The Three Brothers- Hades

Hades- the god of the underworld and wealth within the earth i.e jewels, metals etc. He is most famous for abducting Persephone, a goddess of nature who was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Hades fell for her when he saw her with her nymphs picking flowers and abducted her. It is said that either Hecate/Hekate or Helios witnessed this and informed Demeter and the nymphs with her became the Sirens. Demeter in her grief let the earth fade away causing famine, unable to ignore this Zeus asked Hades to return Persephone. Persephone however had eaten pomegranate seeds and thus was forever bound to the Underworld, as a result she had to spend either three months with Hades and nine with Demeter or six with Hades and six with Demeter. Demeter's grief as a result of her daughter's departure and her joy at being reunited with her led to the seasons. According to some versions of the tale Zeus actually encouraged the abduction and was aware of it, and that Persephone actually fell in love with Hades.

Hades and Persephone from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys

He was sometimes known as Pluton the god of wealth and owned a helmet of invisibility/ Helm of Darkness. He was associated with dogs, black sheep, the screech owl the cypress, the asphodel and the narcissus plant.

He tried to take Leuce/Leuka the Oceanid as a lover, in one version he succeeds and she remains with him until she dies and he turns her into the poplar tree but in another version Persephone intervenes before he can abduct her by killing her or turning her into the poplar. He also tried to take the naiad Mentha/Menthe/Minthe as a lover but Persephone turned her into mint/mentha plant.

When Theseus and Pirithous came to abduct Persephone to be Pirithous' wife Hades pretended to offer them hospitality but when they sat down snakes bound them to their seats. Theseus was rescued by Heracles but Pirithous could not be freed as his crime of coveting a god's wife was too great.
He also brought about the death of Apollo's son Asclepius/Asklepios, accusing him of raising the dead or preventing too many from going to the Underworld, he compelled Zeus to fix this so Zeus killed him with a lightning bolt and Apollo killed the Cyclopes that made the lightning bolt in response. Alternatively, Zeus killed Asclepius without being provoked by Hades.

When King Neleus of Pylos refused to cleanse Heracles of the murder of Iphitos Heracles marched on him and Pylos. Hera, Ares, Poseidon (Neleus' father) and Hades sided with Neleus whilst only Athena, or Athena and Zeus, sided with Heracles. Heracles wounded Ares with his spear, Hera with a three pronged arrow to her breast and Hades in the shoulder with an arrow. As the arrows had been poisoned with blood from the Hydra the gods were in immense pain until Asclepius healed them. Heracles may have also wounded Apollo with an arrow after he tried to heal Ares.

He had the three headed dog Cerebus/Kerberos, a child of Echidna and Typhon and brother to the two headed hound Orthrus to guard the entrance of the Underworld, which was divided into Tartarus for the damned, Asphodel for those who were neither good nor bad and the Elysium Fields for the good, the Isles of the Blessed were there and were for heroes. Charon/Kharon was the ferryman who took souls across the rivers Styx and Acheron in exchange for coin. It was Hermes who as a psychopomp, guided the souls to the Underworld, after Thanatos had ended them. There were three judges of the dead- kings Minos, Aiakos and Rhadamanthys.

He allowed Heracles to take Cerebus for his final labour, providing he used no weapons and returned the dog. Heracles complied with this, strangling the dog into submission. In some versions Heracles shot the god with an arrow and he had to be healed by Asclepius.

Hades from Xena

He was also touched by Orpheus' music enough to allow his wife Eurydice to return from the Underworld with him, providing Orpheus did not look back at her on the way out. As Eurydice was slow from her injury (death by snakebite ), Orpheus feared she was not with him and looked back. He witnessed her shade vanishing from him. Alternatively, it was Persephone who showed him mercy and compelled her husband to do the same.
He or Persephone also allowed Sisyphus to return to the living as his wife had not performed his funerary rites (deliberately as Sisyphus had requested she not). Once he returned he refused to go back to the Underworld, forcing Hermes to drag him back.
When Aonia, part of Boeotia, was inflicted with a plague (possibly sent by Hades and Persephone), the daughters of Orion- Menippe and Metioche (known as the Coronides/Koronides) who were taught weaving by Athena and given beauty by Aphrodite, killed themselves with their shuttles and were turned into comets by Persephone and Hades out of pity. Alternatively, just Persephone changed them.


He was depicted in a golden chariot pulled by black horses, usually wearing his helmet of invisibility and carrying a sceptre. He was linked with the Erinyes, the three goddesses of vengeance whom he and Persephone were sometimes given as parents of, otherwise they were daughters of Ouranos, sprung from his blood, and the Keres, daughters of Nyx who were death demons.

Sometimes he was given children with Persephone- Macaria/Makaria, a goddess of blessed death. Melinoe the goddess of offerings to the dead who wandered with a train of ghosts, it was said it was she who made dogs barked at in the night. She was depicted as half light and half dark either because Persephone was light and Hades dark or because she was actually a daughter of Zeus (light) and Persephone (dark) when Zeus seduced Persephone in the form of Hades. Zagreus a child of either Hades and Persephone or Zeus and Persephone who is linked to Dionysus. As a child of Persephone and Zeus he was said to have been murdered by Titans incited by a jealous Hera, they left his heart which was placed in the mortal Semele and from her was reborn.

His Roman counterparts were Pluto, Dis Pater or Orcus. Orcus was a god of the underworld who punished broken oaths and viewed as a bearded giant who tormented evil doers. Dis Pater was a god of the underworld associated with riches, fertility and minerals, he was initially just a god of wealth who was linked to the underworld due to metals and jewels coming from the earth. Pluto took on most of Hades' myths and was largely another name for him, tying in with his name Pluton, a god of wealth.