90]

In the Stoic system, Pluto represented the lower region of the air, where according to Seneca (1st century AD) the soul underwent a kind of purgatory before ascending to the ether.[91] Within the Pythagorean and Neoplatonic traditions, Pluto was allegorized as the region where souls are purified, located between the moon (as represented by Persephone) and the sun. Plutarch says that the story of Persephone leaving Pluto for a period during the year is thus a misunderstanding of the celestial and eschatological phenomena that the myth expresses; when the moon is in the shadow of Earth, Persephone and Demeter are said to embrace, but when they part, they long for each other, and the territory of Hades/Pluto comes between them.[92]

A dedicatory inscription from Smyrna describes a 1st–2nd century sanctuary to "God Himself" as the most exalted of a group of six deities, including clothed statues of Plouton Helios and Koure Selene, "Pluto the Sun" and "Kore the Moon."[93] The status of Pluto and Kore as a divine couple is marked by what the text describes as a "linen embroidered bridal curtain."[94] The two are placed as bride and groom within an enclosed temple, separately from the other deities cultivated at the sanctuary. Plouton Helios is mentioned in other literary sources in connection with Koure Selene and Helios Apollo; the sun on its nighttime course was sometimes envisioned as traveling through the underworld on its return to the east. Apuleius describes a rite in which the sun appears at midnight to the initiate at the gates of Proserpina (the Latin name of Persephone/Kore); it has been suggested that this midnight sun could be Plouton Helios.[95]

The Smyrna inscription also records the presence of Helios Apollo at the sanctuary. As two forms of Helios, Apollo and Plouton pose a dichotomy:

Helios Apollo Plouton Helios
One Many
clarity invisibility
bright dark
memory oblivion[96]

Given the collocation of deities and other details in the inscription, and on the basis of comparative material, it has been argued that the sanctuary was in the keeping of a Pythagorean sodality or "brotherhood". The relation of Orphic beliefs to the mystic strand of Pythagoreanism, or of these to Platonism and Neoplatonism, is complex and much debated.[97]

The Neoplatonist Proclus (5th century AD) considered Pluto the third demiurge, a sublunar demiurge who was also identified variously with Poseidon or Hephaestus. This idea is present in Renaissance Neoplatonism, as for instance in the cosmology of Marsilio Ficino (1433–99),[98] who translated Orphic texts into Latin for his own use.[99] Ficino saw the sublunar demiurge as "a daemonic 'many-headed' sophist, a magus, an enchanter, a fashioner of images and reflections, a shape-changer of himself and of others, a poet in a way of being and of not-being, a royal Pluto." This demiurgic figure identified with Pluto is also "'a purifier of souls' who presides over the magic of love and generation and who uses a fantastic counter-art to mock, but also … to supplement, the divine icastic or truly imitative art of the sublime translunar Demiurge."[100]

Notes

  1. ^ William Hanson, Classical Mythology: A Guide to the Mythical World of the Greeks and Romans (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 180.
  2. ^ Hanson, Classical Mythology, p. 180–181.
  3. ^ Hanson, Classical Mythology, p. 182.
  4. ^ Hanson, Classical Mythology, p. 182.
  5. ^ In Book 3 of the Sibylline Oracles, dating mostly to the 2nd century AD, Rhea gives birth to Pluto as she passes by Dodona, "where the watery paths of the River Europus flowed, and the water ran into the sea, merged with the Peneius. This is also called the Stygian river"; see Rieuwerd Buitenwerf, Book III of the Sibylline Oracles and Its Social Setting (Brill, 2003), p. 157.
  6. ^ Odyssey 5.125–128: And so it was when Demeter of the lovely hair, yielding / to her desire, lay down with Iasion and loved him / in a thrice-turned field (translation of Richmond Lattimore).
  7. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 969–74; Apostolos N. Athanassakis, Hesiod. Theogony, Works and Days, Shield (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983, 2004), p. 56.
  8. ^ Athanassakis, Hesiod, p. 56.
  9. ^ Emily Vermeule, Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (University of California Press, 1979), p. 37; Hendrik Wagenvoort, "The Origin of the Ludi Saeculares," in Studies in Roman Literature, Culture and Religion (Brill, 1956), p. 198.
