Children of Hades

Mythology

In Greek mythology, Hades was the god of the Underworld. He was one of the most prominent gods, being the brother of powerful deities like Zeus and Poseidon. The modern audience often just views him as an isolated villain, and that is largely accurate. However, the Greek myths occasionally present him as having children. Who were these children? What did they do, and what stories do they feature in? This article will answer those questions and others.

Illustration of Hades and his wife Persephone, 1864
Wikipedia

Macaria

One of the daughters of Hades from Greek mythology is Macaria. She is a very obscure figure. She is mainly known from the Suda, which was a medieval encyclopaedia written in the tenth-century Byzantine Empire. She was also referred to by Zenobius, a writer from the second century CE. This appears to be the earliest surviving reference to her.

The Suda explains that she was a daughter of Hades, though it does not say who her mother was. It also makes a point of the fact that her name means ‘blessed’ and associates this with the fact that the dead are sometimes called ‘the blessed ones’. It has been suggested that she was connected with helping dead souls to reach the Isles of the Blessed, which was one of the Greek afterlives.

Also the Daughter of Heracles?

Interestingly, there was one other character from Greek mythology called Macaria. She was a daughter of Heracles who offered herself as a sacrifice to Persephone to save the city of Athens.

It is notable that this other Macaria is not merely a character who died (as virtually all human characters from Greek mythology eventually did), but was specifically offered as a sacrifice to Persephone.

Since Persephone was the queen of the Underworld and wife of Hades, it could be that Macaria became Persephone’s (and thus Hades’) adopted daughter. This would mean that Macaria the daughter of Hades and Macaria the daughter of Heracles were actually the same figure. However, there is no way of confirming this.

Melinoe

Another daughter of Hades was Melinoe. She was a deity of the Underworld, sometimes described as a nymph (a kind of lesser deity) and sometimes as a full goddess in modern sources. Like Macaria, very little is known about Melinoe. She is known from just two sources. The most useful source is an Orphic hymn from about 200 CE. This was a hymn designed to invoke the goddess.

The hymn explains that Melinoe is capable of causing night terrors due to her frightening nature. She can even drive people insane in some cases. She is described as half white and half black. Some scholars interpret this as due to her dual nature as a heavenly and a chthonic (Underworld) goddess.

Aside from this, the only other reference to Melinoe from the ancient world is on an inscription on a bronze tablet. Interestingly, this is dated to about the same time as the Orphic hymn mentioning her.

Melinoe’s Connection to Hades

The issue of Melinoe’s connection to Hades is not a simple one. She was definitely the daughter of Hades’ wife Persephone; the Orphic hymn explains that directly. However, the hymn explains that Persephone got pregnant when Zeus, in the guise of Hades, slept with her. It says that he did this by deceiving her through ‘guileful arts’ or ‘wily plots’.

Based on this, one common interpretation is that Zeus disguised himself as Hades to sleep with Persephone. However, other evidence from Greek literature and from the Orphic hymns in particular indicates that it may not be that simple.

Hades himself was sometimes called ‘Zeus’ along with a title to indicate his chthonic, or Underworld, nature. This may have just been to denote his kingship over the Underworld, but the followers of the Orphic tradition believed that Hades and Zeus were two incarnations of literally the same deity.

Therefore, when the Orphic hymn refers to Zeus as being ‘in the guise of Hades’, this does not necessarily mean that Zeus was pretending to be Hades. This may be a way of simply referring to Zeus as presenting himself to Persephone in his alternate, but legitimate, form as Hades. The line about him using trickery to achieve his aim with Persephone could be interpreted as a reference to the famous kidnapping of Persephone by Hades.

The reality is that we cannot say for sure whether Melinoe was imagined as being the daughter of Zeus disguised as Hades, or as the daughter of Hades himself (viewed as identical to Zeus).

