View source for Pluto (mythology)

{{short description|Greek and Roman god of the underworld}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2025}}
{{Infobox deity
| type = Roman
| name = Pluto
| image = File:Statuette of Pluto, front - Getty Museum (71.AA.438).jpg
| caption = 1st century sculpture of Pluto in the [[Getty Villa]]
| deity_of = God of the [[List of death deities|dead]] and [[List of fortune deities|riches]]<br />King of the underworld
| venerated_in = {{ubl
| [[Ancient Greek religion]]
| [[Imperial cult of ancient Rome]]
| [[Religion in Ancient Rome|Polytheistic religion]]
}}
| abode = The underworld
| planet = [[Pluto]]
| symbol = [[Bident]], [[cap of invisibility]]
| consort = [[Proserpina]]
| parents = [[Saturn (mythology)|Saturn]] and [[Ops]]<ref>Saturni filius, frg. 2 in the edition of Baehrens.</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bN8Fdp9kuTkC&q=ops+saturn&pg=PT420 |via=Google Books |title=Selected Poems: Keats: Keats |first=John |last=Keats|date=26 April 2007 |publisher=Penguin UK |isbn=9780141936918 }}</ref>
| siblings = [[Vesta (mythology)|Vesta]], [[Ceres (mythology)|Ceres]], [[Jupiter (god)|Jupiter]] [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]], [[Neptune (mythology)|Neptune]]
| mount = 
| other_names = [[Dis Pater]], Dite, [[Orcus]], Rex Infernus
| Greek_equivalent = [[Hades]]
| Etruscan_equivalent = [[Aita]]
}}
{{Ancient Roman religion}}

In [[ancient Roman religion]] and [[Roman mythology|mythology]], '''Pluto''' ({{langx|grc|Πλούτων|Ploútōn}}, {{langx|la|Plūto}} or {{lang|la|Plūton}}), also known as '''[[Dis Pater]]''' or '''[[Orcus]]''', was the god of the [[List of death deities|dead]] and the king of the [[underworld]]. The name was originally an [[epithet]] or [[theonym]] for ''[[Hades]]'' in [[ancient Greek religion]] and [[Greek mythology|mythology]], although Pluto was more associated with [[List of fortune deities|wealth]] and never used as a synonym for the underworld itself, representing a more positive concept of the god who presides over the [[afterlife]]. He was the eldest son of [[Saturn (mythology)|Saturn]] ([[Cronus]]) and [[Ops]] ([[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]]), as well as the brother of [[Jupiter (god)|Jupiter]] ([[Zeus]]) and [[Neptune (mythology)|Neptune]] ([[Poseidon]]). Pluto later married [[Proserpina]] ([[Persephone]]) and shared many of Hades' attributes, such as the [[bident]], the [[cap of invisibility]], and the three-headed guard dog [[Cerberus]].

While Pluto is commonly considered the [[Interpretatio graeca|Roman equivalent]] of Hades, the name '''Plouton''' was already used by the [[Greeks]] to designate Hades and was later [[Romanization|adopted]] by the [[Ancient Rome|Romans]] for their god of the underworld, ''[[Dis Pater]]'', which often means "Rich Father" and is perhaps a direct translation of Plouton. Pluto was also identified with the obscure god ''[[Orcus]]'', name that the Romans adopted from the [[Etruscan civilization|Etruscans]] and which, like Hades, was both for the god of the underworld and for the underworld as a place. On the other hand, Ploutōn was frequently [[Conflation|conflated]] with [[Plutus|Ploûtos]], the Greek god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground and because, as a [[Chthonic deities|chthonic]] god, Pluto ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds needed for a bountiful harvest.

Pluto becomes the most common name for the [[Classical tradition|classical]] ruler of the underworld in subsequent [[Western culture|Western literature and other art forms]], although in recent years it has lost relevance [[Hades in popular culture|compared to Hades]].

== Greek origin ==
[[File:The Abduction of Persephone by Pluto, Amphipolis.jpg|thumb|A [[mosaic]] of the [[Kasta Tomb]] in [[Amphipolis]] depicting the abduction of [[Persephone]] by Pluto, 4th century BC|left]]
Pluto and [[Hades]] differ in character, but they are not distinct figures and share two dominant myths. In Greek [[cosmogony]], the god received the rule of the [[underworld]] in a three-way division of sovereignty over the world, with his brother [[Zeus]] ruling the sky and his other brother [[Poseidon]] sovereign over the sea. His central narrative in myth is of him abducting [[Persephone]] to be his wife and the queen of his realm.<ref>Hansen, ''Classical Mythology'', p. 180.</ref> ''Plouton'' as the name of the ruler of the underworld first appears in [[Ancient Greek literature|Greek literature]] of the [[Classical Greece|Classical period]], in the works of the [[Theatre in ancient Greece|Athenian playwrights]] and of the philosopher [[Plato]], who is the major Greek source on its significance. Under the name Pluto, the god appears in other myths in a secondary role, mostly as the possessor of a [[quest]]-object, and especially in the descent of [[Orpheus]] or other [[Greek hero|heroes]] to the underworld.<ref>Hansen, ''Classical Mythology'', pp. 180–181.</ref>

The name ''Ploutōn'' does not appear in Greek literature of the [[Archaic Greece|Archaic period]].<ref>[[Lewis Richard Farnell]], ''[[The Cults of the Greek States]]'' (Clarendon Press, 1907), vol. 3, p. 281.</ref> In [[Hesiod]]'s ''[[Theogony]]'', the six children of [[Cronus]] and [[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]] are [[Zeus]], [[Hera]], [[Poseidon]], [[Hades]], [[Demeter]], and [[Hestia]]. The male children divide the world into three realms. Hades takes Persephone by force from her mother Demeter, with the consent of Zeus. ''Ploutos'', "Wealth," appears in the ''Theogony'' as the child of Demeter and [[Iasion]]: "fine Plutus, who goes upon the whole earth and the broad back of the sea, and whoever meets him and comes into his hands, that man he makes rich, and he bestows much wealth upon him." The union of Demeter and Iasion, described also in the ''[[Odyssey]]'',<ref>''[[Odyssey]]'' 5.125–128: ''And so it was when Demeter of the lovely hair, yielding / to her desire, lay down with Iasion and loved him / in a thrice-turned field'' (translation of [[Richmond Lattimore]]).</ref> took place in a [[fallow]] field that had been ploughed three times, in what seems to be a reference to a [[hieros gamos|ritual copulation]] or [[sympathetic magic]] to ensure the earth's fertility.<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''Theogony'' 969–74; [[Apostolos Athanassakis|Apostolos N. Athanassakis]], ''Hesiod. Theogony, Works and Days, Shield'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983, 2004), p. 56.</ref> "The resemblance of the name ''Ploutos'' to ''Plouton'' ...," it has been noted, "cannot be accidental. Plouton is lord of the dead, but as Persephone's husband he has serious claims to the powers of fertility."<ref>Athanassakis, ''Hesiod'', p. 56.</ref> Demeter's son Plutus merges in the narrative tradition with her son-in-law Pluto, redefining the implacable chariot-driver Hades whose horses trample the flowering earth.<ref>[[Emily Vermeule]], ''Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry'' (University of California Press, 1979), pp. 37, 219; [[Hendrik Wagenvoort]], "The Origin of the ''Ludi Saeculares''," in ''Studies in Roman Literature, Culture and Religion'' (Brill, 1956), p. 198.</ref>

Ploutōn came into widespread usage with the [[Eleusinian Mysteries]], in which Pluto was venerated as both a stern ruler and a loving husband to Persephone. The couple received souls in the afterlife and are invoked together in religious inscriptions, being referred to as ''Plouton'' and as ''Kore'' respectively. Hades, by contrast, had few temples and religious practices associated with him, and he is portrayed as the dark and violent abductor of Persephone.

=== Plouton and Ploutos ===
[[File:Dionysos Ploutos BM F68.jpg|thumb|Ploutos with the [[Cornucopia|horn of abundance]], in the company of [[Dionysos]] (4th century BC)|left]]
''Plouton'' was one of several [[euphemism|euphemistic]] names for Hades, described in the ''[[Iliad]]'' as the god most hateful to mortals.<ref>Hansen, ''Classical Mythology'', pp. 162 and 182, citing [[Homer]], ''[[Iliad]]'' 9.158–159. Euphemism is a characteristic way of speaking of divine figures associated with the dead and the underworld; Joseph William Hewitt, "The Propitiation of Zeus," ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'' 19 (1908), p. 66, considers euphemism a form of [[propitiation]].</ref> [[Plato]] says that people prefer the name ''Plouton'', "giver of wealth," because the name of [[Hades]] is fear-provoking.<ref>[[Plato]], ''[[Cratylus (dialogue)|Cratylus]]'' 403a; Glenn R. Morrow, ''Plato's Cretan City: A Historical Interpretation of the Laws'' (Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 452–453.</ref> The name was understood as referring to "the boundless riches of the earth, both the crops on its surface—he was originally a god of the land—and the mines hidden within it."<ref>Fernando Navarro Antolin, ''Lygdamus: Corpus Tibullianum III.1–6, Lygdami Elegiarum Liber'' (Brill, 1996), pp. 145–146.</ref> What is sometimes taken as "confusion" of the two gods ''Plouton'' and ''Ploutos'' ("Wealth") held or acquired a theological significance in antiquity. As a lord of abundance or riches, Pluto expresses the aspect of the underworld god that was positive, symbolized in art by the "horn of plenty" ([[cornucopia]]),<ref>Charlotte R. Long, ''The Twelve Gods of Greece and Rome'' (Brill, 1987), p. 179; Phyllis Pray Bober, "Cernunnos: Origin and Transformation of a Celtic Divinity," ''American Journal of Archaeology'' 55 (1951), p. 28, examples in Greek and Roman art in note 98; Hewitt, "The Propitiation of Zeus," p. 65.</ref> by means of which ''Plouton'' is distinguished from the gloomier Hades.<ref>Tsagalis, ''Inscribing Sorrow'', pp. 101–102; Morrow, ''Plato's Cretan City'', pp. 452–453; John J. Hermann, Jr., "Demeter-Isis or the Egyptian Demeter? A Graeco-Roman Sculpture from an Egyptian Workshop in Boston" in ''Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts'' 114 (1999), p. 88.</ref>