  10. ^ Hanson, Classical Mythology, pp. 162 and 182, citing Homer, Iliad 9.158–159. Euphemism is a characteristic way of speaking of divine figures associated with the dead and the underworld; Joseph William Hewitt, "The Propitiation of Zeus," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 19 (1908), p. 66, considers euphemism a form of propitiation.
  11. ^ Plato, Cratylus 403a; Glenn R. Morrow, Plato's Cretan City: A Historical Interpretation of the Laws (Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 452–453.
  12. ^ Fernando Navarro Antolin, Lygdamus: Corpus Tibullianum III.1–6, Lygdami Elegiarum Liber (Brill, 1996), pp. 145–146.
  13. ^ Charlotte R. Long, The Twelve Gods of Greece and Rome (Brill, 1987), p. 179; Phyllis Fray Bober, “Cernunnos: Origin and Transformation of a Celtic Divinity,” American Journal of Archaeology 55 (1951), p. 28, examples in Greek and Roman art in note 98; Hewitt, "The Propitiation of Zeus," p. 65.
  14. ^ Tsagalis, Inscribing Sorrow, pp. 101–102; Morrow, Plato's Cretan City, pp. 452–453; John J. Hermann, Jr., "Demeter-Isis or the Egyptian Demeter? A Graeco-Roman Sculpture from an Egyptian Workshop in Boston" in Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 114 (1999), p. 88.
  15. ^ Pluto Latine est Dis pater, alii Orcum vocant ("In Latin, Pluto is Dis Pater; others call him Orcus"): Ennius, Euhemerus frg. 7 in the edition of Vahlen = Var. 78 = E.H. Warmington, Remains of Old Latin (Heinemann, 1940), vol. 1, p. 421. The Augustan poet Horace retains the Greek accusative form of the noun (Plutona instead of Latin Plutonem) at Carmen 2.14.7, as noted by John Conington, P. Vergili Maronis Opera (London, 1883), vol. 3, p. 36.
  16. ^ H.D. Jocelyn, The Tragedies of Ennius (Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 331, with reference to Kurt Latte, Römische Religionsgeschichte (C.H. Beck, 1967, 1992), p. 246ff.
  17. ^ Cicero, De natura deorum 2.66, translation of John MacDonald Ross (Penguin Books, 1972): Terrena autem vis omnis atque natura Diti patri dedicata est, qui dives, ut apud Graecos Πλούτων quia et recidunt omnia in terras et oriuntur e terris.
  18. ^ Strabo 3.9, citing Poseidonius as his source, who in turn cites Demetrius of Phalerum on the silver mines of Attica, where "the people dig as strenuously as if they expected to bring up Pluto himself" (Loeb Classical Library translation, in the LacusCurtius edition).
  19. ^ Lucian, On Mourning (see Greek text); Peter Bolt, Jesus' Defeat of Death: Persuading Mark's Early Readers (Cambridge University Press, 2003) discusses this passage (pp. 126–127} and Greco-Roman conceptions of the underworld as a context for Christian eschatology passim.
  20. ^ Noel Robertson, Religion and Reconciliation in Greek Cities: The Sacred Laws of Selinus and Cyrene (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 102.
  21. ^ Hewitt, "The Propitiation of Zeus," p. 74, asserts that "Zeus Catachthonius seems certainly to be Pluto." Other deities to whom the title Katachthonios was affixed include Demeter, Persephone, and the Furies; Eugene Lane, "The Epithets of Men," Corpus monumentorum religionis dei Menis: Interpretation and Testimonia (Brill, 1976), vol. 3, p. 77, citing the entry on Katachthonioi in Roscher, Lexikon II, i, col. 998ff.
  22. ^ Zeus Chthonius and Pluto are seen as having "the same significance" in the Orphic Hymns and in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus (6.156ff.), by Hewitt, "The Propitiation of Zeus," p. 74, note 7. Overlapping functions are also suggested when Hesiod advises farmers to pray to "Zeus Chthonius and to holy Demeter that they may cause the holy corn of Demeter to teem in full perfection." This form of Zeus receives the black victims typically offered to underworld deities.
  23. ^ Martianus Capella, De Nuptiis 2.161.
  24. ^ Martianus Capella, De nuptiis 2.149; Isidore of Seville, Etymologies 5.33.4; Servius, note to Vergil's Georgics 1.43 (Vergil refrains from naming the god); John Lydus, De mensibus 4.25.
