Is Persephone the Main Ruler of the Underworld in Greek Myth?

Most people who know about Greek myth think that Hades is the ruler of the underworld. This is not wrong per se; early Greek poems do describe Hades as “ruler of those beneath the earth.” But, for the ancient Greeks, Hades was surprisingly not very important. Instead, across ritual, mythic, literary, and artistic contexts, Persephone, the queen of the underworld, occupies a far more prominent and authoritative position than her husband. She is the one who sends up the shades of the dead to speak to Odysseus in Book 11 of the Odyssey, the one whom Greeks honored through rituals and holidays, the one who was central to the Eleusinian mysteries, and the one who Orphic initiates believed would intercede for them in the afterlife.

By contrast, Hades was never a very developed figure for the ancient Greeks. Early poems mostly use his name as a metonym for the underworld itself and say very little about him as a personal god. He had very little significance in Greek ritual, and the only early myth in which he appears as a real character with his own agency and desires is that of his abduction of Persephone. Hades is vastly more prominent in contemporary retellings and adaptations of Greek myth than he ever was in the actual ancient sources.

I originally started writing a blog post on this topic around 2021, but I never finished it. Recently, the discussion around the depiction of the underworld in Christopher Nolan’s film The Odyssey, which I posted a review of last week, reminded me of it, so I decided to return to the topic. In this post, I will explore in depth the evidence for Persephone and Hades’s relative importance in early Greek religion and myth, as well as their possible origins.

The Indo-European background of Greek myth

Let’s begin by talking about Persephone’s possible origins. Tracing the origins of any particular Greek mythic figure is unusually complicated, because, as Jaan Puhvel, a scholar of comparative mythology, explains (Puhvel 1989, 126–127):

Greek culture is a matter not of preserving but of becoming, not so much of interrelation as of fusion, in short, a new synthesis. This streak of originality complicates the tracing of antecedents, whether diffusionary or genetic.

Greek religion and myth resulted from the fusion of three main components, two of which are relevant to Persephone’s origins. The Greek language itself belongs to the Indo-European language family and is descended from Proto-Indo-European, a language that was spoken by nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoralists in the Pontic-Caspian steppe (i.e., what is now Ukraine and parts of southern Russia) between c. 4500 and c. 2500 BCE. Speakers of this language gradually spread across Eurasia over the course of the third millennium BCE, spreading their language, culture, and religion with them.

Although the speakers of Proto-Indo-European did not have writing, and their language is not directly attested, scholars have been able to reconstruct aspects of their society and religion, including the names and attributes of a few Proto-Indo-European deities, based on a comparison of the languages and cultures of historical ancient societies that spoke Indo-European languages. Based on this evidence, scholars know that Proto-Indo-European society was patriarchal, patrilinear, and patrilocal. They had domesticated horses, wheeled carts and wagons, and wool clothing.

The Proto-Indo-European deities whose reconstructions are best supported by linguistic and comparative mythological evidence were generally associated with the sky and celestial phenomena, such as *Dyḗus ph₂tḗr (the Proto-Indo-European Sky Father, whose name is the root for the names of Vedic god Dyáuṣpitṛ́, the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Iupiter, the Germanic god *Tīwaz, and the Baltic god Dievas) and *H₂éwsōs (the Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess, whose name is the root for the names of the Vedic goddess Uṣás, the Greek goddess Eos, the Roman goddess Aurora, and the Lithuanian goddess Aušrinė). I discuss the evidence for the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European deities in greater depth in this post I wrote back in April 2022.

ABOVE: Photo from Wikimedia Commons of the Kernosivsky idol, a sandstone cult statue dated to the third millennium BCE depicting a deity of Yamnaya culture, the archaeological culture associated with the speakers of Late Proto-Indo-European

The Pre-Indo-European Aegean background of Greek myth

But, when Indo-European speakers arrived in Greece (which may have been sometime around 2000 BCE), there were already people living there. These people spoke non-Indo-European languages, and their cultures differed markedly from those of the Indo-European-speaking newcomers.

Around 3100 BCE, a civilization began to emerge on Krete, which is the largest and southernmost of the Greek islands. We don’t know what the people of this civilization called themselves, but modern scholars call them the “Minoans.” The Minoans spoke a non-Indo-European language, invented a writing system known as Linear A (which scholars have not yet deciphered), and worshipped their gods in sanctuaries located in caves and on top of mountains.

Scenes in Minoan art depict people worshipping in sacred groves, and archaeologists have excavated possible examples of such groves at sites such as Mochlos. Minoan art also frequently depicts female figures (some of whom are probably goddesses, while others are probably priestesses) in positions of authority. The vast majority of figures in Minoan art whom scholars have identified as probable deities are female. These depictions of probable goddesses frequently associate them with flowers and other vegetation.

A settlement with Minoan features existed at a site known as Akrotiri on the island of Thera (known today as Santorini), which is located in the Aegean just north of Krete. A large, three-story public building at this site, which archaeologists have labeled Xeste 3, contained stunning, well-preserved frescoes dated between c. 1600 and c. 1500 BCE depicting scenes related to Bronze Age Theran religion.

One fresco, known as the “Saffron-Gatherers,” depicts two beautiful, young women, who are wearing golden hoop earrings, bracelets of blue (perhaps lapis lazuli) beads, and elaborately embroidered Minoan-style dresses with open fronts and flounced skirts, harvesting saffron from crocus flowers, surrounded by rolling hills. The women’s fine clothes and jewelry clearly indicate they are members of an elite social class.