=== Other identifications ===
In Greek religious practice, Pluto is sometimes seen as the "chthonic Zeus" (''Zeus Chthonios''<ref>Noel Robertson, ''Religion and Reconciliation in Greek Cities: The Sacred Laws of Selinus and Cyrene'' (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 102, citing passages from the ''Orphic Hymns'', throughout which ''Plouton'' is the ruler of the underworld, and Hades is the name of the place itself.</ref> or ''Zeus Catachthonios''<ref>Hewitt, "The Propitiation of Zeus," p. 74, asserts that "Zeus Catachthonius seems certainly to be Pluto." Other deities to whom the title ''Katachthonios'' was affixed include Demeter, Persephone, and the Furies; Eugene Lane, "The Epithets of [[Men (god)|Men]]," ''Corpus monumentorum religionis dei Menis: Interpretation and Testimonia'' (Brill, 1976), vol. 3, p. 77, citing the entry on ''Katachthonioi'' in Roscher, ''Lexikon'' II, i, col. 998ff.</ref>), or at least as having functions or significance equivalent to those of Zeus but pertaining to the earth or underworld.<ref>Zeus Chthonius and Pluto are seen as having "the same significance" in the ''[[Orphic Hymns]]'' and in the ''Dionysiaca'' of Nonnus (6.156ff.), by Hewitt, "The Propitiation of Zeus," p. 74, note 7. Overlapping functions are also suggested when [[Hesiod]] advises farmers to pray to "Zeus Chthonius and to holy Demeter that they may cause the holy corn of Demeter to teem in full perfection." This form of Zeus receives the black [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#victima|victims]] typically offered to underworld deities.</ref> In [[Religion in ancient Rome|ancient Roman]] and [[Hellenistic religion]], Pluto was [[interpretatio graeca|identified with]] a number of other deities, including [[Summanus]], the Roman god of nocturnal thunder;<ref>[[Martianus Capella]], ''De Nuptiis'' 2.161.</ref> [[Februus]], the Roman god from whose [[Februa|purification rites]] the [[Roman calendar|month of February]] takes its name and an Etruscans god of the underworld<ref>Capella, ''De nuptiis'' 2.149; [[Isidore of Seville]], ''Etymologies'' 5.33.4; [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]], note to [[Vergil]]'s ''[[Georgics]]'' 1.43 (Vergil refrains from naming the god); [[John Lydus]], ''De mensibus'' 4.25.</ref> the [[syncretism|syncretic]] god [[Serapis]], regarded as Pluto's [[ancient Egyptian religion|Egyptian equivalent]];<ref>[[Plutarch]], ''De Iside'' [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Isis_and_Osiris*/B.html 27] (361e): "In fact, men assert that Pluto is none other than Serapis and that Persephone is [[Isis]], even as [[Archemachus of Euboea]] has said, and also [[Heracleides Ponticus]] who holds the oracle in [[Canopus, Egypt|Canopus]] to be an oracle of Pluto" ([[Loeb Classical Library]] translation of 1936, [[LacusCurtius]] edition). Also spelled Sarapis. See Jaime Alvar, ''Romanising Oriental Gods: Myth, Salvation, and Ethics in the Cults of Cybele, Isis, and Mithras'', translated by Richard Gordon (Brill, 2008), pp. 53 [https://books.google.com/books?id=FH841IBf7mwC&dq=pluto&pg=PA53 online] and 58; Hermann, "Demeter-Isis or the Egyptian Demeter?", p. 84.</ref> and the [[Mot (Semitic god)|Semitic god Muth]] (Μούθ). Muth was described by [[Philo of Byblos]] as the equivalent of both [[Thanatos]] (Death [[personification|personified]]) and Pluto.<ref>[[Eusebius]], ''Praeparatio Evangelica'' [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/eusebius_pe_01_book1.htm 1.10.34], attributing this view to the semi-legendary Phoenician author [[Sanchuniathon]] via [[Philo of Byblos]]. In addition to asserting that Muth was equivalent to both [[Thanatos]] (Death [[personification|personified]]) and Pluto, Philo said he was the son of [[Cronus]] and [[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]]. See entry on "Mot," ''[[Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible]]'', edited by [[Karel van der Toorn]], Bob Becking and [[Pieter Willem van der Horst]] (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1999, 2nd ed.), p. 598, and ''Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide'', edited by Sarah Iles Johnston (Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 479. Philo's cosmogony as summarized by Eusebius bears some similarities to that of Hesiod and the Orphics; see [[Sanchuniathon#The history of the gods|Sanchuniathon's history of the gods]] and [[#Theogonies and cosmology|"Theogonies and cosmology" below.]] Philo said that these were reinterpretations of "Phoenician" beliefs by the Greeks.</ref> The ancient Greeks did not regard Pluto as "death" per se.<ref>Hansen, ''Classical Mythology'', p. 182.</ref>

== Roman adoption ==
[[File:Gianlorenzo bernini, ratto di proserpina, 1621-22, 02.jpg|thumb|upright|''[[The Rape of Proserpina]]'' by [[Gian Lorenzo Bernini]] at the [[Galleria Borghese]] in Rome]]
''Plūtō'' ([[Genitive case|genitive]] ''Plūtōnis'') is the [[Romanization|Romanized]] form of the [[Greek language|Greek]] ''Plouton'', being used by the Romans to name their deity of the [[List of death deities|dead]] and the [[underworld]], who was also known as [[Orcus]] or [[Dis Pater|Dite]] and equivalent to Greek god [[Hades]]. Both Orcus and Dite are names for the underworld in Roman mythology. Pluto is also called [[Februus]] because he presides over the purgation of souls.<ref>[[Tercer Mitógrafo Vaticano]], 4, 3</ref> Although this god receives all things into his bosom, he is never satiated. Thus he is called Vedius, 'evil god', Veyovis, 'evil [[Jupiter (god)|Jupiter]]'<ref>Tercer Mitógrafo Vaticano, 6</ref> and Styx Jupiter.<ref>Tercer Mitógrafo Vaticano, 7</ref>  Black cattle are sacrificed to Pluto because sacrificial animals are chosen for divinities by resemblance or by contrast.<ref>Tercer Mitógrafo Vaticano, 26</ref>  Some even allege that Pluto and Glauca, born of [[Saturn (mythology)|Saturn]] and [[Ops]], were twin brothers.

The Roman poet [[Ennius]] (''ca.'' 239–169 BC), the leading figure in the [[Hellenization]] of [[Latin literature]], considered Pluto a Greek god to be explained in terms of the Roman equivalents [[Dis Pater]] and [[Orcus]].<ref>''Pluto Latine est Dis pater, alii Orcum vocant'' ("In Latin, Pluto is Dis Pater; others call him Orcus"): [[Ennius]], ''Euhemerus'' frg. 7 in the edition of Vahlen = ''Var.'' 78 = E.H. Warmington, ''Remains of Old Latin'' (Heinemann, 1940), vol. 1, p. 421. The [[Augustan literature (ancient Rome)|Augustan poet]] [[Horace]] retains the Greek [[accusative]] form of the noun (''Plutona'' instead of Latin ''Plutonem'') at ''Carmen'' 2.14.7, as noted by John Conington, ''P. Vergili Maronis Opera'' (London, 1883), vol. 3, p. 36.</ref> It is unclear whether Pluto had a literary presence in Rome before Ennius. Some scholars think that rituals and beliefs pertaining to Pluto entered Roman culture with the establishment of the [[Saecular Games]] in 249 BC, and that ''Dis pater'' was only a translation of ''Plouton''.<ref>H.D. Jocelyn, ''The Tragedies of Ennius'' (Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 331, with reference to [[Kurt Latte]], ''Römische Religionsgeschichte'' (C.H. Beck, 1967, 1992), p. 246ff.</ref> In the mid-1st century BC, [[Cicero]] identifies Pluto with Dis, explaining that "The earth in all its power and plenty is sacred to Father Dis, a name which is the same as ''Dives'', 'The Wealthy One,' as is the Greek ''Plouton''. This is because everything is born of the earth and returns to it again."<ref>Cicero, ''De natura deorum'' 2.66, translation of John MacDonald Ross (Penguin Books, 1972): ''Terrena autem vis omnis atque natura Diti patri dedicata est, qui dives, ut apud Graecos Πλούτων quia et recidunt omnia in terras et oriuntur e terris''.</ref>

During the [[Roman Empire|Roman Imperial era]], the Greek geographer [[Strabo]] (1st century AD) makes a distinction between Pluto and Hades. In writing of the mineral wealth of ancient [[Iberia]] ([[Hispania|Roman Spain]]), he says that among the [[Turdetani]], it is "Pluto, and not Hades, who inhabits the region down below."<ref>[[Strabo]] [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/3B*.html#9 3.2.9], citing [[Poseidonius]] as his source, who in turn cites [[Demetrius of Phalerum]] on the [[Silver mine|silver mines]] of [[Attica]], where "the people dig as strenuously as if they expected to bring up Pluto himself" ([[Loeb Classical Library]] translation, in the [[LacusCurtius]] edition). The 16th-century mythographer [[Natale Conti]] describes Pluto's ''[[imperium]]'' as "[[Hispania#The Hispaniae|the Spains]] and all the places bordering the setting sun" (''Mythologiae'' 2.9, edition of 1651, p. 173; cf. Strabo 3.12).</ref> In the discourse ''On Mourning'' by the Greek author [[Lucian]] (2nd century AD), Pluto's "wealth" is the dead he rules over in the [[Chaos (cosmogony)|abyss ''(chasma)'']]; the name ''Hades'' is reserved for the underworld itself.<ref>Lucian, ''On Mourning'' (see [https://books.google.com/books?id=kmlJAAAAIAAJ Greek text]); Peter Bolt, ''Jesus' Defeat of Death: Persuading Mark's Early Readers'' (Cambridge University Press, 2003) discusses this passage (pp. 126–127) and Greco-Roman concepts of the underworld as a context for [[Christian eschatology]] ''passim''.</ref>

