Hellenism and the Journey of the Afterlife
In the original mythology of Hellenism, the Greek Underworld was considered another world or realm where our souls, known as our Shade, is taken after death. In the original Greek afterlife, at the moment of our death the shade is separated from the corpse when Death (Thanatos) reaches out to cut a lock of hair from the corpses head (often referred to as a ‘lifeline’) where it then takes the now unphysical shape of that former person. The Messenger God (Hermes) then transports the shade across the River Styx (the river of hatred) to the entrance of the Underworld. The Underworld is sometimes simply known by the name of its patron god, Hades, and is treated as a resting place for the soul before it drinks from the River Lethe (waters of forgetfulness) and is reincarnated into a new life. Many within Hellenism believe in form of reincarnation and this was a subject broached by many philosophers of the ancient world. However, the journey of the afterlife is the more commonly resonating belief. The Underworld itself is described as either ‘the outer bounds of the deepest ocean’ or ‘darkness hidden beneath the depths of the end of the earth,’ and thus is considered the darkest counterpart to the brightness of Mount Olympus. This realm itself is invisible to the living and made solely for the dead to be used as almost a type of bypass station.
Once Hermes delivers the shades to the entrance of the Underworld, good people and bad people would then be separated. Infront and directly across from the entrance of the Underworld lives the personifications of Grief (Penthos), Anxiety (Curae), Diseases (Nosoi), Old Age (Geras), Fear (Phobos), Hunger (Limos), Need (Aporia), Death (Thanatos), Agony (Algae), Sleep (Hypnos), and Guilty Joys (Gaudia). On the opposite side of the entrance holds War (Polemos), Discord (Eris), and the Furies (Erinyes). Many beasts lay waiting before the entrance of the Underworld, including Centaurs, Gorgons, a Hydra, the giant Geryon, the Chimera, and screaming Harpies. In the center of all this lies an Elm tree, where False and Broken Dreams (Oneiroi) hang from the branches like dead leaves.
Shades that enter the Underworld carry a coin under their tongues to pay the ferryman, known as a Charon, to take them across the River Acheron (river of pain) safely. Within Hellenism, the dead are properly buried with a coin under their tongue as an offering, or like the Trojan hero, Aeneas, who delivered a rare tree branch called a Golden Bough to the Charon. The Charon is permitted to turn shades away, often the shades of the unburied, which cannot be taken from bank to bank without payment, often due to a lack of proper burial. The physical description of the Charon has changed over the years but is often portrayed to be a barren, filthy, hollow-looking human-shaped creature with fire red eyes, a long unkempt beard, and a dirty dark ash cloak.
Once the Charon carries a shade across the river, there lies the mighty three-headed hound of Hades, Cerberus, guarding the gates as well as the Three Judges of the Underworld. These minor demigods are known as King Aeacus; the guardian of the keys to the gate of the Underworld, King Rhadamanthus; the lord of Elysium, and King Minos; the judge with the final vote. It is up to these judges to outline the deeds of the deceased, and they create the laws that govern the Underworld. Most of the laws of the Underworld assured that there was no true justice waiting for the shades of the dead and that they wouldn’t necessarily receive ‘awards’ for how they lived their physical mortal lives.
However, the overall voted outcome for any shade can be changed by Hade's command, if and when he pleased. When the Earth was divided between Chronos and Rheas' three sons; Zeus received Mount Olympus, Poseidon the vast seas, and Hades the Underworld. Hades is rarely seen outside his own realm, regardless of his co-ownership of the Earth, and most punishments shades received were often demanded by other gods seeking eternal vengeance. He was not a tormenter of the dead and sometimes had even been considered the ‘Zeus of the dead’ due to his being so hospitable to them. He did not run his realm on his own, however.
Persephone (Kore), daughter of the harvest Goddess Demeter and Zeus, is often considered a fitting other half to Hades, though their origin story changes depending on point of view. Once, when Persephone was alone gathering wildflowers, she came across a beautiful narcissus flower that was planted specifically for her by Gaia as a favor to Hades, who had fallen in love with Persephone and desired her as his wife. It is said that Hades believed Persephone to be ‘more beautiful than the Goddess Aphrodite’ and would settle for nothing less than her love. The moment Persephone picked the narcissus flower, Hades appeared from a fresh crack in the Earth, riding a golden chariot and carrying the torches of Hekate, on his mission to seduce Persephone into the Underworld. Demeter searched for her daughter relentlessly, begging that the other deities help her do the same. Learning of this abduction infuriated Demeter, leading her to neglect the Earth and forbidding harvest, freezing the grounds until her daughter was returned to her. Zeus, annoyed by the cries of starving mortals, and badgered by fellow deities who heard of Demeter's anguish, forced Hades to return Persephone to Mount Olympus.
