ATTRIBUTES

As befits a death god, Hades was rarely portrayed or described in Greek art or literature; we must look to the Latin sources. Seneca says "he has Jove's [Zeus'] look, but Jove's when he does thunder." Hades is not a figure of evil to the Greeks, but he is terribly just.

THE NAME

A common theory holds that "Hades" is a hypochoristic, a euphemistic epithet used to refer to a tabu name or idea. Several etymologies have been offered. One older theory holds that Aides derives from Avides, "The Unseen." Another, even less likely, derivation suggests that it comes directly from Vides, "The (All)-Seeing" (because he watches over human activity). Actually, the name Hades derives from an Indo-European word (*hawidas) meaning "Uniter." He brings about the (re)union of families after death.

The problem with hypochoristics is that they eventually themselves take on tabu association; thus the Greeks commonly employed hypochoristics for the name Hades itself, including Pluton ("The Rich") -- his name at Eleusis, center of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and the origin of his Latin name Pluto -- Polydegmon ("The Hospitable"), and Eubuleos ("Wise in Counsel").

EARLY ATTRIBUTES

The otherworld land of the dead quickly took the name of its master, Hades. In early tradition it was located to the north ["north" is cognate to Greek nerteros, "pertaining to the netherworld"]. Homer describes it in negative terms appropriate to his heroic worldview, but other images emerge in his poetry. It is a watery place and is "famous for colts," implying abundant fodder. Finally, Homer mentions the Elysian Field (from Indo-European "meadowy field"), a special place for a blessed few. Water in the underworld is a feature of Indic tradition, and Elysion is cognate to the Hittite wellu-, or "meadow", of the Hittite Otherworld. The oldest conception may have been of an idealized Indo-European landscape.

BORROWINGS

If Homer's description of the land of the dead is rooted in Indo-European tradition, it also borrows from Near Eastern tradition in its portrayal of the region as a shadowy, dismal place. Other Greek accounts borrow further, making Hades out as a house or complex of houses. It would seem that the guardian of the gate, the three-headed hound Kerberos, fits best with this imagery, although he was regularly associated with a watery Hades as well. He could be appeased with honey-cakes, which were regularly buried with the dead. A dubious effort has been made to connect linguistically the name of the Greek hell-hound Kerberos, and a Sanskrit adjective, sabala, "spotted, varicolored," that is used to describe one of the dogs of Yama, the Indic god of the dead. As one prominent scholar has said: "even after more force than the comparative method in linguistics will normally allow, all one gains by postulating such a correspondence is the somewhat incongruous image of a Proto-Indo-European canine guard of the realm of the dead who answered to the name of "Spot!"

REWARD AND PUNISHMENT

In the early traditions there is no sense of reward or punishment. Homer describes three cases of torment in Hades -- those of Tantalos, Sisyphos, and Tityos -- but it is a late interpolation. Divine judgement and infernal judges (often the Cretan figures Minos and Rhadymanthos) seem to be the outgrowth of the mystery religion known as Orphism.

The Cretan Zeus was a dieing and reviving god, a god of the underworld as well as the sky; in Classical times his "tomb" was a tourist attraction. Another name for Hades was Zeus Katakhthonios, "The Subterranian Zeus." it is possible that originally one god ruled over both the lands of the living and of the dead. A similar division is found in the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European myth.

Could Poseidon also be derived from the sky god Zeus? In Arkadian tradition -- a source of many of the oldest Greek traditions -- Poseidon and Demeter mate in horse form and create Despoina ("the Lady" = Persephone), but in other versions it is Zeus and Demeter who produce Persephone. Similarly, in Indic tradition a "new" god was created when the general sky-god/earth-goddess mating was particularized to a horse-god/earth-goddess mating.

If the three "brothers" derive from a single god the trebling must have occurred shortly after the Greeks arrived, because the distinctions are recorded in Linear B during the Mycenaean period.