  25. ^ Plutarch, De Iside 27 (361e): "In fact, men assert that Pluto is none other than Serapis and that Persephone is Isis, even as Archemachus of Euboea has said, and also Heracleides Ponticus who holds the oracle in Canopus to be an oracle of Pluto" (Loeb Classical Library translation of 1936, LacusCurtius edition). Also spelled Sarapis. See Jaime Alvar, Romanising Oriental Gods: Myth, Salvation, and Ethics in the Cults of Cybele, Isis, and Mithras, translated by Richard Gordon (Brill, 2008), pp. 53 online and 58; Hermann, "Demeter-Isis or the Egyptian Demeter?", p. 84.
  26. ^ Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 1.10.34, attributing this view to the semi-legendary Phoenician author Sanchuniathon via Philo of Byblos. In addition to asserting that Muth was equivalent to both Thanatos (Death personified) and Pluto, Philo said he was the son of Kronos and Rhea. See entry on "Mot," Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, edited by Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking and Pieter Willem van der Horst (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1999, 2nd ed.), p. 598, and Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide, edited by Sarah Iles Johnston (Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 479. Philo's cosmogony as summarized by Eusebius bears some similarities to that of Hesiod and the Orphics; see Sanchuniathon's history of the gods and "Theogonies and cosmology" below. Philo said that these were reinterpretations of "Phoenician" beliefs by the Greeks.
  27. ^ Hansen, Classical Mythology, p. 182.
  28. ^ Diane Rayor, The Homeric Hymns (University of California Press, 2004), pp. 107–109.
  29. ^ Christos Tsagalis, Inscribing Sorrow: Fourth-century Attic Funerary Epigrams (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), pp. 101–102.
  30. ^ Andrew D. Radford, The Lost Girls: Demeter-Persephone and the Literary Imagination, 1850–1930 (Editions Rodopi, 2007), p. 24. For an extensive comparison of Ovid's two treatments of the myth, with reference to versions such as the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, see Stephen Hinds, The Metamorphosis of Persephone: Ovid and the Self-Conscious Muse (Cambridge University Press, 1987), limited preview online.
  31. ^ In Book 6 of the Aeneid (the catabasis of Aeneas), Vergil also names the ruler of the underworld as Dis, not Pluto.
  32. ^ See also, for instance, J.J.L. Smolenaars, Statius. Thebaid VII: A Commentary (Brill, 1994), passim, or John G. Fitch, Seneca's 'Hercules Furens' (Cornell University Press, 1987), passim, where the ruler of the underworld is referred to as "Pluto" in the English commentary, but as "Dis" or with other epithets in the Latin text.
  33. ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 146.
  34. ^ Vergil, Aeneid 7.327: odit et ipse pater Pluton … monstrum.
  35. ^ Orphic fragments 197 and 360 (edition of Kern) and Orphic Hymn 70, as cited by Helene P. Foley, Hymn to Demeter (Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 110, note 97.
  36. ^ Robertson, Religion and Reconciliation in Greek Cities, p. 102. Vergil conflates the Eumenides and the Furies, and elsewhere says that Night (Nox) is their mother. Proclus, in his commentary on the Cratylus of Plato, provides passages from the Orphic Rhapsodies that give two different genealogies of the Eumenides, one making them the offspring of Persephone and Pluto (or Hades) and the other reporting a prophesy that they were to be born to Persephone and Apollo (Robertson, Religion and Reconciliation, p. 101).
  37. ^ Foley, Hymn to Demeter, p. 110. Justin Martyr alludes to children of Pluto (Apology 2.5), but neither names nor enumerates them; see discussion of the context by David Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (University of California Press, 1992), pp. 193–194. In defining the cult title Ἰσοδαίτης (Isodaitês, 778 in the 1867 edition of Schmidt), Hesychius mentions a "son of Pluto."