Zagreus

We are on more secure ground with this next figure. Zagreus was a god about whom little is known, although he appears to be strongly associated with the Underworld. Greek tradition (recorded principally by Diodorus Siculus) associates him with an early Dionysus. This earlier Dionysus was born from Zeus and Persephone and was torn apart by the Titans and then later reborn.

Some scholars have suggested that Zagreus was originally completely separate from Dionysus, but that over the centuries the two figures were merged. In any case, Zagreus is strongly associated with the Underworld in his earliest appearances in Greek records.

In the earliest mention of him, his wife is Gaia and he is called the highest of the gods. Since Gaia was an earth goddess, this indicates that Zagreus was an Underworld god. Him being the ‘highest of the gods’ presumably refers to the gods of the Underworld in this context.

The Greek poet Aeschylus, writing in c. 500 BCE, presented Zagreus as the son of Hades and Persephone. No other information is provided, but this alone is enough to prove the early tradition that Zagreus really was the son of Hades. It is possible that his association with Zeus (in the form of Dionysus) came about through the Orphic belief that Hades and Zeus were identical.

Erinyes

The Erinyes are a group of three deities who are sometimes portrayed as the offspring of Hades. Another name for them is the ‘Eumenides’. In English, they are sometimes called the Furies. They were Underworld goddesses of vengeance who punished humans for crimes against the natural order. Ancient Greek art usually depicts them as winged women with snakes wrapped around various parts of their bodies, such as their arms and waists.

The Erinyes concerned themselves with a variety of acts of wickedness. Greek tradition associates them particularly with the crimes of disrespect towards one’s parents or the elderly, as well as murder, perjury, and a disregard for hospitality.

They first appear in the Iliad, where Homer explains that they punished whoever did not keep their oath. The Erinyes did not always act entirely autonomously, however. If someone called down a curse upon an enemy, the Erinyes would awaken from their resting place and punish the one who was cursed. While they were sleeping, they stayed in Erebus, the personification of darkness.

As a punishment, the Erinyes would sometimes inflict madness upon the guilty party. They could also punish people with physical ailments, or even cause suffering for an entire nation if the nation protected a wrongdoer. The Erinyes were also responsible for overseeing the torment of the wicked after death.

Sleeping Erinyes, a second century CE Roman copy of a Greek original. Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY 3.0

Their Variable Parentage

Like many characters in Greek mythology (some of whom we have already considered in this article), the Erinyes do not have a consistent parentage. Hesiod, in the seventh century BCE, is the first to discuss where they came from. He says that they were born from Gaia, the earth goddess, after a drop of Uranus’ blood fell to the earth after he was attacked by his son Cronus.

The poet Aeschylus, writing in c. 500 BCE, presented them as the daughters of Nyx, the goddess of the night. A number of Greek poets over the centuries followed this parentage. In the Aeneid, written by the Roman writer Virgil in the first century BCE, they are the daughters of Nyx and Hades. The Orphic hymns of the same general time period also present the Erinyes as the daughters of Hades, whom they refer to as Zeus.

A number of sources subsequent to the first century BCE also present them as daughters of Hades. Before this, there does not appear to be any reference to them being viewed as his daughters. The only potential hint of this is from Aeschylus’ description of them as daughters of Nyx. That goddess was said to have resided in the Underworld as early as Hesiod, so the idea that their father would have been Hades is quite logical.

Plutus

A more obscure child of Hades is Plutus. This child is ‘obscure’ in the sense that no ancient text actually describes him as being fathered by Hades. Yet, some scholars conclude that this was indeed an ancient belief.

Plutus was the god of wealth. In fact, his name literally means ‘wealth’. His mother was Demeter, the goddess of agriculture and one of the wives of Zeus. Plutus’ father was not Zeus, however. Rather, according to the common version of the myth, his father was a mortal man named Iasion of Crete.

Plutus does not appear in many stories within Greek mythology. When he does, it is usually to make some point about riches as a concept and how they are distributed among mankind. For example, the Greek poet Aristophanes, of the fourth century BCE, wrote a satirical play about this god of wealth.

