Hades knew of their plan to capture his wife, so he pretended to offer them hospitality and set a feast as soon as the pair sat down, snakes coiled around their feet and held them there. They left Helen with Theseus' mother, Aethra and traveled to the Underworld. Theseus chose Helen and together they kidnapped her and decided to hold onto her until she was old enough to marry. Theseus and Pirithous pledged to kidnap and marry daughters of Zeus. It is during this time that winter casts on the earth "an aspect of sadness and mourning." Zeus proposed a compromise, to which all parties agreed: of the year, Persephone would spend one third with her husband. It is not clear whether Persephone was accomplice to the ploy. This bound her to Hades and the Underworld, much to the dismay of Demeter. ".but if you have tasted food, you must go back again beneath the secret places of the earth, there to dwell a third part of the seasons every year: yet for the two parts you shall be with me and the other deathless gods." "But he on his part secretly gave her sweet pomegranate seed to eat, taking care for himself that she might not remain continually with grave, dark-robed Demeter."ĭemeter questioned Persephone on her return to light and air: Finally, Zeus intervened via Hermes, he requested that Hades return Persephone. In protest of his act, Demeter cast a curse on the land and there was a great famine though, one by one, the gods came to request she lift it, lest mankind perish, she asserted that the earth would remain barren until she saw her daughter again. Persephone did not submit to Hades willingly, but was abducted by him while picking flowers in the fields of Nysa. The consort of Hades was Persephone, represented by the Greeks as the beautiful daughter of Demeter.
Zeus got the sky, Poseidon got the seas, and Hades received the underworld, the unseen realm to which the souls of the dead go upon leaving the world as well as any and all things beneath the earth. Following their victory, according to a single famous passage in the Iliad (xv.187–93), Hades and his two brothers, Poseidon and Zeus, drew lots for realms to rule. The war lasted for ten years and ended with the victory of the younger gods. After their release the six younger gods, along with allies they managed to gather, challenged the elder gods for power in the Titanomachy, a divine war. Like Hestia, Poseidon, Demeter, and Hera, he was swallowed by Kronos, and spent his childhood inside Kronos' stomach, until his brother, Zeus, came and rescued him and his siblings.
Hades is a god of the first generation of Olympians, and is the eldest son of Kronos and Rhea. In Greek mythology Hades has been used to refer both to the "underworld" or Hell and the deity that rules the dead. Symbols associated with him are the Helm of Darkness, bident, and the three-headed dog, Cerberus. They also associated him with many of their other chthonic gods, like Dis Pater and Orcus. Hades was also called plouton, or the Rich One, which the Romans latinised as Pluto. According to myth, he and his brothers Zeus and Poseidon defeated the Titans and claimed rulership over the cosmos, ruling the underworld, air, and sea, respectively the solid earth, long the province of Gaia, was available to all three concurrently. Hades was the son of Kronos and Rhea, and the oldest male child. Hades was also the god of the hidden wealth of the earth, from the fertile soil with nourished the seed-grain, to the mined wealth of gold, silver and other metals.
He presided over funeral rites and defended the right of the dead to due burial. Hades was the Greek god of the dead, riches and the Underworld. Hestia, Hera, Demeter, Poseidon, and Zeus Bident, Cerberus, helm of darkness, keys, poppy, narcissus and scepter