Cult of Hades?

[Fiamma]

So, over here in this thread (http://www.mysticwicks.com/showthread.php?t=158600), Shield_Wolf commented about Hades not having a cult...


I all was thought he was a God, one does not need a Cult or anything to be a God. Hell, Hades(joke yes), to my knowledge wasn't worshiped but was still a god.


And a little bit of side discussion ensued.

So...was there a cult of Hades?

Sure was. It wasn't very large, and was mostly connected to funerary rites and necromancy, and he was frequently referred to as Plouton, a name which means "giver of wealth" or "wealthy one".

From http://www.theoi.com/Cult/HaidesCult.html :


HAIDES was the god of underworld and the dead. Although he was honoured during funeral ceremonies and played a role in the Mystery cults, he had few actual temples or shrines in the ancient world. His cult centre in Greece was the so-called Oracle of the Dead in the Thesprotia.
There are perhaps only two surviving cult statues of Haides (although one of these is labelled a Serapis), which depict him standing beside the three-headed dog Kerberos.



Haides was honoured in Greek funeral services and necromantic rites (the summoning of the ghosts of the dead).


There is more extensive information on that page regarding the cult of Hades in specific locations throughout Greece, as well as Asia Minor and Italy.

There's also this from http://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/hades.html


People avoided speaking his name lest they attracted his unwanted attention. With their faces averted they sacrificed black sheep, whose blood they let drip into pits, and when they prayed to him, they would bang their hands on the ground. The narcissus and the cypress are sacred to him.

[Theres]

interesting, as i also believed that there was no cult of Hades.

in fact i remember reading that Zeus' other brother didn't even have a formal name, and that we only know him from the name of His realm.

[Fiamma]

in fact i remember reading that Zeus' other brother didn't even have a formal name, and that we only know him from the name of His realm.

huh, I've never heard that one.

[Twinkle]

Hades did have two cults. It was more common that he was revered in his lighter aspect as Pluton.

Hades was not a recipient of cult (Soph. Ant. 777 80). Like Thanatos, 'Death', he was indifferent to prayer or offerings (Aesch. fr. 161 Radt; Eur. Alc. 424).

The abnormal cult of Hades at Elis, with a temple open once a year, then only to the priest. Minthe near Pylos (Strabo 8. 344) are the exceptions that prove the rule. But throughout the Greek world-at Eleusis, Sparta, Ephesus, Carian Cnidus, and Mytilene on Lesbos, among numerous other places--he received cult in his beneficial aspect as Pluton, often alongside his consort Persephone. The couple were widely worshipped as Pluton and Kore; at Eleusis, they were also known as Theos and Thea. Pluton is related to the Eleusinian cult figures Plutus and Eubouleus as well as to other friendly chthonians such as Zeus Meilichios and Zeus Eubouleus. In various curse tablets, however, he is invoked along with Derneter and Kore or, more menacingly, with the Erinyes, Hecate, Hermes, Moirai, and Persephone; curses in the name of Hades and Persephone are less common.


http://www.wsu.edu/~hughesc/hades.htm

[David19]

Thanks for the link, Twinkle, Hades kind of interests me.

[Twinkle]

Persephone was really the link that led me to Hades....and I recently got into a rather heated discussion with a young man who worshiped Hades as a dark god, and pigeonholed him as such.

I left this article for him to show him that the gods have both positive and negative aspects...and how important it is to study the gods in their cultural context.

If you look at the history and how Hades was worshiped....we can't really say that he was a "dark god" at all.