CHTHONIC AND THE UNDERWORLD: i. The Underworld
“Chthonic” is a term used to identify gods and other deities that dwell into the underworld. From the Greek χθόνιος khthonios, literally means subterranean, from under the earth. It is associated both with wealth (in agriculture) as with grave and death.
For the Greeks, the underworld was somewhere where the souls went after death, as the place they would live in their after life. But even if the soul was still living, it had no more active part in the world. The Greek would honor the dead and proper burial rituals were severely observed, as this negligence would bring the God’s wrath and turn impossible to the deceased to truly enter the realm of Hades.
After death, Charon, the ferryman of Hades, would take the deceased spirit through the Styx to the gates. The deceased must have a coin, that would be buried with the body (usually place above the eyelids or under the tongue) to pay the ferryman. Around this place, there would be the souls of the ones that, by lack of proper burial, couldn’t go to the Hades.
The underworld had many rivers, each associated with one stage of mourning. The main river is Styx, named after the goddess Styx and know as the river of hatred. Circles the underworld seven times. The other rives are Acheron (pain), Lethe (forgetfulness), Cocytus (wailing) and Phlegethon that leads to the deeps of Tartarus.
Dwelling before the gates to Hades, one would find Grief and Anxiety, along with Diseases and Old Age. Also Fear, Hunger, Death, Agony, and Sleep, dwell in this place together with Guilty Joys. On an opposite threshold is War, the Erinyes, and Eris. Close to the doors, many other beasts dwell consisting of Centaurs, Gorgons, the Lernaean Hydra, the Chimera, the Harpies, and others. In the midst of all this, an Elm can be seen where False Dreams cling under every leaf.
Tartarus is a place deep bellow the underworld, to where Zeus sent the Titans during the Titanomachy. Fields of Punishment is to where people who committed crimes against the gods go, Hades himself chooses the punishment in this case. Fields of Asphodel is to where ordinary people went to, people without crime but without any greatness too. Vale of Mourning,where those who were consumed by unhappy love dwell. Elysium was a place for the especially distinguished, the souls that dwelled there had an easy afterlife and had no labors. The ones initiated in the Elysian mysteries presided by Demeter, Persephone and Hekate had easier access to the Elysium. The Isles of the Blessed were islands in the realm of Elysium. When a soul achieved Elysium, they had a choice to either stay in Elysium or to be reborn. If a soul was reborn three times and achieved Elysium all three times, then they were sent to the Isles of the Blessed to be sentenced to eternal paradise.
The dead could be called back by the use of necromancy, or return spontaneously if they weren’t properly buried, suffered a violent death or died before their time. The usual tributes to the chthonic gods usually included sacrifices, such as throwing animals into the underground pit and pouring liquids into it.