  38. ^ Tsagalis, Inscribing Sorrow, p. 102. The shift may have begun as early as the 6th century. The earliest evidence of the assimilation of Hades and Ploutos/Plouton is a phiale from Douris dating to ca. 490 BC, according to Jan N. Bremmer, "W. Brede Kristensen and the Religions of Greece and Rome," in Man, Meaning, and Mystery: Hundred Years of History of Religions in Norway. The Heritage of W. Brede Kristensen (Brill, 2000), pp. 125–126. A point of varying emphasis is whether the idea of Plouton as a god of wealth was a later development, or an inherent part of his nature, owing to the underground storage of grain in the pithoi that were also used for burial. For a summary of these issues, see Cora Angier Sowa, Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns (Bolchazy-Carducci, 1984, 2005), p. 356, note 105.
  39. ^ Morrow, Plato's Cretan City, p. 452; Long, The Twelve Gods, p. 154.
  40. ^ Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, p. 281.
  41. ^ Long, The Twelve Gods, p. 179. See lectisternium for the "strewing of couches" in ancient Rome. Two inscriptions from Attica record the names of individuals who participated in the ritual at different times: IG II21933 and 1934, as cited by Robert Develin, Athenian Officials, 684–321 B.C. (Cambridge University Press, 1989, 2003), p. 417.
  42. ^ Nicholas F. Jones, The Associations of Classical Athens: The Response to Democracy (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 125, citing IG II21363, dating ca. 330–270; Karl Kerényi, Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter (Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 110–111.
  43. ^ Tsagalis, Inscribing Sorrow, pp. 101–102.
  44. ^ Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston, Ritual Texts and the Afterlife (Routledge, 2007), first page (not numbered).
  45. ^ The recurring phrase "house of Hades" (῾Αΐδαο δόμος) can be read ambiguously as either the divine being or the place, or both. In the numbering of Graf and Johnston, Ritual Texts and the Afterlife, "house of Hades" appears in Tablet 1, line 2 (Hipponion, Calabria, Magna Graecia, ca. 400 BC), which refers again to Hades as a place ("what you are seeking in the darkness of murky Hades", line 9), with the king of the underworld (ὑποχθονίοι βασιλεϊ, hypochthonioi basilei) alluded to in line 13; Tablet 2, line 1 (Petelia, present-day Strongoli, Magna Graecia, 4th century BC); and Tablet 25 (Pharsalos, Thessaly, 350–300 BC). Hades is also discernible on the "carelessly inscribed" Tablet 38 from a Hellenistic-era grave in Hagios Athanasios, near Thessalonike.
  46. ^ Giovanni Casadio and Patricia A. Johnston, "Introduction", Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia (University of Texas Press, 2009), p. 21.
  47. ^ Tsagalis, Inscribing Sorrow, p. 101.
  48. ^ Tablets 15 (Eleuthera 6, 2nd/1st century BC) and 17 (Rethymnon 1, from the early Roman Empire, 25–40 AD), from Crete, in the numbering of Graf and Johnston.
  49. ^ Sometimes read as "father," as in the translation given by Alberto Bernabé and Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets (Brill, 2008), p. 84.
  50. ^ Παρὰ Φερσεφόνει Πλούτωνί τε: Tsagalis, Inscribing Sorrow, pp. 100–101. Tsagalis discusses this inscription in light of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and the Thesmophoria.
  51. ^ The entry in Hesychius reads: Εὐβουλεύς (sch. Nic. Al. 14) · ὁ Πλούτων. παρὰ δὲ τοῖς πολλοῖς ὁ Ζεὺς ἐν Κυρήνη (Eubouleus: ho Ploutôn. para de toîs polloîs ho Zeus en Kyrene), 643 (Schmidt).
  52. ^ Kevin Clinton, "The Mysteries of Demeter and Kore," in A Companion to Greek Religion (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), pp. 347–353. In the view of Lewis Richard Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States (Clarendon Press, 1907), vol. 3, p. 145, Eubouleus was originally a title referring to the "good counsel" the ruler of the underworld was able to give and which was sought at Pluto's dream oracles; by the 2nd century BC, however, he had acquired a separate identity.
  53. ^ Hans Dieter Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation (University of Chicago Press, 1986, 1992), passim; John G. Gager, Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 12 (examples invoking Pluto pp. 99, 135, 143–144, 207–209) and passim on Hades.
  54. ^ Bolt, Jesus' Defeat of Death, p. 152; John Scheid, "Sacrifices for Gods and Ancestors", in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 264.
  55. ^ Daniel Ogden, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 212, with English translation of the curse.
  56. ^ Gager, Curse Tablets, p. 131, with translations of both tablets, and note 35.