== Mythology ==
{{See also|Persephone#Abduction myth|l1=Abduction of Persephone}}
[[File:Agostino Carracci 01.jpg|thumb|''Pluto'' (1592) by [[Agostino Carracci]], probably influenced by the description in [[Vincenzo Cartari]]'s mythography,<ref>Clare Robertson ''et al.'', ''Drawings by the Carracci from British Collections'' (Ashmolean Museum, 1996), p. 35.</ref> with the god holding his scepter and key, [[Cerberus]] at his side]]
[[File:Karlsauekasselb.jpg|thumb|Statue of Pluto abducting Proserpina. Karlsaue Park in [[Kassel]], Germany]]
The best-known myth involving Pluto or Hades is the abduction of [[Proserpina]] or [[Persephone]], also known as Kore ("the Maiden"). The earliest literary versions of the myth are a brief mention in Hesiod's ''Theogony'' and the extended narrative of the ''[[Homeric Hymns|Homeric Hymn to Demeter]];'' in both these works, the ruler of the underworld is named as Hades ("the Hidden One"). Hades is an unsympathetic figure, and Persephone's unwillingness is emphasized.<ref>Diane Rayor, ''The Homeric Hymns'' (University of California Press, 2004), pp. 107–109.</ref> Increased usage of the name ''Plouton'' in religious inscriptions and literary texts reflects the influence of the [[Eleusinian Mysteries]], which treated Pluto and Persephone as a divine couple who received initiates in the afterlife; as such, Pluto was disassociated from the "violent abductor" of Kore.<ref>Christos Tsagalis, ''Inscribing Sorrow: Fourth-century Attic Funerary Epigrams'' (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), pp. 101–102.</ref> Two early works that give the abductor god's name as Pluto are the Greek [[mythography]] traditionally known as the [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|''Library'' of "Apollodorus"]] (1st century BC)<ref>Sources used to prepare this article uniformly refer to the ''Bibliotheca'' of Pseudo-Apollodorus as the ''Library'' of Apollodorus. Recent scholarship prefers to view the authorship of this work as anonymous; see [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)]].</ref> and the Latin ''[[Fabulae]]'' (''ca.'' 64 BC–AD 17).<ref>[[Hyginus (Fabulae)|Hyginus]], ''Fabulae'' 146. The [[late antiquity|late-antique]] mythographer [[Fabius Planciades Fulgentius|Fulgentius]] also names the ruler of the underworld as Pluto, a practice continued by medieval mythographers.</ref>

The most influential version of the abduction myth is that of [[Ovid]] (d. 17 or 18 AD), who tells the story in both the ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' (Book 5) and the ''[[Fasti (Ovid)|Fasti]]'' (Book 4).<ref>Andrew D. Radford, ''The Lost Girls: Demeter-Persephone and the Literary Imagination, 1850–1930'' (Editions Rodopi, 2007), p. 24. For an extensive comparison of Ovid's two treatments of the myth, with reference to versions such as the ''Homeric Hymn to Demeter'', see Stephen Hinds, ''The Metamorphosis of Persephone: Ovid and the Self-Conscious Muse'' (Cambridge University Press, 1987), [https://books.google.com/books?id=o2o4ZiyIjmAC limited preview online.]</ref> Another major retelling, also in Latin, is the long unfinished poem ''De raptu Proserpinae'' ("On the Abduction of Proserpina") by [[Claudian]] (d. 404 AD). Ovid uses the name ''Dis'', not ''Pluto'' in these two passages,<ref>In Book 6 of the ''[[Aeneid]]'' (the [[catabasis]] of [[Aeneas]]), [[Vergil]] also names the ruler of the underworld more often as ''Dis'' than ''Pluto''.</ref> and Claudian uses ''Pluto'' only once; translators and [[commentary (philology)|editors]], however, sometimes supply the more familiar "Pluto" when other epithets appear in the [[source text]].<ref>See also, for instance, J.J.L. Smolenaars, ''Statius. Thebaid VII: A Commentary'' (Brill, 1994), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=gpDQnPv0HvIC&q=pluto passim]'', or John G. Fitch, ''Seneca's 'Hercules Furens' ''(Cornell University Press, 1987), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=m4X_7m7ama4C&q=pluto+OR+plutonem+OR+plutone+OR+plutoni+OR+plutonis passim]'', where the ruler of the underworld is referred to as "Pluto" in the English commentary, but as "Dis" or with other epithets in the Latin text.</ref> The abduction myth was a popular subject for [[ancient Greek art|Greek]] and [[Roman art]], and recurs throughout Western art and literature, where the name "Pluto" becomes common (see [[#In Western art and literature|Pluto in Western art and literature]] below). Narrative details from Ovid and Claudian influence these later versions in which the abductor is named as Pluto, especially the role of [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]] and [[Cupid]] in manipulating Pluto with love and desire.<ref>Radford, ''The Lost Girls'', p. 22 ''et passim''.</ref> Throughout the [[Middle Ages]] and [[Renaissance]], and certainly by the time of [[Natale Conti]]'s influential ''Mythologiae'' (1567), the traditions pertaining to the various rulers of the classical underworld coalesced into a [[classical mythology|single mythology]] that made few if any distinctions among Hades, Pluto, Dis, and Orcus.

=== Hyginus ===
The main episodes are told to us in [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]]'s Fables. It is said that [[Saturn (mythology)|Saturn]] and [[Ops]] gave birth to Pluto and his five siblings: [[Neptune (mythology)|Neptune]], [[Jupiter (god)|Jupiter]], [[Ceres (mythology)|Ceres]], [[Vesta (mythology)|Vesta]], and [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]].<ref>Higino: ''Fábulas'', prefacio</ref>  After Ops had fathered Jupiter through Saturn, Juno asked him if he would give him up to her, since Saturn had cast Orcus (Pluto) into [[Tartarus]] and Neptune into the sea, knowing that one of his sons could steal his power.<ref>Higino: ''Fábulas'', 139</ref>  After Jupiter expelled their father from the kingdom, the three brothers divided the entire world among themselves by lot: Jupiter took possession of the sky, Neptune the sea, and Pluto the underworld. There are indications that individual brothers have power in the kingdom: Jupiter has a thunderbolt made of three parts, Neptune a trident, and Pluto a [[Cerberus|three-headed hound]].<ref>[[Primer Mitógrafo Vaticano]], 101 (La historia de Saturno y sus hijos)</ref>

Pluto asked Jupiter if he would give him [[Proserpina]], the daughter of Ceres, in marriage. Jupiter claimed that Ceres would not allow her daughter to live in gloomy Tartarus, but instead abducted her while she was picking flowers on [[Mount Etna]], located in [[Sicily]]. While Proserpina was picking flowers with [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]], [[Diana (mythology)|Diana]], and [[Minerva]], Pluto appeared in his chariot drawn by four horses and abducted her. Ceres later obtained Jupiter's permission for Persephone to spend half the year with her mother and the other half with Pluto.<ref>Higino: ''Fábulas'', 146</ref>

When Jupiter saw that [[Theseus]] and [[Pirithous]] possessed such audacity as to expose themselves to danger, he spoke to them in a dream, allowing them to request Proserpina in marriage from Pluto on behalf of Pirithous. When they had descended to the land of the dead through the Taenarus peninsula, and had informed Pluto that they had arrived, they were captured and tortured for a long time by the [[Furies]]. When [[Hercules]] ([[Heracles]]) came to this place to obtain the three-headed dog, they begged his promise of help. However, he obtained Pluto's permission, and he carried them off unharmed.{{Clear}}

=== Offspring ===
Unlike his freely procreating brothers [[Jupiter (god)|Jupiter]] ([[Zeus]]) and [[Neptune (mythology)|Neptune]] ([[Poseidon]]), Pluto is [[wikt:monogamous|monogamous]], and is rarely said to have children.<ref>[[Natale Conti]] observes (''Mythologiae'' 2.9, edition of 1651, p. 174) that before the abduction, Pluto was the only childless bachelor among the gods ''(solus omnium deorum coelibem et filiis carentem vitam traduceret)''. The [[nymph]] [[Minthe|Minthē]] was the concubine (''pallakis'', [[Strabo]] 8.3.14) of the ruler of the underworld under the name of Hades, but no ancient source records Pluto in this role; Conti, however, describes Minthē ''(Menthe)'' as the ''pellex'' of Pluto.</ref> In [[Orphism (religion)|Orphic texts]],<ref>Orphic fragments 197 and 360 (edition of Kern) and ''[[Orphic Hymns|Orphic Hymn]]'' 70, as cited by [[Helene P. Foley]], ''Hymn to Demeter'' (Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 110, note 97.</ref> the chthonic nymph [[Melinoe]] is the daughter of Persephone by Zeus disguised as Pluto,<ref>''Orphic Hymn'' 71.</ref> and the [[Erinyes|Eumenides]] ("The Kindly Ones") are the offspring of Persephone and ''Zeus Chthonios'', often identified as Pluto.<ref>Robertson, ''Religion and Reconciliation in Greek Cities'', p. 102. Robertson holds that in the Orphic tradition, the Eumenides are distinguished from the Furies (Greek [[Erinyes]]). Vergil [[conflation|conflates]] the Eumenides and the [[Furies]], and elsewhere says that Night ''([[Nox (mythology)|Nox]])'' is their mother. [[Proclus]], in his [[commentary (philology)|commentary]] on the ''[[Cratylus (dialogue)|Cratylus]]'' of [[Plato]], provides passages from the Orphic ''Rhapsodies'' that give two different genealogies of the Eumenides, one making them the offspring of Persephone and Pluto (or Hades) and the other reporting a prophecy that they were to be born to Persephone and [[Apollo]] (Robertson, ''Religion and Reconciliation'', p. 101).</ref> The [[Augustan literature (ancient Rome)|Augustan poet]] [[Vergil]] says that Pluto is the father of the [[Furies]],<ref>When she had spoken these words, fearsome, she sought the earth: and summoned Allecto, the grief-bringer, from the house of the Fatal Furies, from the infernal shadows: in whose mind are sad wars, angers and deceits, and guilty crimes. A monster, hated by her own father Pluto, hateful to her Tartarean sisters: she assumes so many forms, her features are so savage, she sports so many black vipers. Juno roused her with these words, saying: 'Grant me a favour of my own, virgin daughter of Night, this service, so that my honour and glory are not weakened, and give way, and the people of Aeneas cannot woo Latinus with intermarriage, or fill the bounds of Italy(Aeneid 7.323 – Verg. A. 7.334 ). http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:phi,0690,003:7:337</ref> but the mother is the goddess Nox ([[Nyx]]),<ref>Men speak of twin plagues, named the Dread Ones, whom Night bore untimely, in one birth with Tartarean Megaera, wreathing them equally in snaky coils, and adding wings swift as the wind.)." ( Aeneid 12. 845 – 12. 848 ff )</ref> not his wife Persephone.The lack of a clear distinction between Pluto and "chthonic Zeus" confuses the question of whether in some traditions, now obscure, Persephone bore children to her husband. In the late 4th century AD, Claudian's epic on the abduction motivates Pluto with a desire for children. The poem is unfinished, however, and anything Claudian may have known of these traditions is lost.<ref>Foley, ''Hymn to Demeter'', p. 110.</ref>