The woman on the viewer’s right occupies slightly higher ground than the woman on the left and is looking back at her, while the other woman looks up at her. The woman on the right has a full head of dark hair, which she wears in a bun underneath a blue headband. The woman on the left’s head, however, appears to be shaven, except for a fringe at the front and a long ponytail in the back. In ancient Egypt, children would wear their heads shaved except for a ponytail until they reached adulthood, so the woman on the right’s shaven head may indicate that she is not yet of age. This scene certainly represents some kind of ritual, possibly a coming-of-age or initiation ritual.

ABOVE: The “Saffron-Gatherers” fresco, dated between c. 1600 and c. 1500 BCE, from Xeste 3 at Akrotiri on the island of Thera (Santorini)

Another fresco from the same room of the same building depicts a larger-than-human-sized female figure (who is almost certainly a goddess) wearing a beautifully embroidered dress and fine jewelry sitting on a cushion on an elevated platform while a winged griffin crouches at her side. A human-sized blue monkey, walking on his hind legs, holds up an offering of saffron to the goddess over a basket of saffron that sits at her feet. Behind the blue monkey, a young woman pours out a small basket of saffron into a larger basket on the floor.

ABOVE: Reconstruction of the fresco from Xeste 3, dated between c. 1600 and c. 1500 BCE, depicting a blue monkey and a young woman making offerings of saffron to the enthroned goddess

A gold signet ring found in a tomb at Isopata near Knossos, which dates between c. 1500 and c. 1400 BCE, depicts four women in flounced dresses dancing in a ring around a central dancing female figure, surrounded by blooming flowers. The central female figure is very probably a goddess, and the other female figures may be goddesses as well.

ABOVE: Photo from Wikimedia Commons of a Minoan gold signet ring from a tomb at Isopata near Knossos, Krete, dated between c. 1500 and c. 1400 BCE, depicting female figures (possibly goddesses) dancing while surrounded by blooming flowers

A terra-cotta figurine found at the site of Gazi on Krete dating to the Late Minoan III Period (lasted c. 1400 – c. 1100 BCE), depicts a probable goddess wearing a crown with three opium poppy seedcases sprouting from it. This same goddess also appears in a gold signet ring found at Knossos.

The poppy goddess has attracted a great deal of popular interest due to speculation that the Minoans may have used opium (which is a latex extracted from poppy seedcases) as a psychoactive drug. This is possible, but what matters for the purposes of this post is that all the depictions I’ve mentioned here indicate that flowers (and extracts of flowers) held religious significance in Pre-Greek Aegean culture and were associated with either plural goddesses or a singular goddess.

ABOVE: Photo from Wikimedia Commons of a Minoan terra-cotta figurine found at Gazi, Krete, now on display in the Herakleion Archaeological Museum, depicting a probable goddess wearing a crown with three poppy seedcases

The fusion of Indo-European Greek and Pre-Greek Aegean cultures

Around 1750 BCE, while the Minoan civilization was still flourishing on Krete, early Greek speakers were beginning to establish their own civilization in the southern Greek mainland, which developed under heavy Minoan influence. The most prominent center of this early Greek civilization was the fortified citadel of Mycenae, located in the Argolid, so scholars call this phase of Greek history the Mycenaean Period.

At least some Mycenaean Greeks probably called themselves Ἀχαιϝοί (Akhaiwoí), which is the name the Homeric epics use for the Greeks. Bronze-Age texts written in the Hittite language refer to the Mycenaean Greeks as Aḫḫiyawā, which seems to be a Hittite rendering of Akhaiwoí.

The Pre-Indo-European cultures of the Aegean, including the Minoans, exerted an enormous influence on Mycenaean culture and language. Although the Greek language is clearly Indo-European in its grammar, morphology, and basic vocabulary, a remarkably high proportion of Ancient Greek words—including many words for things that are central to historical Greek culture—have no convincing Indo-European etymology and share certain phoneme combinations that indicate they are derived from the languages spoken in the Aegean before the arrival of Indo-European speakers.

These include words for basic features of the landscape such as θάλασσα (“sea”), social positions and institutions such as ϝάναξ (“king”), abstract concepts such as σοφία (“practical skill” or “wisdom”), body parts such as ῥίς (“nose”), kinds of metals such as χαλκός (“bronze”), plants such as ἐλαία (“olive”), σταφυλή (“grape”), ὑάκινθος (“hyacinth”), νάρκισσος (“narcissus”), and ἀσφόδελος (“asphodel”), musical instruments such as κιθάρα (“lyre”), and the vast majority of Greek place names, including Ἀθῆναι (Athens) and Κόρινθος (Corinth). The names of most Greek deities, including Athena, Hera, Poseidon, Hephaistos, Hermes, and Artemis, have no convincing Indo-European etymologies and are probably of Pre-Greek Aegean origin.

The etymology of Persephone’s name

The etymology of Persephone’s name is contested, and no etymology has gained universal acceptance in scholarship. One explanation that is currently popular, which was originally proposed by Rudolf Wachter, holds that her name comes from a hypothetical rare Indo-European root *pers-o- meaning “sheaf of grain” combined with the Indo-European root *gʷʰn̥-t-, meaning “to kill,” “strike down,” or “thresh.” According to this interpretation, Persephone’s name means “She Who Threshes the Grain.”