Hades complies with the request, but not before offering Persephone six pomegranate seeds for her journey home. It was explained to Demeter that she would be released so long as she had not tasted the ‘food of the dead.’ Unaware of Hade's trickery, Hermes was sent to retrieve Persephone but was informed she had tasted the food of the Underworld and was now bound to its realm. Instead, Hades offered a deal to Demeter; that Persephone may stay in the Underworld for half the year (the winter/fall months) and come back to Earth the other half (the spring/summer months) to be with her mother. Thus, every half-year, when Demeter and her daughter were reunited, the Earth flourished with vegetation and color. But for the latter months each year when Persephone returned to the Underworld, the Earth would once again become cold and barren. This is essentially Hellenism’s explanation for the seasons and in this way, Hades was able to gift Persephone, Goddess of spring and fertility, with being the Queen of the Underworld and his wife, thus ruling over their realm side by side. Persephone helped to give death a more merciful face, regardless of Hades' bouts of kindness toward shades. While Hades was known for being immovable, Persephone even assists several heroes and grieving lovers who stumble down lost into the Underworld. But beyond their realm, and Hades beloved Cerberus, holds the final resting places for all shades; the Isles of the Blessed called Elysium, the Asphodel Meadows, the Mourning Fields, and the Dungeon of Torment called Tartarus.
Elysium, also known as the Elysian Fields, is one concept of the afterlife, described as the place for exceptional beings, often ‘Heroes,’ to eternally reside. As this concept modernized, Elysium was later expanded to include those righteously chosen mortals who are pure of heart. This makes Elysium essentially the Hellenic Paradise, where they may live a blessed, happy afterlife, with grand feasts, and the ability to indulge in whatever their deepest desires may entail. It is said that the philosopher Socrates, and the Hero Achilles, were two of the few who were permitted into this glorious afterlife.
We do not know much about the Asphodel Meadows, other than that it is a section of the Ancient Greek Underworld where the shades of ordinary people are sent to after death. Those who have never committed a significant crime or had not achieved any level of greatness or recognition, reside here. Those who were not permitted into Elysium, and had nowhere else they belonged, spent their afterlife among the Asphodel Meadows realms. Essentially, this is where every day people’s shades settle within the afterlife. Similarly, the Mourning Fields were a concept from the Latin Epic Poem ‘Aeneid’ written by Virgil between 29 BC and 19 BC. This was a section of the Underworld that was reserved for shades who wasted their lives on unrequited love or died of a broken heart.
Tartarus is said to be as far beneath the Underworld as the Earth is beneath the sky. This essentially means that Tartarus was so dark that ‘the night is poured around it in three rows like a collar around the neck, while above it grows the roots of the Earth and the unharvested sea.’ This is where Zeus originally cast the Titans, along with his father, Cronus. It is said that Homer believed Cronus to be the King of Tartarus and that Odysseus mentions some of the people within the Underworld who are experiencing ‘punishment’ were found here. This is the deepest abyss of the Underworld and is used as a dungeon to torment and influence suffering for those who lived a particularly wicked life.
The Greeks believed that there was a great journey into the afterlife, but that the afterlife held no purpose. The souls of the dead still existed, but that they were insubstantial and often too weak and therefore unable to make influences on the living. The shades in the Underworld were now essentially neutral, and that no one was able to use their previous lives to their advantage after death. They believed that death was not a complete end to life, or human existence, but accepted that not unlike life, the afterlife was relatively meaningless. It is said that you are in the afterlife who you are in the moment of your death; meaning someone who died in battle would be covered in blood in entering the Underworld, and those who died in their sleep remained peaceful. The Greeks considered their dead to be irritable and unpleasant on occasion, but they are not necessarily dangerous or malevolent. The souls can grow angry and hostile, and often the Greek's response to this would be a drink offering, or even blood sacrifices to initiate communication.
Unlike its Catholic counterpart, the afterlife in Hellenism does not necessarily revolve around divine punishment. Those who are punished in Tartarus deserved the same level of punishment while living, thus assuring the ordinary and mundane shades an afterlife of equality and simplicity. While some believed in reincarnation and thus the recycling of our shades, it is widely acknowledged that all of our shade's journeys will eventually end. The likely hood of an everyday person passing on and ending up in a sort of ‘hell’ type afterlife is relatively slim in the eyes of Hellenism, and it gives the Greeks a sense of relief in death instead of an intensely instilled fear.