[[Justin Martyr]] (2nd century AD) alludes to children of Pluto, but neither names nor enumerates them.<ref>[[Justin Martyr]], ''Apology'' [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.iii.v.html 2.5]; see discussion of the context by David Dawson, ''Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria'' (University of California Press, 1992), pp. 193–194.</ref> [[Hesychius of Alexandria|Hesychius]] (5th century AD) mentions a "son of Pluto."<ref>[[Hesychius of Alexandria|Hesychius]], lexicon entry on Ἰσοδαίτης (''Isodaitês''), 778 in the 1867 edition of Schmidt.</ref> In his 14th-century mythography, [[Boccaccio]] records a tradition in which Pluto was the father of the divine personification Veneratio ("Reverence"), noting that she had no mother because [[Proserpina]] (the Latin name of Persephone) was sterile.<ref>David Scott Wilson-Okamura, ''Virgil in the Renaissance'' (Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 169, citing Boccaccio, ''[[Genealogia deorum gentilium]]'' 8.6; see also the Italian translation of 1644, [https://books.google.com/books?id=uQyMh91Ap2MC&q=Veneratione p. 130.] Boccaccio cites Servius as his source, adding that [[Theodontius]] names the daughter of Pluto as Reverentia and says she was married to [[Honos]] ("Honor"). [[Macaria (daughter of Hades)|Macaria]], or "blessedness," was a daughter of Hades, according to the [[Suda]].</ref>

In ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'' (1590s), [[Edmund Spenser]] invents a daughter for Pluto whom he calls Lucifera.<ref>"Of griesly Pluto she the daughter was": [[Edmund Spenser]], ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'', I.iv.11.1, as noted by G.W. Kitchin, ''Book I of The Faery Queene'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879, 9th ed.), p. 180. In the 15th-century allegory ''[[The Assembly of Gods]]'' (lines 601–602), the figure of [[Vice]] personified is the bastard son of Pluto.</ref> The character's name was taken from the 16th-century mythography of Natale Conti, who used it as the Latin translation of Greek ''phosphor'', "light-bearer," a regular epithet of [[Hecate]].<ref>A.C. Hamilton, ''The Spenser Encyclopedia'' (University of Toronto Press, 1990, 1997), p. 351, noting that Hecate is called a "phosphor", bringer of light, by [[Euripides]], ''Helen'' 569. The title ''Phosphoros'' is a common one for Hecate; Sarah Iles Johnston, ''Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece'' (University of California Press, 1999), p. 206.</ref> Spenser incorporated aspects of the mysteries into ''The Faerie Queene''.<ref>Douglas Brooks-Davies, entry on "Mysteries" in ''The Spenser Encyclopedia'', pp. 486–487.</ref> Lucifera is also one of [[Diana (mythology)|Diana]]'s epithets, as goddess of moonlight.

=== Pluto and Orpheus ===
[[File:Jan Brueghel (I) - Orpheus in the Underworld - WGA03564.jpg|thumb|''Orpheus before Pluto and Proserpina'' (1605), by [[Jan Brueghel the Elder]].]]
[[Orpheus]] was regarded as a founder and prophet of the mysteries called "[[Orphism (religion)|Orphic]]," "[[Dionysian Mysteries|Dionysiac]]," or "[[Bacchanalia|Bacchic]]." Mythologized for his ability to entrance even animals and trees with his music, he was also credited in antiquity with the authorship of the lyrics that have survived as the ''[[Orphic Hymns]]'', among them a [[#Orphic Hymn to Pluto|hymn to Pluto]]. Orpheus's voice and lyre-playing represented a medium of revelation or higher knowledge for the mystery cults.<ref>Claude Calame, "The Authority of Orpheus, Poet and Bard: Between Tradition and Written Practice," in ''Allusion, Authority, and Truth: Critical Perspectives on Greek Poetic and Rhetorical Praxis'' (De Gruyter, 2010), p. 16.</ref>

In his central myth, Orpheus [[descent to the underworld|visits the underworld]] in the hope of retrieving his bride, [[Eurydice]], relying on the power of his music to charm the king and queen of Hades. Greek narratives of Orpheus's descent and performance typically name the ruler of the underworld as ''Plouton'', as for instance in the ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheca]]''.<ref>As accurately reflected by the translation of Michael Simpson, ''Gods and Heroes of the Greeks: The Library of Apollodorus'' (University of Massachusetts Press, 1976), pp. 13–15. Apollodorus consistently names the ruler of the underworld ''Plouton'' throughout, including the myths of his birth, tripartite division of sovereignty over the world, and the abduction.</ref> The myth demonstrates the importance of Pluto "the Rich" as the possessor of a quest-object. Orpheus performing before Pluto and Persephone was a common subject of ancient and later Western literature and art, and one of the most significant mythological themes of the [[classical tradition]].<ref>Geoffrey Miles, ''Classical Mythology in English Literature: A Critical Anthology'' (Routledge, 1999), p. 54ff.</ref>

The demonstration of Orpheus's power depends on the normal obduracy of Pluto; the [[Augustan literature (ancient Rome)|Augustan poet]] [[Horace]] describes him as incapable of tears.<ref>[[Horace]], ''Carmen'' 2.14.6–7, ''inlacrimabilem Plutona'' (Greek accusative instead of Latin ''Plutonem'').</ref> Claudian, however, portrays the steely god as succumbing to Orpheus's song so that "with iron cloak he wipes his tears" ''(ferrugineo lacrimas deterget amictu)'', an image renewed by [[John Milton|Milton]] in ''[[Il Penseroso]]'' (106–107): "Such [[Music notes|notes]] ... / Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek."<ref>A.S.P. Woodhouse ''et al.'', ''A Variorum Commentary on the Poems of John Milton'' (Columbia University Press, 1972), p. 327.</ref>

The Greek writer [[Lucian]] (''ca.'' 125–after 180 AD) suggests that Pluto's love for his wife gave the ruler of the underworld a special sympathy or insight into lovers parted by death.<ref>In the dialogue ''Amatorius'' (Ἐρωτικός) [https://archive.org/details/ploutarchoutouc01dbgoog/page/n194 <!-- pg=931 quote="soli amori plutonem". --> 20], [[Plutarch]] says that the only god Hades listens to is [[Eros]]; the 17th-century classicist [[Daniel Clasen]], translating the ''Moralia'' into Latin, gives the god's name as Pluto, and in his mythographical work ''Theologia gentilis'' 2.4.6 includes this quality in his chapter on Pluto; see ''Thesaurus graecarum antiquitatum'' (Leiden, 1699), vol. 7, 104.</ref> In one of Lucian's ''Dialogues of the Dead'', Pluto questions [[Protesilaus]], the first Greek hero killed in the [[Trojan War]], who wishes to return to the world of the living. "You are then in love with life?", Pluto asks. "Such lovers we have here in plenty; but they love an object, which none of them can obtain." Protesilaus explains, like an Orpheus in reverse, that he has left behind a young bride whose memory even the [[Lethe]]'s waters of forgetting have not erased from him. Pluto assures him that death will reunite them someday, but Protesilaus argues that Pluto himself should understand love and its impatience, and reminds the king of his grant to Orpheus and to [[Alcestis]], who took her husband's place in death and then was permitted at the insistence of [[Heracles]] to return to him. When Persephone intercedes for the dead warrior, Pluto grants the request at once, though allowing only one day for the reunion.<ref>Lucian, ''Dialogues of the Dead'' 23 (English translation from the 1820 edition of [[William Tooke]]; Jan Kott, ''The Eating of the Gods'' (Northwestern University Press, 1987), pp. 95–97. Lucian's dialogue has sometimes been referenced as a model for the premature loss of love between an active man carried suddenly into death and his young wife; see for instance Alfred Woltmann, ''[[Hans Holbein the Younger|Holbein]] and His Times'' (London, 1872), p. 280, and [[Addison Peale Russell|A.P. Russell]], ''In a Club Corner: The Monologue of a Man Who Might Have Been Sociable'' (Houghton, Mifflin, 1890), pp. 78–79. The dialogue has also been seen as a [[burlesque]] of [[wikt:domesticity|domesticity]]; Betrand A. Goldgar, ''Henry Fielding: Miscellanies'' (Wesleyan University Press, 1993), vol. 2, p. xxxviii.</ref>