Although several very preeminent scholars, including the etymologist of Ancient Greek Robert S. P. Beekes and the scholar of Greek religion Jan N. Bremmer, have supported this etymology (Beekes 2009, 1179–1180; Bremmer 2019, 74), I do not personally find it totally convincing. Wachter reconstructs the root *pers-o- based on the rare Sanskrit word पर्ष (parṣá-) and the rare Avestan word 𐬞𐬀𐬭𐬱𐬀 (parša), both of which are used only once in the entire surviving corpora of those languages, and the only plausible reflexes he can find for this root in non-Indo-Iranian languages are the Latin word porrum, meaning “leek,” which is far off in both pronunciation and meaning from the Indo-Iranian word, and the first element of Persephone’s name itself.

My personal instinct is that Persephone’s name is most likely an originally Pre-Greek name that has been subjected to a partial Indo-European re-etymologization. Basically, I think that early Greek speakers probably heard speakers of a Pre-Greek language refer to a goddess who had a name similar to Persephone, but, when early Greek speakers adopted the name, they pronounced the second element in a way that made it sound like the word in their language meaning “to kill” or “thresh.” This would explain why, in historical times, there were many different variations of Persephone’s name, including Περσεφόνεια (Persephóneia), Περρέφαττα (Perrhéphatta), Προσερπίνα (Proserpína), Φερέπαφα (Pherépapha), and Φερρῶφαττα (Pherrôphatta).

I also think Persephone’s attributes support her having a Pre-Greek Aegean origin. As we will see later in this post, Greek literature and iconography strongly associate her with flowering plants native to the Aegean, some of which do not occur in more northern climates. As we’ve already seen, there’s strong evidence for many of these same flowers having religious importance in Pre-Greek Aegean religion, and the Greek names for many of these plants (such as hyacinth, narcissus, and asphodel) come from Pre-Greek.

Possible evidence for Persephone in Mycenaean Greece

In addition to probably adopting many Minoan words, the Mycenaeans adapted the Minoan Linear A writing system for their own language to create a syllabary script which scholars call Linear B, which they used to write on clay tablets. The Mycenaeans did not normally fire these tablets, but, at the end of the Bronze Age, many of the Mycenaean citadels were destroyed by fire and, as a result, many of these clay tablets were accidentally baked, thereby preserving them.

Archaeologists uncovered these tablets during excavations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but they did not know how to read them until the mid-twentieth century. The American classicist Alice Kober lay the groundwork for the decipherment of Linear B through a series of publications in the 1940s, and the English architect and amateur cryptographer Michael Ventris made the crucial breakthrough in 1952. Ventris then worked together with John Chadwick, a classical scholar at the University of Cambridge, to decipher and transcribe Linear B texts, which they published in 1956 in a coauthored volume, Documents in Mycenean Greek.

ABOVE: Photo from Wikimedia Commons of a Mycenaean Linear B tablet from Pylos, dated c. 1450 BCE, on display in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens

All the surviving texts in Linear B are administrative records, and they contain no poetry or mythic narrative. Some tablets, however, do record state-sponsored sacrifices and dedications to certain deities, thereby preserving the names of many of the deities whom the Mycenaeans worshipped during the Bronze Age.

These tablets reveal that, already during the Bronze Age, the early Greeks worshipped many of the same deities as their Classical Greek descendants, including Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Athena, Artemis, Hermes, Ares, Hephaistos, Dionysos, and a “Divine Mother” (whom the Classical Greeks identified with Rhea). As I discuss in this post I wrote three years ago, many scholars were surprised to find Dionysos mentioned in Linear B texts from the Bronze Age, since many had previously assumed that he had arrived in Greece later.

Although the name Demeter does not occur in Linear B, a tablet from Mycenae mentions a si-to-po-ti-ni-ja, which translates as “Mistress of Grain,” and scholars have generally understood this to be an early form of Demeter. There may even be an identifiable surviving depiction of this “Mistress of Grain” in a fresco from the Cult Center at Mycenae dated between c. 1250 and c. 1180 BCE, which depicts a female figure (most likely either a goddess or priestess) holding sheaves of grain.

ABOVE: Fresco from the Cult Center at Mycenae, dated between c. 1250 and c. 1180 BCE, depicting a female figure (most likely a goddess, possibly the “Grain Mistress” mentioned in a Linear B tablet from the site) holding sheaves of grain

When it comes to Persephone herself, matters are more ambiguous. A Linear B tablet discovered at the site of Pylos (Tn 316) mentions the “precinct” of a deity by the name Pe-re-swa. Another tablet discovered at Pylos (Un 6) records a sacrifice to Poseidon and Pe-re-swa of a cow, an ewe, a boar, and a sow. Chadwick noted that Pe-re-swa’s name “vaguely recalls” the first element of the Classical Greek name Περσεφόνη (Persephónē) (Chadwick 1976, 95).

Popular interpretations of Chadwick have sometimes jumped to the conclusion that Pe-re-swa is, in fact, the Mycenaean name for Persephone, but there is no clear evidence to support this notion, and the name is different enough from Persephone’s that we can’t be sure this is her.

Other Linear B tablets from Pylos (PY Fr 1227 and PY 1219) contain the dedicatory phrase wa-no-so-i, meaning “to the two queens.” Chadwick understood this as most likely referring to Demeter and Persephone, who were worshipped together in Classical times as τὼ θεώ (tṑ theṓ), which means “the two goddesses.” Subsequent scholars have mostly followed this interpretation.

Thus, there are several possible mentions of Persephone or a related goddess in Linear B tablets from Pylos. This is not enough evidence to say that the Mycenaeans definitely knew Persephone, but it is enough to say it is possible.

By contrast, we can say for certain that no surviving Linear B text contains any mention whatsoever of Hades. This on its own does not necessarily mean the Mycenaeans did not know of Hades, since the Linear B texts are far from comprehensive; they almost exclusively mention deities in the context of recording sacrifices to them, and, even in Classical times, the Greeks almost never made sacrifices to Hades. Even so, Hades’s absence from Linear B is noteworthy, if only in light of the possible mentions of his consort.

