Hades in Greek and Roman Mythology | Family Ties of the God of the Underworld, Persephone, and Demeter

A field is full of blooming narcissus flowers. Persephone, picking flowers with the other girls, stops before one bloom that stands out from all the rest. The moment she reaches out her hand toward it, the ground splits open beneath her feet, and from the crevice a golden chariot drawn by black horses rises up.

The one driving the chariot was Hades, the god who rules the realm of the dead. From this single brief scene, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter tells, in order, the story of how an entire family was shaken and then found its place again.

Persephone Vanishes Before the Narcissus

According to the hymn, that narcissus was no flower that happened to bloom. It is said the earth brought it forth specially at Zeus's will. The moment Persephone touched the flower, the ground opened and Hades appeared, watching for her.

Hades placed her in his chariot and carried her straight down to the underworld. As she was dragged away, Persephone cried out desperately to her father Zeus, but the only ones who heard her voice were Hecate and the sun god Helios. Zeus himself merely sat in his temple, showing no reaction at all.

Where his daughter had vanished, only scattered petals remained. This silence becomes the starting point of the entire story that follows. Some knew what had happened, some pretended not to know, and only her mother Demeter, knowing nothing, had to set out in search of her daughter.

Nine Days of a Mother with Torches

Demeter did not hear her daughter's voice, but she sensed at once that something had gone wrong. Tearing her hair and throwing off the cloak from her shoulders, she wandered over land and sea for nine days and nights with a torch in each hand. During that time she touched neither the ambrosia nor the nectar the gods drink.

On the morning of the tenth day, Hecate appeared before her carrying torches and shared what she knew. But even Hecate did not know who had done it. Together the two went to find Helios, the sun god who looks down on everything.

Helios told Demeter the truth plainly. Zeus had given his consent, and Hades had taken Persephone to be his wife. Helios even urged her to accept the marriage, saying that Hades was a husband lacking nothing among the gods.

For Demeter, this was not comfort but another shock. The one who had taken her daughter was no stranger but her husband's brother, a god she knew well, and the deed had been done with Zeus's approval. From that moment, she turned her back on all of Olympus.

The Goddess Hidden in Eleusis, the Child in the Fire

In her anger, Demeter left Olympus, the seat of the gods, disguising herself as an old woman. She then came to a place called Eleusis and sat by a well. There the daughters of King Celeus found her and spoke to her.

Demeter called herself Doso, claiming she was a woman who had fled from pirates in Crete. The girls brought her to their mother Metaneira, who entrusted her with the nursing of her late-born son Demophoon.

By day, Demeter cared for the child, anointing him with ambrosia and breathing divine breath into him. But at night, she repeatedly laid him secretly in the fire. In this way she sought to make Demophoon immortal.

One night, Metaneira saw the scene and cried out in alarm. "Demophoon, my son, the strange woman is burying you deep in the fire." At that cry, Demeter angrily snatched the child from the flames.

Demeter then revealed her identity. She said that had she not been interrupted, she could have made Demophoon forever ageless, but now the child, too, could not escape death. Yet she promised that lasting honor would remain his forever, and commanded the people of Eleusis to build a temple for her.

The Land Where Grain Would Not Grow

Settled in her temple, Demeter shut herself inside, longing for her daughter. Meanwhile, across the whole earth, seeds ceased to sprout. Plowing the fields was useless, and people began to starve.

Demeter resolved that until she saw her daughter again she would not return to Olympus, nor allow the earth to bear any fruit. It did not take long for Zeus to realize that if humans perished, the offerings due to the gods would vanish with them.

Zeus first sent Iris to summon Demeter, but she would not comply. Then the other gods went to her one by one with gifts and tried to persuade her, all in vain. In the end, only one path remained for Zeus: to actually send her daughter back.

Hermes Delivers the Command, Hades Offers the Pomegranate

Zeus sent Hermes to the underworld to deliver his command to Hades. When Hermes arrived, Persephone was sitting beside Hades, longing for her mother.

Hearing Zeus's will, Hades accepted it readily. He said to Persephone: "Go to your mother, dark-robed as she is. Among the gods I shall be a husband lacking nothing to you." Outwardly, he seemed to send her off willingly.

But Hades had no intention of letting her go entirely. Just before she departed, he secretly placed sweet pomegranate seeds in her mouth. He had arranged it so that Persephone, having tasted the food of the underworld, could not remain on the earth alone forever.

Mother and Daughter Reunited, What a Single Seed Changed

Hermes placed Persephone in the chariot of the gods and headed for Demeter's temple. Seeing her daughter, Demeter rushed out like a woman bounding through a forest, and Persephone leapt from the chariot into her mother's arms.

Yet even in that moment, a corner of Demeter's heart was uneasy. Holding her daughter close, she asked at once: "My child, while you were down below, did you touch nothing at all with your lips?" With that single question, the joy of reunion grew heavy again.

Persephone told the truth. She said she had been overjoyed when Hermes arrived with the news that she would be taken back, but that Hades had secretly slipped pomegranate seeds into her mouth in that moment and forced her to swallow them. Only then did she tell her mother, for the first time in detail, of the moment she was seized. She had been picking flowers with her friends in a field mixed with crocus and iris, hyacinth and roses, and lilies, when the earth split open.

The consequence left by that single seed was not light. Rhea, the mother of Zeus, stepped in and delivered a compromise, and Demeter accepted the terms. Persephone would spend part of each year in the underworld with Hades, and the rest on earth with her mother. The moment Demeter accepted this agreement, she made the stalled earth sprout again.

Demeter then revealed her rites to the people of Eleusis. Triptolemus and Diocles, Eumolpus and Celeus received her teachings, and the hymn tells that they became sacred rites not to be transgressed carelessly.

Rome's Pluto, and the Underworld of the Odyssey Is Another Story

The Hades of this story is also known by the name Pluto in Roman mythology. But this correspondence of names does not mean that the entire tradition that grew up separately on the Roman side can simply be laid over the events of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. The names carry on, but the details of the stories can diverge from tradition to tradition.

Meanwhile, the scene in which Odysseus visits the underworld while still alive appears separately in Book 11 of the Odyssey. Though it involves the same god of the underworld, it is worth remembering that this event belongs to a separate work from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.

Characters Who Lead to the Next Stories

Persephone's situation, in which she must return to spend nearly half of each year in the underworld, is covered in more detail in the myth of Persephone. To see what role Demeter, who wandered nine days and nights in search of her daughter, would come to hold afterward, continue with the myth of Demeter.

The story of Odysseus, who crossed the threshold of that same underworld while still alive, can be found in the story of Odysseus, and the full genealogy of the gods, in which Hades, Zeus, and Demeter are entangled as siblings, can be checked in the Greek mythology family tree.