  57. ^ Derek Collins, Magic in the Ancient Greek World (Blackwell, 2008), p. 73.
  58. ^ Esther Eidinow, "Why the Athenians Began to Curse," in Debating the Athenian Cultural Revolution: Art, Literature, Philosophy and Politics 430–380 BC (Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 50; Ogden, Magic, Withcraft, and Ghosts, p. 212.
  59. ^ Bernard Dietrich, "The Religious Prehistory of Demeter's Eleusinian Mysteries," in La soteriologia dei culti orientali nell' Impero Romano (Brill, 1982), p. 454.
  60. ^ Robertson, Religion and Reconciliation, p. 163 online, citing IG 13356.155 and IG 221672.140; see also The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: Topography and Architecture (American School of Classical Studies, 1997), p. 76, note 31.
  61. ^ Strabo 14.1.44; "Summaries of Periodicals," American Journal of Archaeology 7 (1891), p. 209; Hewitt, "The Propitiation of Zeus," p. 93.
  62. ^ Frederick E. Brenk, "Jerusalem-Hierapolis. The Revolt under Antiochos IV Epiphanes in the Light of Evidence for Hierapolis of Phrygia, Babylon, and Other Cities," in Relighting the Souls: Studies in Plutarch, in Greek Literature, Religion, and Philosophy, and in the New Testament Background (Franz Steiner, 1998), pp. 382–384, citing Photius, Life of Isidoros 131 on the dream.
  63. ^ Kevin Clinton, Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries (Stockholm, 1992), pp. 105–113, as summarized by Catherine M. Keesling, "Endoios's Painting from the Themistoklean Wall: A Reconstruction," Hesperia 68.4 (1999), p. 544, note 160.
  64. ^ Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, p. 281.
  65. ^ A.M. Bowie, Aristophanes: Myth, Ritual and Comedy (Cambridge University Press, 1993, 1996), p. 229.
  66. ^ As summarized by Benjamin Bickley Rogers, The Comedies of Aristophanes (London, 1902), pp. xvii and 214 (note to line 1414).
  67. ^ Bowie, Aristophanes, pp. 231–233, 269–271.
  68. ^ Bernabé and Jiménez San Cristóbal, Instructions for the Netherworld, pp. 127–128.
  69. ^ Morrow, Plato's Cretan City, pp. 452–453.
  70. ^ Identified as Pluto by Bernabé and Jiménez San Cristóbal, Instructions for the Netherworld, p. 275.
  71. ^ Identified as Hades by Hansen, Classical Mythology, p. 181.
  72. ^ Translation by Benjamin Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato (London, 1873), vol. 1.
  73. ^ Plato, Laws 828d, translation from Long, The Twelve Gods, p. 69.
  74. ^ Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (Harvard University Press, 1985, originally published 1977 in German), pp. 231, 336. See also Homo Necans (University of California Press, 1983, originally published 1972 in German), p. 143.
  75. ^ Hesychius, entry on Ἰσοδαίτης, 778 in the 1867 edition of Schmidt, as translated and discussed by Richard Seaford, Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 51. Hesychius notes that Isodaites may alternatively refer to a son of Pluto as well as Pluto himself.
  76. ^ H.S. Versnel, Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion: Transition and Reversal in Myth and Ritual (Brill, 1993, 1994), p. 119, especially note 93.
  77. ^ Plato, Laws 828 B-D; Morrow, Plato's Cretan City p. 452; Long, The Twelve Gods, p. 179.
  78. ^ Morrow, Plato's Cretan City, p. 453; Long, The Twelve Gods, p. 179.
  79. ^ Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1.14; Brian P. Copenhaver, Polydore Vergil: On Discovery (Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 564.
  80. ^ This parenthetical remark is part of the original text, which is more often read as Dis pater. The relation of the title Dis Pater to Diespiter in Latin is debated; the latter is usually thought to refer to Jupiter.
  81. ^ "Titan" usually refers to a class or race of deities, but sometimes means Helios or other divine personifications of the Sun.