Evidence for ritual activity at Eleusis

One site that will be especially important for our discussion going forward is Eleusis, which is located in southwestern Attica, near Athens. Archaeological evidence shows that Greeks continuously used Eleusis for ritual activity from the Late Bronze Age and throughout the Early Iron Age. During the Mycenaean Period, a great hall, which archaeologists call Megaron B, was built at the site and used for burnt offerings. This site would remain sacred for over a millennium and a half until the rise of Christianity in late antiquity.

During the historical period, Eleusis was the center of the Eleusinian mysteries, a mystery cult centered around Demeter and Persephone. The archaeologist Michael B. Cosmopoulos has argued convincingly in a monograph published in 2015 titled Bronze Age Eleusis and the Origins of the Eleusinian Mysteries that the origins of this mystery cult date back to the Bronze Age.

The Bronze Age collapse and the Early Iron Age

Over the course of the late thirteenth and early twelfth centuries BCE, the Mycenaean civilization crumbled as part of the wider Bronze Age collapse. The major Mycenaean citadels were destroyed by fire and abandoned, the complex administrative states associated with these centers crumbled, Linear B writing and fresco painting were lost entirely, material culture reverted to a more primitive level, and the population of certain areas of Greece drastically declined.

Because writing remained lost in the Greek world for roughly four and a half centuries, scholars know relatively little about the period of Greek history between c. 1180 and c. 740 BCE, and it has been known as the “Greek Dark Age.” Although there is clear cultural continuity from the Late Bronze Age to the historical era, major religious changes appear to have taken place during this time.

By the time the Greeks adapted the Greek alphabet from the Phoenician abjad and began writing again around the mid-eighth century BCE, some of the deities mentioned in Linear B tablets, such as a son of Zeus named “Drimios,” a figure known as the “Thrice-Hero,” and a goddess named “Komawenteia,” had disappeared entirely. Meanwhile, new deities, such as Aphrodite, who is not mentioned in any surviving texts from the Bronze Age, had been introduced.

Hesiod’s description of Hades and Persephone

The oldest surviving works of Greek literature are poems composed in dactylic hexameter that most likely became fixed in something resembling the forms in which we know them today around the first half of the seventh century BCE. These poems were most likely originally passed down orally and only written down long after their composition. In early Greek hexameter poetry, the usual forms of the name Hades are Ἀΐδης (Aḯdēs) and Αἰδωνεύς (Aidōneús), and the usual forms of Persephone are Περσεφόνεια (Persephóneia) or Περσεφονείη (Persephoneíē).

The Theogonia (Theogony), an early Greek hexameter poem which is attributed to the poet Hesiodos (Hesiod), describes the house of Hades and Persephone in the underworld as follows (Th. 767–770):

ἔνθα θεοῦ χθονίου πρόσθεν δόμοι ἠχήεντες
ἰφθίμου τʼ Ἀίδεω καὶ ἐπαινῆς Περσεφονείης
ἑστᾶσιν, δεινὸς δὲ κύων προπάροιθε φυλάσσει
νηλειής . . .

There, the house of the underworld god,
of strong Aides and dread Persephoneie,
stands, and a formidable dog guards in front of the house,
pitiless . . .

Thus, the Theogonia describes Hades and Persephone as co-equal rulers of the underworld. It also describes Persephone using the epithet ἐπαινή (epainḗ), which means “dreadful” or “awesome” (in the archaic sense of inspiring awe, fear, or reverence). As we will see shortly, the Homeric epics apply this same epithet to Persephone frequently.

Later, the Theogonia briefly mentions Hades’s abduction of Persephone with Zeus’s permission (Th. 912–914):

αὐτὰρ ὁ Δήμητρος πολυφόρβης ἐς λέχος ἦλθεν,
ἣ τέκε Περσεφόνην λευκώλενον, ἣν Ἀιδωνεὺς
ἥρπασε ἧς παρὰ μητρός· ἔδωκε δὲ μητίετα Ζεύς.

And then he led to his bed much-nourishing Demeter,
who bore white-armed Persephone, whom Aidoneus
abducted from her mother—but wise Zeus gave her to him.

This is most likely the oldest surviving mention of the story of Hades’s abduction of Persephone in Greek literature, but the fact that Hesiodos mentions it so briefly indicates that, by the time the Theogonia was composed, the myth was already well known.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the “Lady of Auxerre,” a limestone statue of a maiden (most likely Persephone) from the island of Krete, dated between c. 650 and c. 625 BCE, now held in the Louvre Museum in Paris

Hades’s almost complete absence as a personal god in the Homeric epics

The Iliad and the Odyssey, which are attributed to the legendary poet Homer and, alongside the poems attributed to Hesiodos, are among the oldest surviving works of Greek literature, say very little about Hades as a personal god. When the Homeric epics use the word Ἀΐδης (Aḯdēs), it usually refers to the underworld itself, rather than the god who rules the underworld. To give just one example, the famous opening lines of the Iliad (1.1–5) read as follows in Greek:

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί᾽ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾽ ἔθηκε,
πολλὰς δ᾽ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν
ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν
οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή . . .

Sing, goddess, the wrath of the son of Peleus Akhilleus,
the ruinous thing, which set myriad sufferings for the Akhaians [i.e., the Greeks],
and sent many brave souls of heroes to Aides
and made them carrion for dogs
and for all birds, and the plan of Zeus was being fulfilled . . .