In the story, Plutus is blinded by Zeus. This represents the fact that Plutus give riches to people blindly, without concern for whether they deserve it or not. He is also shown as lame, representing how he does not reach people quickly. Yet, he is portrayed with wings, showing that he departs quicker than he arrives.

The first-century Roman writer Phaedrus recorded a story in which Hercules arrived on Mount Olympus and greeted all the gods except for Plutus. As an explanation for this, Hercules stated that he hated Plutus due to him favouring the wicked.

Was Plutus the son of Hades?

Some ancient records conflate Plutus with Hades by calling him Pluto or Pluton, which was another name by which Hades was known. However, there are only a handful of these apparent conflations, and they may be due to nothing more than scribal errors.

On the other hand, some scholars argue that Plutus really was identified as Hades himself. The logic is that grain was the chief form of wealth in the ancient world, and Hades, the god of the Underworld and husband of Persephone (goddess of grain), was responsible for providing grain for mankind.

On this basis, he could be considered the god of wealth. In support of this is the fact that Greek art sometimes depicted Hades as wielding a cornucopia, just like how Plutus was often depicted.

Evidence for Plutus as the son of Hades

This connection between Plutus and Hades lends support to the speculation that Plutus was actually supposed to be Hades’ son. This speculation is primarily based on one specific piece of ancient Greek art which depicts Plutus inside a cornucopia, being handed to Demeter by a goddess rising out of the earth.

This piece of art suggests that Plutus was actually born in the Underworld and was received by Demeter as an adopted son. Admittedly, this does not tell us who his real parents were, but Hades and Persephone were the most prominent of the Underworld deities, so they are the most obvious options. The aforementioned connections between Plutus and Hades support this conclusion.

In addition, some scholars argue that Plutus can be identified with another god called Eubuleus. He appears fairly prominently in Orphic texts. This, along with other evidence, has led some scholars to conclude that ‘Eubuleus’ was another name for Zagreus. We have already seen that Zagreus was originally viewed as the son of Hades. In line with this, one text calls Eubuleus the son of ‘Zeus’ (the Orphic name for Hades).

Diodorus Siculus informs us that Eubuleus was the son of Demeter and was born on Crete. This matches the common story of the birth of Plutus. Due to this, some scholars believe that Eubuleus and Plutus were originally the same character. This being so, the identification of Eubuleus with Zagreus means that Plutus, by extension, is another manifestation of Zagreus and therefore a son of Hades.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Hades was not usually presented with children in Greek mythology. This is only logical, since he was the god of the dead, so he was naturally not associated with bringing forth new life. Yet, there are a few examples of him being given children in the myths. Macaria was his daughter in one late tradition, although she also might just have been Heracles’ daughter and was adopted by Hades. The goddess Melinoe seems to have been imagined as the daughter of Hades by the followers of the Orphic tradition. The Erinyes were also imagined as daughters of Hades, although not in the earliest traditions. The clearest example of a child of Hades is Zagreus, depicted as such from almost his first appearance. Plutus, the god of wealth, might also be a son of Hades (possibly identical with Zagreus), although this is speculative.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How Many Children Did Hades Have?

There are at least sixth deities who were sometimes portrayed as the children of Hades, with a possible seventh.

Who Were the Children of Hades?

Hades’ daughters were Macaria, Melinoe, and the three Erinyes (Furies). His sons were Zagreus and possibly Plutus.

Were Hades’ Children Evil?

Nothing is known about Macaria’s moral character. However, Melinoe and the Erinyes are generally associated with causing suffering. The Erinyes, though, caused suffering for the wicked, not the innocent. Little to nothing is known about the moral character of Zagreus in Greek mythology. Plutus was responsible for giving wealth to people, although whether he always gave wealth to the ones who deserved it was controversial. Therefore, Melinoe appears to be the only one who is explicitly evil.