Hell or the Hades represent the kingdom of the dead of the Greek mythology. The Roman term is Inferni. It is necessary to specify that Hell is not at all Christian Hell: it is not a place where the bad reign, but a place of judgment. This place is the place where go all the souls of the deceaseds after their death to be judged there, then live there eternally. In Hell live numerous creatures and divinities having each a clean role in the way of souls to their fate. The god guiding the deaths towards Hell is called “psychopompe”, and this function is generally attributed to Hermes. One “soul” is the shade of an alive person, it feels no more emotion and has no more strength. It is only following shadows which walk towards their judgment. In Homère, this kingdom is ” a vague and shadowy world inhabited by shadows “. I specify that this article cannot and will not be exhaustive.
– Erèbus is a region of the Hell by which souls pass in their path towards the eternal rest. We find 3 palaces of the chthonian gods there: that of the Night ( Nyx), that of the Sleep (Oneiroi, children of Nyx and Erèbe or Hypnos, of whom Morpheus) and that of the Dreams ( Hypnos). Watered fabrics (Fates in Roman version) also live there.
– The Plain of Asphodels or Field of Asphodel, welcomes the neutral souls, that is which nothing hurt, but nothing of much either during their life. They lead an insipid and empty existence there to wait for all eternity.
– The Palace of the gods Hades and Persephone, where resident both sovereigns of the Hell about whom we shall speak below. They are surrounded with the Gardens of Persephone.
– The Champs-Elysées, which we can also call Élysée, is a place of eternal rest for souls having lived a life of virtue or having been brave. The Islands of the Happy are very similar to them.
– The Fields of the Punishment is the opposite of the Champs-Elysées, that is it is a place of eternal punishment in which stay souls having had a life full of vice or having carried out one or several very evil deeds.
– The Tartar is the prison of Hell. In the origins, Tartar is a divinity, but he(it) is quickly likened to a place, that where the biggest criminals are locked and undergo constantly the worst tortures. This prison contains in particular Titanset the Giants.
All this region is surrounded with several rivers: the Styx (river of the mortal hatred, makes invulnerable), Léthé (river of the oversight which allows the souls of the deaths to erase their memory and to be reincarnated), the acheron (river of the pain the water of which is poisoned) and his tributaries Cocyte (river established of the tears of the fallen souls) and Phlégéthon (river of flames surrounding the Tartar).