As I explain in this post from November 2022, the line about “the plan of Zeus” being fulfilled is probably a reference to an idea in early Greek poetry that Zeus intentionally caused the Trojan War either to annihilate the race of demigods or simply to kill as many humans as possible to relieve Mother Earth’s suffering. In any case, as this passage illustrates, when the poet mentions “Ἀΐδης,” he usually means it as a name for the underworld.

One of the relatively few places in which either of the Homeric epics uses the word Ἀΐδης as the name of a god is in the Iliad 15.187–193, where Poseidon retells the story of how the three sons of Kronos divided up the world after they overthrew their father. He says:

τρεῖς γάρ τ᾽ ἐκ Κρόνου εἰμὲν ἀδελφεοὶ οὓς τέκετο Ῥέα
Ζεὺς καὶ ἐγώ, τρίτατος δ᾽ Ἀΐδης ἐνέροισιν ἀνάσσων.
τριχθὰ δὲ πάντα δέδασται, ἕκαστος δ᾽ ἔμμορε τιμῆς:
ἤτοι ἐγὼν ἔλαχον πολιὴν ἅλα ναιέμεν αἰεὶ
παλλομένων, Ἀΐδης δ᾽ ἔλαχε ζόφον ἠερόεντα,
Ζεὺς δ᾽ ἔλαχ᾽ οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἐν αἰθέρι καὶ νεφέλῃσι:
γαῖα δ᾽ ἔτι ξυνὴ πάντων καὶ μακρὸς Ὄλυμπος.

For we three are out of Kronos brothers, whom Rhea bore:
Zeus and I, and the third is Aides, who is ruler of those beneath the earth.
And threefold all things are apportioned, and each god has a domain.
Truly, I received the gray sea to abide in forever
when the lots were shaken, and Aides received the murky undergloom,
and Zeus received the wide sky amid the air and the clouds,
and the earth and tall Olympos are still the common property of all.

This passage is the most significant mention of the god Hades in either of the Homeric epics, but, even here, the Iliad gives very little information about him. Basically all it says is that he is the brother of Zeus and Poseidon and he rules the underworld. He’s barely more than a genealogical entry—a mysterious third son of Kronos and Rhea who, unlike his brothers, never appears in the epic as a character.

Persephone’s apparent control over the underworld in the Odyssey, Book 11

The biggest scene for the underworld in either of the Homeric epics is the nekyia or summoning of the dead, which occurs in the Odyssey, Book 11, in which Odysseus describes in the first-person his journey to a desolate land at the edge of the world. There, he sacrifices a ram and an ewe and pours their blood into a trench to summon up the spirits of the dead from the underworld.

Readers might assume that Hades would appear prominently in this section of the poem, but Book 11 only clearly mentions Hades as a personal god one time in passing alongside Persephone in line 47:

. . . ἰφθίμῳ τ᾽ Ἀΐδῃ καὶ ἐπαινῇ Περσεφονείῃ:

. . . to strong Aides and dread Persephoneie.

By contrast, Book 11 portrays Persephone as the one who exercises authority over the realm of the dead and controls which spirits appear to Odysseus.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a Lucanian red-figure krater by the Dolon Painter, dated c. 380 BCE, depicting Odysseus making his sacrifice of a ram and an ewe to summon up the spirits of the dead

During the summoning, Odysseus sees his own mother Antikleia, who was alive when he set sail for Troy many years before, among the deceased. He speaks to her and tries to embrace her, but, when he does so, she moves away from him like a shadow, leading him to ask (Od. 11.213–214):

ἦ τί μοι εἴδωλον τόδ᾽ ἀγαυὴ Περσεφόνεια
ὤτρυν᾽, ὄφρ᾽ ἔτι μᾶλλον ὀδυρόμενος στεναχίζω;

Is this a phantom that august Persephoneia has stirred up for me,
so that I will lament, weeping even more?

Antikleia explains to Odysseus that she is truly his mother, not a deception sent by Persephone, but it is not possible for the living to touch the dead.

ABOVE: Illustration by the Polish illustrator Jan Styka depicting Odysseus attempting to embrace the ghost of his mother Antikleia

When Antikleia finishes speaking, the ghosts of various famous women from the legendary past emerge into Odysseus’s view. Again, Odysseus describes Persephone as the one who has sent these women (Od. 11.225–226):

αἱ δὲ γυναῖκες
ἤλυθον, ὤτρυνεν γὰρ ἀγαυὴ Περσεφόνεια…

And the women
came, for august Persephoneia sent them…

Later, when the ghostly women disperse, Odysseus describes Persephone as the one who has dispersed them, saying (Od. 11.385–386):

αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ ψυχὰς μὲν ἀπεσκέδασ᾽ ἄλλυδις ἄλλῃ
ἁγνὴ Περσεφόνεια γυναικῶν θηλυτεράων. . .

Nevertheless, when holy Persephoneia scattered the souls
of the female women this way and that. . .

Book Eleven’s final mention of Persephone confirms her control over everything Odysseus sees. Near the very end of the book, Odysseus explains that he would have liked to have stayed and seen other great heroes of the past, such as Theseus and Peirithous, but he was seized with fear at the prospect of what else Persephone might decide to show him, saying (Od. 11.632–635):

ἀλλὰ πρὶν ἐπὶ ἔθνε᾽ ἀγείρετο μυρία νεκρῶν
ἠχῇ θεσπεσίῃ: ἐμὲ δὲ χλωρὸν δέος ᾕρει,
μή μοι Γοργείην κεφαλὴν δεινοῖο πελώρου
ἐξ Ἀίδεω πέμψειεν ἀγαυὴ Περσεφόνεια.