== Mysteries and cult ==
[[File:Eleusinian hydria Antikensammlung Berlin 1984.46.jpg|thumb|[[Hydria]] (''ca.'' 340 BC) depicting figures from the Eleusinian Mysteries]]
As Pluto gained importance as an embodiment of agricultural wealth within the Eleusinian Mysteries, from the 5th century BC onward the name Hades was increasingly reserved for the underworld as a place.<ref>Tsagalis, ''Inscribing Sorrow'', p. 102. The shift may have begun as early as the 6th century. The earliest evidence of the assimilation of Hades and Ploutos/Plouton is a [[Phiale (libation vessel)|phiale]] by the [[Douris (vase painter)|Douris]] painter, dating to ''ca.'' 490 BC, according to Jan N. Bremmer, "W. Brede Kristensen and the Religions of Greece and Rome," in ''Man, Meaning, and Mystery: Hundred Years of History of Religions in Norway. The Heritage of W. Brede Kristensen'' (Brill, 2000), pp. 125–126. A point of varying emphasis is whether the idea of Plouton as a god of wealth was a later development, or an inherent part of his nature, owing to the underground storage of grain in the ''[[pithos|pithoi]]'' that were also used for burial. For a summary of these issues, see Cora Angier Sowa, ''Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns'' (Bolchazy-Carducci, 1984, 2005), p. 356, note 105.</ref> Neither Hades nor Pluto was one of the traditional [[Twelve Olympians]], and Hades seems to have received limited cult,<ref>Morrow, ''Plato's Cretan City'', p. 452; Long, ''The Twelve Gods'', p. 154.</ref> perhaps only at [[Elis (city)|Elis]], where the temple was opened once a year.<ref name="Farnell">Farnell, ''The Cults of the Greek States'', p. 281.</ref> During the time of [[Plato]], the Athenians periodically honored the god called ''Plouton'' with the "strewing of a couch" ''([[lectisternium|tên klinên strôsai]])''.<ref>Long, ''The Twelve Gods'', p. 179. See [[lectisternium]] for the "strewing of couches" in ancient Rome. Two inscriptions from [[Attica]] record the names of individuals who participated in the ritual at different times: ''[[Inscriptiones Graecae|IG]]'' [https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20130823122309/http://epigraphy.packhum.org/inscriptions/main II<sup>2</sup>1933 and 1934], as cited by Robert Develin, ''Athenian Officials, 684–321 B.C.'' (Cambridge University Press, 1989, 2003), p. 417.</ref> At [[Eleusis]], ''Plouton'' had his own priestess.<ref>Nicholas F. Jones, ''The Associations of Classical Athens: The Response to Democracy'' (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 125, citing ''[[Inscriptiones Graecae|IG]]'' II<sup>2</sup>1363, dating ''ca.'' 330–270; Karl Kerényi, ''Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter'' (Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 110–111.</ref> Pluto was worshipped with Persephone as a divine couple at [[Knidos]], [[Ephesos]], [[Mytilene]], and [[Sparta]] as well as at Eleusis, where they were known simply as God ''([[wikt:θεός|Theos]])'' and Goddess ''(Thea)''.<ref>Tsagalis, ''Inscribing Sorrow'', pp. 101–102.</ref>

In the ritual texts of the [[mystery religions]] preserved by the so-called [[Orphism (religion)|Orphic]] or [[Dionysian Mysteries|Bacchic]] [[Totenpass|gold tablets]], from the late 5th century BC onward<ref>Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston, ''Ritual Texts and the Afterlife'' (Routledge, 2007), first page (not numbered).</ref> the name ''Hades'' appears more frequently than ''Plouton'', but in reference to the underground place:<ref>The recurring phrase "house of Hades" (῾Αΐδαο δόμος) can be read ambiguously as either the divine being or the place, or both. In the numbering of Graf and Johnston, ''Ritual Texts and the Afterlife'', "house of Hades" appears in Tablet 1, line 2 ([[Hipponion]], Calabria, [[Magna Graecia]], ''ca''. 400 BC), which refers again to Hades as a place ("what you are seeking in the darkness of murky Hades", line 9), with the king of the underworld (ὑποχθονίοι βασιλεϊ, ''hypochthonioi basilei'') alluded to in line 13; Tablet 2, line 1 (Petelia, present-day [[Strongoli]], Magna Graecia, 4th century BC); and Tablet 25 ([[Pharsalos]], [[Thessaly]], 350–300 BC). ''Hades'' is also discernible on the "carelessly inscribed" Tablet 38 from a Hellenistic-era grave in [[Hagios Athanasios]], near [[Thessaloniki|Thessalonike]].</ref> ''Plouton'' is the ruler who presides over it in a harmonious partnership<ref>Kevin Clinton, ''Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries'' (Stockholm, 1992), p. 111, observing that this presentation in art contrasts with the earliest literary sources.</ref> with Persephone.<ref>Giovanni Casadio and Patricia A. Johnston, "Introduction", ''Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia'' (University of Texas Press, 2009), p. 21.</ref> By the end of the 4th century BC, the name ''Plouton'' appears in Greek metrical inscriptions.<ref>Tsagalis, ''Inscribing Sorrow'', p. 101.</ref> Two fragmentary tablets greet Pluto and Persephone jointly,<ref>Tablets 15 ([[Eleutherae|Eleuthera]] 6, 2nd/1st century BC) and 17 ([[Rethymnon]] 1, from the early [[Roman Empire]], 25–40 AD), from [[Crete]], in the numbering of Graf and Johnston.</ref> and the divine couple appear as welcoming figures in a metrical [[epitaph]]:

<blockquote>
I know that even below the earth, if there is indeed a reward for the worthy ones,<br />the first and foremost honors, nurse,<ref>Sometimes read as "father," as in the translation given by Alberto Bernabé and Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, ''Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets'' (Brill, 2008), p. 84.</ref> shall be yours, next to Persephone and Pluto.<ref>Παρὰ Φερσεφόνει <!--sic-->Πλούτωνί τε: Tsagalis, ''Inscribing Sorrow'', pp. 100–101. Tsagalis discusses this inscription in light of the ''Homeric Hymn to Demeter'' and the [[Thesmophoria]].</ref>
</blockquote>

[[Hesychius of Alexandria|Hesychius]] identifies Pluto with [[Eubuleus|Eubouleus]],<ref>The entry in Hesychius reads: Εὐβουλεύς (sch. Nic. Al. 14) · ὁ Πλούτων. παρὰ δὲ τοῖς πολλοῖς ὁ Ζεὺς ἐν Κυρήνη (''Eubouleus: ho Ploutôn. para de toîs polloîs ho Zeus en [[Cyrene, Libya|Kyrene]]''), 643 (Schmidt).</ref> but other ancient sources distinguish between these two underworld deities. In the Mysteries Eubouleus plays the role of a torchbearer, possibly a guide for the initiate's return.<ref>Kevin Clinton, "The Mysteries of Demeter and Kore," in ''A Companion to Greek Religion'' (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), pp. 347–353.</ref> In the view of [[Lewis Richard Farnell]], Eubouleus was originally a title referring to the "good counsel" the ruler of the underworld was able to give and which was sought at Pluto's [[#Sanctuaries of Pluto|dream oracles]]; by the 2nd century BC, however, he had acquired a separate identity.<ref>[[Lewis Richard Farnell]], ''The Cults of the Greek States'', vol. 3, p. 145.</ref>

=== ''Orphic Hymn to Pluto'' ===
The ''Orphic Hymn to Pluto'' addresses the god as "strong-spirited" and the "All-Receiver" who commands death and is the master of mortals. His titles are given as ''Zeus Chthonios'' and ''Euboulos'' ("Good Counsel").<ref>''Euboulos'' may be a cult title here and not the name of the god Eubuleus; elsewhere it is an epithet of the sea god [[Nereus]], perfect in his knowledge of truth and justice, and in his own Orphic hymn the guardian of the "roots" of the sea. See [[Pindar]], ''Pythian Ode'' 3.93; Hesiod, ''Theogony'' 233–236; ''Orphic Hymn'' 23; Athanassakis, ''Hesiod'', p. 52; Pierre Bonnechere, "Trophonius of Lebadea: Mystery Aspects of an Oracular Cult in Boeotia," in ''Greek Mysteries: The Archaeology and Ritual of Ancient Greek Secret Cults'' (Routledge, 2003, 2005), p. 188.</ref> In the hymn's [[topography]], Pluto's dwelling is in [[Tartarus]], simultaneously a "meadow" and "thick-shaded and dark," where the [[Acheron]] encircles "the roots of the earth." ''Hades'' is again the name of the place, here described as "windless," and its gates, through which Pluto carried "pure Demeter's daughter" as his bride, are located in an [[Attica|Attic]] cave within the district of [[Eleusis]]. The route from Persephone's meadow to Hades crosses the sea. The hymn concludes:

<blockquote>You alone were born to judge deeds obscure and conspicuous.<br />Holiest and illustrious ruler of all, frenzied god,<br />You delight in the worshiper's respect and reverence.<br />Come with favor and joy to the initiates. I summon you.<ref>The translations of the ''Orphic Hymn to Pluto'' are from Apostolos N. Athanassakis, ''The Orphic Hymns'' (Scholars Press, 1977).</ref>
</blockquote>

The hymn is one of several examples of Greco-Roman prayer that express a desire for the presence of a deity, and has been compared to a similar [[epiclesis]] in the ''[[Acts of Thomas]]''.<ref>''Act of Thomas'' 50, as cited and discussed by Susan E. Myers, ''Spirit Epicleses in the Acts of Thomas'' (Mohr Siebeck, 2010), p. 174.</ref>

=== Magic invocations ===
The names of both Hades and Pluto appear also in the [[Greek Magical Papyri]] and [[curse tablet]]s, with Hades typically referring to the underworld as a place, and Pluto regularly invoked as the partner of Persephone.<ref>[[Hans Dieter Betz]], ''The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation'' (University of Chicago Press, 1986, 1992), [https://books.google.com/books?id=K0hCj5u3HNQC&q=hades passim]; John G. Gager, ''Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World'' (Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 12 (examples invoking Pluto pp. 99, 135, 143–144, 207–209) and ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=rmhw2eVJnS0C&q=hades passim]'' on Hades.</ref> Five Latin curse tablets from Rome, dating to the mid-1st century BC, promise Persephone and Pluto an offering of "[[Phoenix dactylifera|dates]], [[Common fig#Cultural aspects|figs]], and a black [[Cultural references to pigs#In religion|pig]]" if the curse is fulfilled by the desired deadline. The pig was a characteristic [[animal sacrifice]] to chthonic deities, whose [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#victima|victims]] were almost always black or dark in color.<ref>Bolt, ''Jesus' Defeat of Death'', p. 152; John Scheid, "Sacrifices for Gods and Ancestors", in ''A Companion to Roman Religion'' (Blackwell, 2007), p. 264.</ref>

A set of curse tablets written in [[Doric Greek]] and found in a tomb addresses a Pasianax, "Lord to All,"<ref>Daniel Ogden, ''Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds'' (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 212, with English translation of the curse.</ref> sometimes taken as a title of Pluto,<ref>Gager, ''Curse Tablets'', p. 131, with translations of both tablets, and note 35.</ref> but more recently thought to be a magical name for the corpse.<ref>Derek Collins, ''Magic in the Ancient Greek World'' (Blackwell, 2008), p. 73.</ref> ''Pasianax'' is found elsewhere as an epithet of Zeus, or in the tablets may invoke a ''[[daimon]]'' like [[Abrasax]].<ref>Esther Eidinow, "Why the Athenians Began to Curse," in ''Debating the Athenian Cultural Revolution: Art, Literature, Philosophy and Politics 430–380 BC'' (Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 50; Ogden, ''Magic, Withcraft, and Ghosts'', p. 212.</ref>

=== The Eight Chosen ===
The [[Ancient Rome|Romans]] placed Pluto not only among the twelve great gods but also among the eight chosen gods, who were the only ones permitted to be represented in gold, silver, and ivory.

