Pluto (mythology)

The union of Demeter and Iasion, described also in the Odyssey,[5] 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.

As a lord of abundance or riches, Pluto expresses the aspect of the underworld god that was positive, symbolized in art by the "horn of plenty" (cornucopia),[13] by means of which Plouton is distinguished from the gloomier Hades.

"[18] In the discourse On Mourning by the Greek author Lucian (2nd century AD), Pluto's "wealth" is the dead he rules over in the abyss (chasma); the name Hades is reserved for the underworld itself.

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; in both these works, the ruler of the underworld is named as Hades ("the Hidden One").

[29] Two early works that give the abductor god's name as Pluto are the Greek mythography traditionally known as the Library of "Apollodorus" (1st century BC)[30] and the Latin Fabulae (ca.

[35] Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and certainly by the time of Natale Conti's influential Mythologiae (1567), the traditions pertaining to the various rulers of the classical underworld coalesced into a single mythology that made few if any distinctions among Hades, Pluto, Dis, and Orcus.

[71] In the view of Lewis Richard Farnell, 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.

[77] A set of curse tablets written in Doric Greek and found in a tomb addresses a Pasianax, "Lord to All,"[78] sometimes taken as a title of Pluto,[79] but more recently thought to be a magical name for the corpse.

In an obscure passage, Cornutus seems to connect Pluto's wearing of phasganion to an etymology for Avernus, which he derives from the word for "air," perhaps through some association with the color glaukos, "bluish grey," "greenish" or "sea-colored," which might describe the plant's leaves.

Martianus Capella (5th century) describes him as both "growing pale in shadow, a fugitive from light" and actively "shedding darkness in the gloom of Tartarean night," crowned with a wreath made of ebony as suitable for the kingdom he governs.

[118] A "white cypress" is part of the topography of the underworld that recurs in the Orphic gold tablets as a kind of beacon near the entrance, perhaps to be compared with the Tree of Life in various world mythologies.

[121] A wreath of white poplar leaves was fashioned by Heracles to mark his ascent from the underworld, an aition for why it was worn by initiates[122] and by champion athletes participating in funeral games.

This version of the theogony for the most part follows Hesiod (see above), but adds 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).

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.

[145] 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?

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.

[159] 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.

[171] 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.

[179] Gilles Quispel conjectured that this figure results from the integration of the Orphic Phanes into Mithraic religion at Alexandria, and that he "assures the eternity of the city," where the birth of Aion was celebrated at the sanctuary of Kore on 6 January.

"[184] Christian writers of late antiquity sought to discredit the competing gods of Roman and Hellenistic religions, often adopting the euhemerizing approach in regarding them not as divinities, but as people glorified through stories and cultic practices and thus not true deities worthy of worship.

[188] Prudentius, in his poetic polemic against the religious traditionalist Symmachus, describes the arena as a place where savage vows were fulfilled on an altar to Pluto (solvit ad aram / Plutonis fera vota), where fallen gladiators were human sacrifices to Dis and Charon received their souls as his payment, to the delight of the underworld Jove (Iovis infernalis).

Perhaps because the name Pluto was used in both traditions, it appears widely in these Latin sources for the classical ruler of the underworld, who is also seen as the double, ally, or adjunct to the figure in Christian mythology known variously as the Devil, Satan, or Lucifer.

[192] This work derives from that of the Third Vatican Mythographer, possibly one Albricus or Alberic, who presents often extensive allegories and devotes his longest chapter, including an excursus on the nature of the soul, to Pluto.

[207] The name Pluto for the classical ruler of the underworld was further established in English literature by Arthur Golding, whose translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1565) was of great influence on William Shakespeare,[208] Christopher Marlowe,[209] and Edmund Spenser.

[213] The Christian perception of the classical underworld as Hell influenced Golding's translation practices; for instance, Ovid's tenebrosa sede tyrannus / exierat ("the tyrant [Dis] had gone out of his shadowy realm") becomes "the prince of fiends forsook his darksome hole".

"[215] In the 15th-century dream allegory The Assembly of Gods, the deities and personifications are "apparelled as medieval nobility"[216] basking in the "magnyfycence" of their "lord Pluto," who is clad in a "smoky net" and reeking of sulphur.

As a singing role, Pluto is almost always written for a bass voice, with the low vocal range representing the depths and weight of the underworld, as in Monteverdi and Rinuccini's L'Orfeo (1607) and Il ballo delle ingrate (1608).

Pluto's part is considered particularly virtuosic,[222] and a reviewer at the première described the character, who appeared as if from a blazing Inferno, as "formidable and awesome in sight, with garments as given him by poets, but burdened with gold and jewels.

van Swanenburg, the first teacher of Rembrandt, echoed Ovid in showing Pluto as the target of Cupid's arrow while Venus watches her plan carried out (location of painting unknown).

"[243] A similar figure is found in The Lost Girl (1920) by D.H. Lawrence, where the character Ciccio[244] acts as Pluto to Alvina's Persephone, "the deathly-lost bride ... paradoxically obliterated and vitalised at the same time by contact with Pluto/Dis" in "a prelude to the grand design of rebirth."

1st century sculpture of Pluto in the Getty Villa
A mosaic of the Kasta Tomb in Amphipolis depicting the abduction of Persephone by Pluto, 4th century BC
Ploutos with the horn of abundance , in the company of Dionysos (4th century BC)
Orpheus before Pluto and Proserpina (1605), by Jan Brueghel the Elder .
Hydria ( ca. 340 BC) depicting figures from the Eleusinian Mysteries
Hades and Persephone: tondo of an Attic red-figured kylix , ca. 440–430 BC
Pluto (1592) by Agostino Carracci , probably influenced by the description in Vincenzo Cartari 's mythography, [ 90 ] with the god holding his scepter and key, Cerberus at his side
The narcissus , frequently linked to the myth of Persephone, who was snatched into the Underworld by the god Hades while picking the flowers
Pluto (1588–89) with bident, chiaroscuro woodcut from a series on gods and goddesses by Hendrik Goltzius
Persephone and Pluto [ 141 ] or Hades [ 142 ] on a pinax from Locri
Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto , ceiling mural ( ca. 1597) by Caravaggio (see description under Fine art below)
Serapis with moon and sun on oil lamp
Etruscan Charun presiding over an execution
Jean Raoux 's Orpheus and Eurydice (1718–20), with Pluto and Proserpina releasing the couple
Albrecht Dürer , Abduction of Proserpine on a Unicorn (1516)
Rembrandt's Abduction of Proserpina ( ca. 1631)