But before that, countless nations of the dead came thronging
with an otherworldly sound: and pale fear seized me
that august Persephoneia might send to me
out from Aides the head of the Gorgon, that formidable monster.

All these references make it abundantly clear that Odysseus believes Persephone, not Hades, is the one who controls which spirits appear to him.

ABOVE: Illustration by John Flaxman from 1810 depicting the countless nations of the dead coming toward Odysseus with an otherworldly noise

The Odyssey’s emphasis on Persephone over Hades may be partly for literary and thematic reasons, since female power is a central theme of the Odyssey. The vast majority of the deities, monsters, and mortals who either hinder or aid Odysseus in the course of his journey home are female (e.g., the goddess Athena, the witch Kirke, the Sirens, the monsters Skylla and Kharybdis, the nymph Kalypso, the sea nymph Ino, the Phaiakian princess Nausikaä, etc.).

Moreover, Odysseus narrates the whole story of his adventures, including his journey to the underworld, as part of his effort to persuade Arete, the queen of the Phaiakians, to help him get home. In this context, since Arete is his main audience, it makes sense for him to emphasize the importance of Persephone as the queen of the underworld.

But, at the same time, the fact that it was possible for the Odyssey to portray Persephone as the ruler of the underworld who controls where spirits are allowed to go, with barely any mention of Hades, speaks volumes about Persephone’s importance to early Greek conceptions of the afterlife.

ABOVE: Photo from Wikimedia Commons of a statue from Tarentum, Magna Graecia, dated between c. 480 and c. 460 BCE, now held in the Altes Museum in Berlin, depicting Persephone sitting on her throne as queen of the underworld

The Eleusinian mysteries and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter

The only text in all of early Greek literature in which Hades occupies a prominent role is the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, a long narrative poem in dactylic hexameter that most likely originated as a ritual text associated with the Eleusinian mysteries. This poem tells the myth of how Hades abducted Persephone. The version of the poem that has survived most likely dates to the second half of the seventh century BCE, but the myth it tells is certainly older.

This is really the only significant early Greek story involving Hades in which he appears as a character with agency and desires. And yet, even here, the poem focuses overwhelmingly on Demeter and Persephone. Hades only matters to the story because of how he affects the mother-daughter relationship of the two goddesses.

Most readers are probably already familiar with the story of Hades’s abduction of Persephone, so I won’t summarize the whole poem here. I will, however, address a few important parts of the poem that modern readers often misunderstand or ignore. First, as I discuss in much greater detail in this post I wrote in November 2023, although modern retellings of this myth usually portray Persephone as spending the winter in the underworld and the rest of the year on Olympos with Demeter, the ancient Greeks most likely believed that the season when Persephone was in the underworld was summer, not winter.

This matches the ancient Greek agricultural calendar, since the Greeks planted grain in the fall, let it grow during the winter, and harvested it in the spring. During the summer, fields would lie fallow, because Greece is so hot and dry during the summer that nothing can grow, and all the grass turns brown.

The Homeric Hymn to Demeter describes Persephone and her companions, the daughters of Okeanos, as gathering flowers in a meadow when Hades comes to abduct her (Hom. Hymn 2.1–9):

Δήμητρʼ ἠύκομον, σεμνὴν θεόν, ἄρχομʼ ἀείδειν,
αὐτὴν ἠδὲ θύγατρα τανύσφυρον, ἣν Ἀιδωνεὺς
ἥρπαξεν, δῶκεν δὲ βαρύκτυπος εὐρύοπα Ζεύς,
νόσφιν Δήμητρος χρυσαόρου, ἀγλαοκάρπου,
παίζουσαν κούρῃσι σὺν Ὠκεανοῦ βαθυκόλποις
ἄνθεά τʼ αἰνυμένην, ῥόδα καὶ κρόκον ἠδʼ ἴα καλὰ
λειμῶνʼ ἂμ μαλακὸν καὶ ἀγαλλίδας ἠδʼ ὑάκινθον
νάρκισσόν θʼ, ὃν φῦσε δόλον καλυκώπιδι κούρῃ
Γαῖα Διὸς βουλῇσι χαριζομένη Πολυδέκτῃ . . .

I begin to sing of Demeter the well-tressed, holy goddess,
and her slim-ankled daughter, whom Aidoneus
seized (and deep-thundering, wide-seeing Zeus gave her to him),
when she was far away from golden-sworded Demeter, the bearer of fruit,
playing with the deep-breasted daughters of Okeanos,
picking flowers in a soft meadow: roses, crocuses,
beautiful violets, irises, a hyacinth,
and a narcissus, which Gaia grew as a trick for the blossoming girl,
because of Zeus’s plans to please the Receiver of Many.

All of the flowers that the poem describes Persephone and her companions as picking are ones that bloom in spring, which supports the interpretation that Persephone goes to the underworld at the end of spring, which is the beginning of summer. Later, when Zeus sends Hermes to order Hades to return Persephone to Demeter, Hades forces Persephone to eat a pomegranate seed; the Greek harvested pomegranates in the fall, which supports the interpretation that fall is when Persephone returns to Demeter.

Both of the major ancient festivals celebrated in Attica that honored Demeter and Persephone (the Greater Eleusinian mysteries and the Thesmophoria) took place in the fall, which corresponded with the planting season. This further supports the interpretation that the ancient Greeks viewed fall, not spring, as the season when Demeter and Persephone were reunited.