  82. ^ Cicero, De natura deorum 3.58: "Likewise, there are multiple Dianas. The first is said to have been born as a winged Cupid, with Jove and Proserpina [as parents]. The second, whom we regard as the daughter of the third Jove and Latona, is better known. A tradition holds that Upis is the father and Glauca the mother of the third [Diana]" (Dianae item plures: prima Iovis et Proserpinae, quae pinnatum Cupidinem genuisse dicitur; secunda notior, quam Iove tertio et Latona natam accepimus; tertiae pater Upis traditur, Glauce mater: eam saepe Graeci Upim paterno nomine appellant); Copenhaver, Polydore Vergil: On Discovery, p. 564.
  83. ^ Apollodorus, The Library 1.1–2, 1911 Loeb Classical Library edition, translation and notes by J.G. Frazer.
  84. ^ Hansen, Classical Mythology, p. 182. The verbal play of aidos, "invisible," and Hades is thought to account for Apollodorus's attribution of the helmet to the ruler of the underworld, since no narratives record his use or possession of it. Apparent references to the "helmet of Pluto" in other authors, such as Irenaeus (Against Heresies), are misleading; "Pluto" is substituted by the English translator for "Hades."
  85. ^ Gábor Betegh, The Derveni Papyrus: Cosmology, Theology and Interpretations (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 151, has noted that "one cannot establish a linear descent between the different versions"; though efforts to do so have been made, "we cannot find a single mytheme which would occur invariably in all the accounts and could thus create the core of all Orphic theogonies."
  86. ^ J. van Amersfoort, "Traces of an Alexandrian Orphic Theogony in the Pseudo-Clementines," in Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions, Presented to Gilles Quispel on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday (Brill, 1981), p. 13.
  87. ^ Van Amersfoort, "Traces of an Alexandrian Orphic Theogony," pp. 16–17.
  88. ^ Van Amersfoort, "Traces of an Alexandrian Orphic Theogony," pp. 17–18. Betegh, The Derveni Papyrus, p. 151, summarizes this version as follows: "The story starts with Chaos; then comes the egg; the bottom part of the egg submerges and becomes Pluton, and Kronos — not a separate god but identified with Chronos — swallows this heavy matter. The middle part, covering the first sediment, becomes Poseidon. The upper part of the egg, being purer and lighter, fiery in nature, goes upward and is called Zeus, and so forth."
  89. ^ Van Amersfoort, "Traces of an Alexandrian Orphic Theogony," p. 23; Betegh, The Derveni Papyrus, p. 150.
  90. ^ Arthur Bernard Cook, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion (Cambridge University Press, 1925), p. 746.
  91. ^ Cornutus 5; Varro, De lingua latina 5.66; Seneca, Consolatio ad Marciam 25; all as cited by Joseph B. Mayor, De natura deorum libri tres (Cambridge University Press, 1883), vol. 2, p. 175, note to 2.26.66.
  92. ^ Plutarch, The Face of the Moon, LacusCurtius edition of the Loeb Classical Library translation online; discussed by Leonard L. Thompson, "ISmyrna 753: Gods and the One God," in Reading Religions in the Ancient World: Essays Presented to Robert McQueen Grant on His 90th Birthday (Brill, 2007), p. 113, with reference also to Iamblichus.
  93. ^ Thompson, "ISmyrna 753," p. 101ff. The other deities are Helios Apollo, who is paired with Artemis (p. 106); Zeus, who is subordinated to "God Himself"; and Mēn, an Anatolian moon deity sometimes identified with Attis, who had a table before him for ceremonial dining (pp. 106, 109).
  94. ^ Thompson, "ISmyrna 753," pp. 104–105.
  95. ^ Thompson, "ISmyrna 753," p. 111.
  96. ^ Thompson, "ISmyrna 753," pp. 110–111, 114, with reference to the teachings of Ammonius as recorded by Plutarch, The E at Delphi. See also Frederick E. Brenk, "Plutarch's Middle Platonic God," Gott und die Götter bei Plutarch (Walter de Gruyter, 2005), pp. 37–43, on Plutarch's etymological plays that produce these antitheses.
  97. ^ Thompson, "ISmyrna 753," passim, conclusion presented on p. 119.
  98. ^ Entry on "Demiurge," The Classical Tradition (Harvard University Press, 2010), p. 256.
  99. ^ Entry on "Orpheus," The Classical Tradition, p. 665. It was even said that the soul of Orpheus had been reborn into Ficino.
  100. ^ Entry on "Demiurge," in The Classical Tradition p. 256.

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