In Rome, there were sacrificial priests dedicated solely to Pluto. Like the Greek Hades, only dark-skinned victims were sacrificed to him, and always in even numbers, while other gods were sacrificed in odd numbers. The sacrifices were completely reduced to ashes, and the priest reserved nothing, neither for the people nor for himself. Before the immolations, a pit was dug to collect the blood and the wine from the libations was poured into it. During the sacrifices, the priests kept their heads uncovered, and absolute silence was recommended to those who attended, more out of respect than fear of the god.

In Sicily, the [[Syracuse, Sicily|Syracusans]] sacrificed two black bulls to him each year near the fountain of [[Cyane]], where tradition places the abduction of Proserpina. In Rome, on June 20th, his feast day, only the temple of Pluto was open. Dark-furred animals (sheep or pigs) were sacrificed to him, and all those condemned to death were dedicated to his unyielding wrath.

=== Sanctuaries of Pluto ===
{{Main|Ploutonion}}
A sanctuary dedicated to Pluto was called a [[ploutonion]] (Latin ''plutonium''). The complex at [[Eleusis]] for the mysteries had a ploutonion regarded as the birthplace of the divine child Ploutos, in another instance of conflation or close association of the two gods.<ref>Bernard Dietrich, "The Religious Prehistory of Demeter's Eleusinian Mysteries," in ''La soteriologia dei culti orientali nell' Impero Romano'' (Brill, 1982), p. 454.</ref> [[Inscriptiones Graecae|Greek inscriptions]] record an altar of Pluto, which was to be "plastered", that is, resurfaced for a new round of sacrifices at Eleusis.<ref>Robertson, ''Religion and Reconciliation'', p. 163 [https://books.google.com/books?id=5pyER-1-8VcC&dq=%22altar+of+pluto%22&pg=PA163 online], citing ''[[Inscriptiones Graecae|IG]]'' 1<sup>3</sup>356.155 and ''IG'' 2<sup>2</sup>1672.140; see also ''The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: Topography and Architecture'' (American School of Classical Studies, 1997), p. 76, note 31.</ref> One of the known ploutonia was in the [[sacred grove]] between [[Tralleis]] and [[Nysa (Caria)|Nysa]], where a temple of Pluto and Persephone was located. Visitors sought healing and [[incubation (ritual)|dream oracles]].<ref>Strabo [https://books.google.com/books?id=lfMrAAAAYAAJ&dq=ploutonion+OR+plutonion+OR+plutonium+inauthor%3AStrabo&pg=PA25 14.1.44]; "Summaries of Periodicals," ''American Journal of Archaeology'' 7 (1891), p. 209; Hewitt, "The Propitiation of Zeus," p. 93.</ref> The ploutonion at [[Hierapolis]], [[Phrygia]], was connected to the rites of [[Cybele]], but during the [[Roman Empire|Roman Imperial era]] was subsumed by the cult of [[Apollo]], as confirmed by archaeological investigations during the 1960s. It too was a dream oracle.<ref>Frederick E. Brenk, "Jerusalem-Hierapolis. The Revolt under Antiochos IV Epiphanes in the Light of Evidence for Hierapolis of Phrygia, Babylon, and Other Cities," in ''Relighting the Souls: Studies in Plutarch, in Greek Literature, Religion, and Philosophy, and in the New Testament Background'' (Franz Steiner, 1998), pp.  382–384, citing [[Photios I of Constantinople|Photius]], ''Life of Isidoros'' 131 on the dream.</ref> The sites often seem to have been chosen because the presence of naturally occurring [[wikt:mephitic air|mephitic vapors]] was thought to indicate an opening to the underworld.<ref>Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, "Reconstructing Change: Ideology and the Eleusinian Mysteries," in ''Inventing Ancient Culture: Historicism, Periodization and the Ancient World'' (Routledge, 1997), p. 137; [[Georg Luck]], ''Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985, 2006, 2nd ed.), p. 505.</ref> In Italy, [[Avernus]] was considered an entrance to the underworld that produced toxic vapors, but Strabo seems not to think that it was a ploutonion.<ref>Strabo C244–6, as cited by Daniel Ogden, ''Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook'' (Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 190 –191.</ref>

== Iconography and attributes ==
[[File:Persephone Hades BM Vase E82.jpg|thumb|Hades and Persephone: tondo of an Attic red-figured [[kylix (drinking cup)|kylix]], ca. 440–430&nbsp;BC]]

=== In Eleusinian scenes ===
Kevin Clinton attempted to distinguish the iconography of Hades, Plouton, Ploutos, and the Eleusinian ''Theos'' in 5th-century [[Pottery of ancient Greece|vase painting]] that depicts scenes from or relating to the mysteries. In Clinton's schema, Plouton is a mature man, sometimes even white-haired; Hades is also usually bearded and mature, but his darkness is emphasized in literary descriptions, represented in art by dark hair. Plouton's most common attribute is a [[sceptre]], but he also often holds a full or overflowing cornucopia; Hades sometimes holds a horn, but it is depicted with no contents and should be understood as a [[drinking horn]]. Unlike Plouton, Hades never holds agrarian attributes such as stalks of grain. His chest is usually bare or only partly covered, whereas Plouton is fully robed (exceptions, however, are admitted by the author). Plouton stands, often in the company of both Demeter and Kore, or sometimes one of the goddesses, but Hades almost always sits or reclines, usually with Persephone facing him.<ref>Kevin Clinton, ''Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries'' (Stockholm, 1992), pp. 105. As Clinton notes (p. 107), the ''[[Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae]]'' does not distinguish between Hades and Plouton, and combines evidence for either in a single entry. The only vase to label the Eleusinian ''Theos'' with an inscription is a red-figured footed ''[[dinos]]'' in the collections of the [[J. Paul Getty Museum]], attributed to the [[Syleus Painter]]. The main scene is the departure of [[Triptolemos]], with Demeter on the left and Persephone as ''Pherephata'' ([Φε]ρ[ε]φάτα) on the right. ''Theos'' wears a [[himation]] over a spangled tunic with decorated hem (Clinton, p. 106).</ref> "Confusion and disagreement" about the interpretation of these images remain.<ref>Catherine M. Keesling, "Endoios's Painting from the Themistoklean Wall: A Reconstruction," ''Hesperia'' 68.4 (1999), p. 544, note 160.</ref>

=== The keys of Pluto ===

Attributes of Pluto mentioned in the ''Orphic Hymn to Pluto'' are his [[scepter]], keys, throne, and horses. In the hymn, the keys are connected to his capacity for giving wealth to humanity, specifically the agricultural wealth of "the year's fruits."

[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] explains the significance of Pluto's key in describing a wondrously carved cedar chest at the Temple of [[Hera]] in Elis. Numerous deities are depicted, with one panel grouping Dionysus, Persephone, the [[nymph]]s and Pluto. Pluto holds a key because "they say that what is called Hades has been locked up by Pluto, and that nobody will return back again therefrom."<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] 5.20.</ref> [[Natale Conti]] cites Pausanias in noting that keys are an attribute of Pluto as the scepter is of [[Jove]] (Greek Zeus) and the [[trident]] of [[Neptune (mythology)|Neptune]] (Poseidon).<ref>Natale Conti, ''Mythologiae'' 2.9, edition of 1651, pp. 173–174.</ref>

A golden key ''(chrusea klês)'' was laid on the tongue of initiates by priests at Eleusis<ref>[[Sophocles]], ''[[Oedipus at Colonus]]'' 1051 ("Rites they to none betray, / Ere on his lips is laid / Secrecy's golden key / By their own acolytes, / Priestly [[Eumolpidae]]," in the 1912 translation of F. Storr), as cited by [[Jane Ellen Harrison]], introduction to ''Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens'', a translation of [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] by Margaret de G. Verrall (London, 1890), pp. liv–lv. It is unclear whether a literal key is meant, or a [[Charon's obol#'Ghost' coins and crosses|golden ''lamella'']] ([[Totenpass]]).</ref> and was a symbol of the revelation they were obligated to keep secret.<ref>Robert Turcan, ''Les religions de l'Asie dans la vallée du Rhône'' (Brill, 1972), p. 26.</ref> A key is among the attributes of other infernal deities such as [[Hecate]], [[Anubis]], and Persephone, and those who act as guardians or timekeepers, such as [[Janus]] and [[Aeon|Aion]].<ref>Turcan, ''Les religions de l'Asie'', pp. 23–26. Both Persephone (as Persephassa and "Kore out of Tartaros") and Anubis are key-holders throughout the ''[[Greek Magical Papyri]]''. [[Jesus]] Christ, as the conqueror of death and Hades, holds keys in the [[Book of Revelation]] 1:18; see Walter A. Elwell and Philip W. Comfort, ''Tyndale Bible Dictionary'' (Tyndale, 2001), p. 561.</ref> [[Aeacus]] ''(Aiakos)'', one of the three mortal kings who became [[Divine judgment#Greco-Roman beliefs|judges in the afterlife]], is also a ''kleidouchos'' (κλειδοῦχος), "holder of the keys," and a priestly doorkeeper in the court of Pluto and Persephone.<ref>For extensive notes on Aiakos, see Radcliffe Guest Edmonds, ''Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the 'Orphic' Gold Tablets'' (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 148, note 116. As a possessor of keys, he appears in Apollodorus 3.12.6, ''[[Greek Magical Papyri|PGM]]'' IV.1264, and inscriptions.</ref>