ABOVE: Side A of an Attic red-figure bell-krater attributed to the Persephone Painter, dated c. 440 BCE, now held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, depicting Persephone’s return from the underworld and reunion with Demeter (photo from Met Museum official website)

Second, as I discuss in greater depth in this post I wrote in February 2020, contrary to many modern pop cultural depictions in which Persephone goes with Hades to the underworld willingly, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (and every other ancient telling of Persephone’s abduction) is very explicit and unambiguous that Hades abducted Persephone and raped her against her will. The poem repeatedly calls Persephone “unwilling” and describes her as screaming for her father Zeus as Hades forcibly carries her away (Hom. Hymn 2.17–21):

τῇ ὄρουσεν ἄναξ Πολυδέγμων
ἵπποις ἀθανάτοισι, Κρόνου πολυώνυμος υἱός.
ἁρπάξας δ᾽ ἀέκουσαν ἐπὶ χρυσέοισιν ὄχοισιν
ἦγ᾽ ὀλοφυρομένην: ἰάχησε δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ὄρθια φωνῇ,
κεκλομένη πατέρα Κρονίδην ὕπατον καὶ ἄριστον.

The lord Receiver of Many rushed at her
with deathless horses, the many-named son of Kronos.
And he seized the unwilling girl on his golden chariot
and carried her off while she was crying. And she really screamed things shrill in sound,
calling out for her father, the son of Kronos, the highest and best.

Third, finally, and most importantly for the purposes of this post, right before Hades forces Persephone to eat the pomegranate seed (which he knows will require her to remain in the underworld with him for part of the year), he describes to her how she will rule over all the dead (Hom. Hymn 2.360–369):

ἔρχεο, Περσεφόνη, παρὰ μητέρα κυανόπεπλον
ἤπιον ἐν στήθεσσι μένος καὶ θυμὸν ἔχουσα,
μηδέ τι δυσθύμαινε λίην περιώσιον ἄλλων·
οὔ τοι ἐν ἀθανάτοισιν ἀεικὴς ἔσσομʼ ἀκοίτης,
αὐτοκασίγνητος πατρὸς Διός· ἔνθα δʼ ἐοῦσα
δεσπόσσεις πάντων ὁπόσα ζώει τε καὶ ἕρπει,
τιμὰς δὲ σχήσησθα μετʼ ἀθανάτοισι μεγίστας.
τῶν δʼ ἀδικησάντων τίσις ἔσσεται ἤματα πάντα,
οἵ κεν μὴ θυσίῃσι τεὸν μένος ἱλάσκωνται
εὐαγέως ἔρδοντες, ἐναίσιμα δῶρα τελοῦντες.

Go, Persephone, to your dark-robed mother,
keeping your temper and spirit gentle,
and do not be uncountably much unhappier than others.
I will not be an unworthy husband for you among the immortals,
as your father Zeus’s own brother. When you are here,
you will rule over all who live and move,
and you will have the greatest honors among the immortals,
and you will punish forever those who act unjustly,
who do not appease your wrath with sacrifices,
performing proper rites and completing the fated gifts.

Here, Hades promises Persephone that she will rule over all the dead, that she will have “the greatest honors among the immortals,” and that she will punish the wicked forever. Thus, according to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hades resides in the underworld, but, when Persephone is there, she is the one who rules it.

ABOVE: Photo from Wikimedia Commons of a pinax from Epizephyrean Lokroi, dated between c. 500 and c. 450 BCE, now held in the Cleveland Museum of Art, depicting Hades and Persephone enthroned side-by-side in the underworld

Hades’s absence from Greek religion, myths, art, and literature

Compared to other major deities, Hades rarely appears in Greek religion, myths, art, or literature outside the myth of Persephone’s abduction. Even when he does appear, he is an obscure, undeveloped, seemingly unknowable figure, barely a character at all. Maxwell T. Paule, an Associate Professor of Ancient and Classical Studies at Earlham College, memorably described Hades in Greek myth as “a piece of underworld furniture,” which is perhaps a bit harsh, but accurately captures the sense.

The Athenian comic playwright Aristophanes (lived c. 446 – c. 386 BCE) wrote a comedy titled The Frogs, which was first performed at the Lenaia festival in Athens in 405 BCE, in which the god Dionysos descends into the underworld to resurrect the deceased tragic playwright Euripides.

In the play, Hades appears on stage in order to preside over a poetry competition in the underworld between Euripides and another tragic playwright, Aiskhylos. The play refers to him by the euphemistic name Πλούτων (Ploútōn), meaning the “Wealthy One,” and it depicts him as a largely silent, personality-less figure who speaks only a few lines during his whole time on stage.

The situation is similar in Greek art. Hades and Persephone both appear in vase paintings, pinakes, and wall paintings from the Makedonian royal tombs at Vergina. But, in contrast to Persephone, who appears in life-sized and monumental sculpture possibly as early as the seventh century BCE, Hades doesn’t appear in monumental or life-sized sculpture until the Hellenistic Period. Even then, statues of Hades are rare and almost always represent him syncretized with a foreign deity.

Modern handbooks of mythology typically represent Hades using a second-century CE marble statue from the Sanctuary of the Egyptian Gods at Gortyn on Greek island of Krete, which is now held in the Herakleion Archaeological Museum. This statue, however, doesn’t represent Hades in his purely Greek aspect. Instead, it represents a version of Hades syncretized with the Greco-Egyptian god Serapis, as shown by the fact that he is wearing a modius, the symbol of Serapis, which looks kind of like a flowerpot, on his head.

ABOVE: Photo from Wikimedia Commons of the statue of Hades-Serapis from the Sanctuary of the Egyptian Gods at Gortyn on Krete, now held in the Herakleion Archaeological Museum

Persephone’s position as the ruler of the underworld in Orphic cosmology

In the Classical Period, as well as later periods of Greek history, Orphism was a strain of Greek religious thought and practice that centered around various theological poems attributed to the legendary figure Orpheus. Only fragments of some of these poems have survived, but these fragments and other sources still reveal much information about Orphism.

Followers of Orphism believed that Persephone was the mother of Zeus and that Zeus, her own son, impregnated her with Dionysos, to whom she gave birth. Because Dionysos was the central and most important deity for the Orphics, this accorded Persephone a very high importance in their belief system as well.

From at least the fourth century BCE onward, Greeks who had been initiated into the Orphic mysteries were often buried with gold tablets with instructions written on them for how to navigate the afterlife. Many of these gold tablets have been excavated from the sites of Thourioi and Hipponion in southern Italy and from sites in the region of Thessalia in northern Greece and on the island of Krete. They reveal a great deal of information about what followers of Orphism believed about the afterlife.

The Orphic tablets consistently depict Persephone as the ruler of the underworld whose intervention will allow the Orphic initiate to drink from the lake of Mnemosyne. For instance, one gold tablet from the city of Hipponion in Calabria dated c. 400 BCE, which is numbered as Bernabé 474 or Hipponion A, reads as follows:

Μναμοσύνας τόδε ἔργον. ἐπεὶ ἂν μέλληισι θανεῖσθαι
εἰς Ἀίδαο δόμους εὐήρεας, ἔστ’ ἐπὶ δ<ε>ξιὰ κρήνα,
πὰρ δ’ αὐτὰν ἑστακῦα λευκὰ κυπάρισ<σ>ος·
ἔνθα κατερχόμεναι ψυχαὶ νεκύων ψύχονται.
ταύτας τᾶς κράνας μηδὲ σχεδὸν ἐγγύθεν ἔλθηις.
πρόσθεν δὲ εὑρήσεις τᾶς Μνημοσύνας ἀπὸ λίμνας
ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ προρέον· φύλακες δὲ ἐπύπερθεν ἔασι.
οἳ δέ σε εἰρήσονται ἐν<ὶ> φρασὶ πευκαλίμαισι
ὅτ<τ>ι δὴ ἐξερέεις Ἄϊδος σκότος ὀρφ<ν>ήεντος.
εἶπον· “Γῆς παῖ<ς> εἰμι καὶ Οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος·
δίψαι δ’ εἰμ᾽ αὖος καὶ ἀπόλλυμαι· ἀλ<λ>ὰ δότ’ ὦκα
ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ πιέναι τῆς Μνημοσύνης ἀπὸ λίμ<νης.”
καὶ δὴ τοὶ ἐρέουσιν {ι}ὑποχθονίωι βασιλεί<αι>,
καὶ {δὴ τοὶ} δώσουσι πιεῖν τᾶς Μναμοσύνας ἀπ[ὸ] λίμνας
καὶ δὴ καὶ σὺ πιὼν ὁδὸν ἔρχεα<ι> ἅν τε καὶ ἄλλοι
μύσται καὶ βάκχοι ἱερὰν στείχουσι κλε<ε>ινοί.

This is the work of Mnemosyne. When one is on the point of dying toward the well-built abode of Hades, on the right there is a fountain and near it, erect, a white cypress tree. There the souls of the dead, when they go down, refresh themselves. Don’t go anywhere near this fountain! But further on you will find, from the lake of Mnemosyne, water freshly flowing. On its banks there are guardians. They will ask you, with sagacious discernment, why you are investigating the darkness of gloomy Hades. Say: “I am the son of Earth and starry Sky; I am dry with thirst and dying. Give me, then, right away, fresh water to drink from the lake of Mnemosyne.” And to be sure, they will consult with the subterranean queen, and they will give you water to drink from the lake of Mnemosyne, so that, once you have drunk, you too will go along the sacred way by which the other mystai and bakkhoi advance, glorious.

Some tablets indicate that Orphic initiates believed they would actually meet Persephone personally in the afterlife; these tablets describe what the initiate should say to goddess when they meet her. For instance, tablets from the site of Pelinna in Thessalia, dated to the late fourth century BCE, instruct the deceased, “Tell Persephone that Bakkhios [i.e., “the Bakkhic One,” Dionysos] himself has released you!”

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of an Orphic gold tablet from Thessalia dating to the fourth century BCE

Conclusion

Persephone is possibly attested much earlier than Hades, and, throughout early Greek myth, literature, and religion, she occupies a position of greater prominence as the ruler of the underworld than her husband. She rules the dead, decides which spirits to punish and how, determines where the spirits are allowed to go and which ones appear to those practicing necromancy, can grant some spirits special favors at will, and doesn’t need Hades’s permission for anything. By contrast, while Hades does get the title “ruler of those beneath the earth,” he is a largely undeveloped figure notable mostly for being Zeus’s brother and Persephone’s husband.

Works cited

• Beekes, Robert S. P. 2009. Etymological Dictionary of Greek. Vol. 2. Brill.
• Bremmer, Jan N. 2019. The World of Greek Religion and Mythology: Collected Essays II. Mohr Siebeck.
• Cosmopoulos, Michael B. 2015. Bronze Age Eleusis and the Origins of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Cambridge University Press.
• Chadwick, John. 1976. The Mycenaean World. Cambridge University Press.
• Puhvel, Jaan. 1987. Comparative Mythology. Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Roberts, Ellie Mackin. 2020. Underworld Gods in Ancient Greek Religion: Death and Reciprocity. Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies. Routledge.