=== Vegetation and color ===
According to the [[Stoicism|Stoic]] philosopher [[Lucius Annaeus Cornutus|Cornutus]] (1st century AD), Pluto wore a wreath of ''phasganion'', more often called ''xiphion'',<ref>Ancient sources on ''phasganion'', ''xiphion'' and ''gladiolus'', generally called "corn-flag" by [[History of botany|historical botanists]], include [[Theophrastus]], ''[[Historia Plantarum (Theophrastus)|Historia Plantarum]]'' 7.12.3; [[Dioscorides]], [[De Materia Medica (Dioscorides)|''De Materia Medica'']] ''E'' 2.101; [[Pliny the Elder|Pliny]], ''Natural History'' 21.107–115; [[Pseudo-Apuleius]], ''Herbarius'' 79, as cited by Andrew Dalby, ''Food in the Ancient World from A to Z'' (Routledge, 2003), p. 105, characterizing Pliny's entry on the plant as "confused." The correspondence of ancient plant names to modern species is always uncertain. Both the Greek ''xiphion'' and the Latin word ''gladiolus'' ("little sword") come from a word meaning "sword."</ref> traditionally identified as a type of [[gladiolus]].<ref>''Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle'' (Paris, 1819), pp. 315–316; Julius Billerbeck, ''Flora classica'' (Leipzig, 1824), p. 13; "L'origine dei maccheroni," ''Archivo per lo studio delle tradizioni popolari'' 17 (1898), vol. 36, p. 428.</ref> [[Dioscorides]] recorded medical uses for the plant. For extracting [[stinger|stings]] and [[thorn (botany)|thorns]], ''xiphion'' was mixed with wine and [[frankincense]] to make a [[cataplasm]]. The plant was also used as an [[aphrodisiac]]<ref>Francis Adams, ''The Seven Books of [[Paulus Aegineta]]'' (London, 1847), p. 270; Dalby, ''Food in the Ancient World'', p. 105; ''Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle'', p. 315.</ref> and [[Birth control#Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and Rome|contraceptive]].<ref>[[John M. Riddle]], ''Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance'' (Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 42; ''Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle'', p. 315.</ref> It grew in humid places. In an obscure passage, Cornutus seems to connect Pluto's wearing of ''phasganion'' to an etymology for [[Avernus]], which he derives from the word for "air," perhaps through some association with the color ''glaukos'', "bluish grey," "greenish" or "sea-colored," which might describe the plant's leaves. Because the color could describe the sky, Cornutus regularly gives it divine connotations.<ref>P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, ''Studies in Greek Colour Terminology: ΓΛΑΥΚΟΣ'' (Brill, 1981), vol. 1, pp. 40, 42, citing Cornutus, ''Theologiae Graecae Compendium'' 9, 20, 35. The word γλαυκότης ''(glaukotēs)'', however, is a [[textual criticism|textual crux]] in the passage pertaining to Pluto.</ref> Pluto's twin sister was named [[#Euhemerism and Latinization|Glauca]].

Ambiguity of color is characteristic of Pluto. Although both he and his realm are regularly described as dark, black, or gloomy, the god himself is sometimes seen as pale or having a pallor. [[Martianus Capella]] (5th century) describes him as both "growing pale in shadow, a fugitive from light" and actively "shedding darkness in the gloom of [[Tartarus|Tartarean]] night," crowned with a wreath made of [[ebony]] as suitable for the kingdom he governs.<ref>''Lucifuga inumbratione pallescens'' and ''Tartareae noctis obscuritate furvescens'', [[Martianus Capella]], ''De nuptiis'' 1.79–80; Danuta Shanzer, ''A Philosophical and Literary Commentary on Martianus Capella's'' De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii'' Book 1'' (University of California Press, 1986), p. 171.</ref> The horses of Pluto are usually black, but Ovid describes them as "sky-colored" (''caeruleus'', from ''[[Caelus|caelum]]'', "sky"), which might be blue, greenish-blue, or dark blue.<ref>Ovid, ''[[Fasti (Ovid)|Fasti]]'' 4.446, as cited John G. Fitch, ''Seneca's ''Hercules furens'': A Critical Text with Introduction and Commentary'' (Cornell University Press, 1987), p. 166, note to Seneca's identical description of the horses of the Sun (line 132). Ovid describes the horses as black ''(ater)'' in his version of the abduction myth in the ''Metamorphoses'', 5.310. On the color ''caeruleus,'' see also Hendrik Wagenvoort, "Caerimonia," in ''Studies,'' pp. 98–101.</ref>

The [[Renaissance]] mythographer [[Natale Conti]] says wreaths of [[Narcissus (plant)|narcissus]], [[Adiantum|maidenhair fern ''(adianthus)'']], and [[cupressus sempervirens|cypress]] were given to Pluto.<ref>Natale Conti, ''Mythologiae'' 2.9. Conti's sources on this point are unclear, and he thoroughly conflates traditions pertaining to the various classical rulers of the underworld.</ref> In the ''Homeric Hymn to Demeter'', [[Gaia (mythology)|Gaia]] (Earth) produced the narcissus at Zeus's request as a snare for Persephone; when she grasps it, a chasm opens up and the "Host to Many" (Hades) seizes her.<ref>''Homeric Hymn to Demeter'', lines 7–9, as cited by Radford, ''Lost Girls'', p. 145; Clayton Zimmerman, ''The Pastoral Narcissus: A Study of the First Idyll of Theocritus'' (Rowman & Littlefield, 1994), p. 2.</ref> Narcissus wreaths were used in early times to crown Demeter and Persephone, as well as the Furies ([[Erinyes|Eumenides]]).<ref>Sophocles, ''Oedipus at Colonus'' 681, and [[scholion]], on Demeter and Persephone (the two "Great Goddesses"); [[Euphorion of Chalcis|Euphorion]], fragment 94, on the Eumenides; Zimmerman, ''The Pastoral Narcissus'', p. 2; Jan Coenradd Kamerbeek, ''The Plays of Sophocles, Commentaries: The Oedipus Colonus'' (Brill, 1984), vol. 7, p. 106, noting that garlands of flowers were expressly forbidden at the [[Thesmophoria]]; James C. Hogan, ''A Commentary on the Plays of Sophocles'' (Southern Illinois University Press, 1991), p. 99.</ref> The flower was associated with narcotic drugginess (''narkê'', "torpor"),<ref>"Death and Greek Myths," in ''Greek and Egyptian Mythologies'', edited by Yves Bonnefoy (University of Chicago Press, 1991, 1992), p. 110.</ref> [[fascinus|erotic fascination]],<ref>Zimmerman, ''The Pastoral Narcissus'', p. 2; Carlin A. Barton, ''The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster'' (Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 92. The [[phallus]] as a magic charm was the remedy for ''[[invidia]]'' or the evil eye, a self-induced form of which was the ruin of [[Narcissus (mythology)|the mythological figure Narcissus]].</ref> and imminent death;<ref>On the difficulty of identifying precisely which flower the ancients meant by "narcissus," see [[Richard Claverhouse Jebb|R.C. Jebb]], ''Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments'' (Cambridge University Press, 1900, 3rd edition), p. 115.</ref> to dream of crowning oneself with narcissus was a bad sign.<ref>[[Artemidorus]], ''[[Oneirocritica]]'' 1.77, as noted by Jebb, ''Sophocles'', p. 115.</ref> In the [[Narcissus (mythology)|myth of Narcissus]], the flower is created when a beautiful, self-absorbed youth rejects sexuality and is condemned to perpetual self-love along the [[Styx]].<ref>Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' 3.505; Zimmerman, ''The Pastoral Narcissus'', p. 48. The Styx here is a pool.</ref>

Conti's inclusion of ''adianthus'' (''[[Adiantum]]'' in modern nomenclature) is less straightforward. The name, meaning "unmoistened" (Greek ''adianton''), was taken in antiquity to refer to the fern's ability to repel water. The plant, which grew in wet places, was also called ''[[Adiantum capillus-veneris|capillus veneris]]'', "hair of Venus," divinely dry when she emerged from the sea.<ref>Theophrastus, ''Historia plantarum'' 7.13–14; [[Nicander]], ''[[Theriaca (poem)|Theriaca]]'' 846; [[Rabelais]], ''[[Gargantua and Pantagruel]]'' 4.24; Adams, ''The Seven Books of Paulus Aegineta'', pp. 22–23; Richard Hunter, ''Theocritus: A Selection'' (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 277, noting that "the association of lush vegetation ... with female 'otherness' and sexuality has a long history."</ref> [[History of medicine|Historian of medicine]] [[John M. Riddle]] has suggested that the ''adianthus'' was one of the ferns Dioscorides called ''[[asplenium|asplenon]]'' and prescribed as a contraceptive ''(atokios)''.<ref>Riddle, ''Contraception and Abortion'', pp. 31, 82, 180 (note 5).</ref> The associations of Proserpine (Persephone) and the maidenhair are alluded to by [[Samuel Beckett]] in a 1946 poem, in which the [[self]] is a [[Allegory of the Cave|Platonic cave]] with ''[[:fr:capillaire|capillaires]]'', in French both "maidenhair fern" and "[[blood vessel]]s".<ref>[[Samuel Beckett]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=DFUc5K_J6JQC&dq=%22Jusque+dans+la+caverne+ciel+et+sol%22&pg=PA51 "Jusque dans la caverne ciel et sol"], the last of twelve poems in the cycle ''Poèmes 38–39'' (1946); C.J. Ackerley and S.E. Gontarski, ''The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett'' (Grove Press, 2004), pp. 293, 443, 599.</ref>

[[File:25270- Dionysos temple pediment.jpg|thumb|270px|Pediment of an ancient Greek temple with a symposium scene of Dionysus and Pluto, 500s BC, [[Archaeological Museum of Corfu]].]]

The cypress (Greek ''cyparissus'', Latin ''cupressus'') has traditional associations with mourning.<ref>Bernabé and Jiménez San Cristóbal, ''Instructions for the Netherworld'', p. 25.</ref> In ancient [[Attica]], households in mourning were garlanded with cypress,<ref>[[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]], note to ''[[Aeneid]]'' 3.680.</ref> and it was used to fumigate the air during [[cremation]]s.<ref>[[Isidore of Seville]], ''[[Etymologiae]]'' 17.7.34.</ref> In the myth of [[Cyparissus]], a youth was transformed into a cypress, consumed by grief over the accidental death of a pet [[Red Deer|stag]].<ref>Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' 10.106ff.; Servius, note to Vergil's ''[[Georgics]]'' 1.20.</ref> A "white cypress" is part of the topography of the underworld that recurs in the [[Totenpass|Orphic gold tablets]] as a kind of beacon near the entrance, perhaps to be compared with the [[Tree of Life]] in various world mythologies. The description of the cypress as "white" (Greek ''leukē''), since the botanical tree is dark, is symbolic, evoking the white garments worn by initiates or the clothing of a corpse, or the pallor of the dead. In Orphic funeral rites, it was forbidden to make coffins of cypress.<ref>Bernabé and Jiménez San Cristóbal, ''Instructions for the Netherworld'', pp. 25–28.</ref>

The tradition of the mystery religions favors Pluton/Hades as a loving and faithful partner to Persephone, but one ancient myth that preserves a lover for him parallels the abduction and also has a vegetative aspect.<ref>The nymph [[Minthe|Minthē]], a rival for the attentions of ''Hades'' (not named as Pluto), was transformed by Persephone into the mint plant, a major ingredient in the ritual drink of the mysteries ([[Strabo]] 8.3.14).</ref> A Roman source says that Pluto fell in love with [[Leuce (mythology)|Leuca]] (Greek ''Leukē'', "White"), the most beautiful of the nymphs, and abducted her to live with him in his realm. After the long span of her life came to its end, he memorialized their love by creating a white tree in the [[Elysium|Elysian Fields]]. The tree was the [[Populus alba|white poplar]] (Greek ''leukē''), the leaves of which are white on one side and dark on the other, representing the duality of upper and underworld.<ref>[[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]], note to [[Vergil]]'s ''[[Eclogues|Eclogue]]'' 7.61. Persephone is not mentioned.</ref> A wreath of white poplar leaves was fashioned by Heracles to mark his [[descent to the underworld|ascent from the underworld]], an ''[[aition]]'' for why it was worn by initiates<ref>Bernabé and Jiménez San Cristóbal, ''Instructions for the Netherworld'', pp. 93 and 124–125, citing [[Harpocration]].</ref> and by champion athletes participating in [[Funeral games (antiquity)|funeral games]].<ref>Arthur Calvert, ''P. Vergili Maronis. Aeneidos Liber V'' (Cambridge University Press, 1879), p. 48. This was a particular custom of the [[Rhodians]]; the heroine [[Tlepolemus#Polyxo|Polyxo]] awarded white poplar wreaths to child athletes at the games she presented in honor of her husband; Pierre Grimal, ''The Dictionary of Classical Mythology'' (Blackwell, 1986, 1996), p. 385.</ref> Like other plants associated with Pluto, white poplar was regarded as a contraceptive in antiquity.<ref>Riddle, ''Contraception and Abortion'', p. 33.</ref> The relation of this tree to the white cypress of the mysteries is debated.<ref>[[Arthur Bernard Cook]], ''Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion'' (Cambridge University Press, 1925), pp. 420–422; Bernabé and Jiménez San Cristóbal, ''Instructions for the Netherworld'', pp. 25–26; W.K.C. Guthrie, ''Orpheus and Greek Religion'' (Princeton University Press, 1952, 1993), p. 182.</ref>

=== The helmet of invisibility ===
The ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheca]]'' of Pseudo-Apollodorus uses the name ''Plouton'' instead of ''Hades'' in relating the tripartite division of sovereignty, the abduction of Persephone, and the visit of Orpheus to the underworld. This version of the theogony for the most part follows Hesiod (see [[#Hesiod's Theogony|above]]), but adds that the three brothers were each given a gift by the [[Cyclopes]] to use in [[Titanomachy|their battle against]] the [[Titan (mythology)|Titans]]: Zeus thunder and lightning; Poseidon a [[trident]]; and Pluto a helmet ''(kyneê)''.<ref>Pseudo-[[Apollodorus of Athens|Apollodorus]], ''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheca]]'' 1.1–2, 1911 [[Loeb Classical Library]] edition, translation and notes by [[J.G. Frazer]].</ref>

The helmet Pluto receives is presumably the magical [[Cap of invisibility|Cap of Invisibility]] ''(aidos kyneê)'', but the ''Bibliotheca'' is the only ancient source that explicitly says it belonged to Pluto.<ref>Hansen, ''Classical Mythology'', p. 182. Apparent references to the "helmet of Pluto" in other authors, such as [[Irenaeus]] ([https://books.google.com/books?id=fyUMAAAAIAAJ&q=%22helmet+of+Pluto%22 ''Against Heresies'']), are misleading; "Pluto" is substituted by the English translator for "Hades."</ref> The verbal play of ''aidos'', "invisible," and ''Hades'' is thought to account for this attribution of the helmet to the ruler of the underworld, since no ancient narratives record his use or possession of it. Later authors such as [[Rabelais]] (16th century) do attribute the helmet to Pluto.<ref>[[Rabelais]], ''[[Gargantua and Pantagruel]]'' Book 5, Chapter 8.</ref> [[Erasmus]] calls it the "helmet of Orcus"<ref>[[Erasmus]], ''[[Adagia]]'' 2.10.74 ''(Orci galea)''.</ref> and gives it as a [[figure of speech]] referring to those who conceal their true nature by a cunning device. [[Francis Bacon]] notes the proverbial usage: "the helmet of Pluto, which maketh the politic man go invisible, is secrecy in the counsel, and [[wikt:celerity|celerity]] in the execution."<ref>[[Francis Bacon]], ''Essays Civil and Moral'' 21, "Of Delays."</ref>

=== Bident ===
[[File:Hendrick Goltzius 003.jpg|thumb|upright|''Pluto'' (1588–89) with bident, [[chiaroscuro]] [[woodcut]] from a series on gods and goddesses by [[Hendrik Goltzius]]]]
No ancient image of the ruler of the underworld can be said with certainty to show him with a [[bident]],<ref>A.L. Millin, "Mythologie," in ''Magasin Encyclopédique'' (Paris, 1808), p. 283; G.T. Villenave, ''Les métamorphoses d'Ovide'' (Paris, 1806), p. 307; [[Arthur Bernard Cook]], ''Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion'' (Oxford University Press, 1924), vol. 2, p. 798 ff.; John G. Fitch, ''Seneca's ''Hercules Furens'': A Critical Text With Introduction and Commentary'' (Cornell University Press, 1987), p.</ref> though the ornamented tip of his scepter may have been misunderstood at times as a bident.<ref>Cook, ''Zeus'', vol. 2, p. 801.</ref> In the Roman world, the bident (from ''bi-'', "two" + ''dent-'', "teeth") was an agricultural implement. It may also represent one of the [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#manubia|three types of lightning]] wielded by [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]], the Roman counterpart of Zeus, and the Etruscan [[Tinia]]. The later notion that the ruler of the underworld wielded a trident or bident can perhaps be traced to a line in [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]]'s ''[[Hercules (Seneca)|Hercules Furens]]'' ("Hercules Enraged"), in which Father Dis, the Roman counterpart of Pluto, uses a three-pronged spear to drive off [[Hercules in ancient Rome|Hercules]] as he attempts to invade Pylos. Seneca calls Dis the "Infernal Jove"<ref>''Inferni Iovis'' ([[genitive]] case), ''Hercules Furens'' line 47, in the prologue spoken by [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]].</ref> or the "dire Jove"<ref>''Diro Iovi'', line 608 of ''Hercules Furens''; compare Vergil, ''[[Aeneid]]'' 4.638, ''Iove Stygio'', the "Jove of the [[Styx]]". Fitch, ''Seneca's Hercules Furens'', p. 156.</ref> (the Jove who gives dire or ill omens, ''[[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#dirae|dirae]])'', just as in the Greek tradition, ''Plouton'' is sometimes identified as a "chthonic Zeus." That the trident and bident might be somewhat interchangeable is suggested by a Byzantine [[scholiast]], who mentions Poseidon being armed with a bident.<ref>Codex Augustanus, note to [[Euripides]]' ''[[Phoenician Women]]'', line 188, as cited by Cook, ''Zeus'', vol. 2, p. 806, note 6.</ref>

In the Middle Ages, classical underworld figures began to be depicted with a pitchfork.<ref>Cook, ''Zeus'', vol. 2, p. 803.</ref> [[Early Christian]] writers had identified the classical underworld with Hell, and its denizens as demons or devils.<ref>[[Friedrich Solmsen]], "The Powers of Darkness in Prudentius' ''Contra Symmachum'': A Study of His Poetic Imagination," ''Vigiliae Christianae'' 19.4 (1965), pp. 238, 240–248 ''et passim''.</ref> In the Renaissance, the bident became a conventional attribute of Pluto. In an influential ceiling mural depicting the [[Cupid and Psyche#The Wedding of Cupid and Psyche|wedding of Cupid and Psyche]], painted by [[Raphael]]'s workshop for the [[Villa Farnesina]] in 1517, Pluto is shown holding the bident, with [[Cerberus]] at his side, while Neptune holds the trident.<ref>Richard Stemp, ''The Secret Language of the Renaissance: Decoding the Hidden Symbolism of Italian Art'' (Duncan Baird, 2006), p. 114; Clare Robertson et al., ''Drawings by the Carracci from British Collections'' (Ashmolean Museum, 1996), p. 78.</ref> Perhaps influenced by this work, [[Agostino Carracci]] originally depicted Pluto with a bident in a preparatory drawing for [[#Euhemerism and Latinization|his painting ''Pluto'']] (1592), in which the god ended up holding his characteristic key.<ref>Robertson et al., ''Drawings by the Carracci from British Collections'', pp. 78–79.</ref> In [[Caravaggio]]'s ''[[#Orphic and philosophical systems|Giove, Nettuno e Plutone]]'' (ca. 1597), a ceiling mural based on [[alchemy|alchemical]] allegory, it is Neptune who holds the bident.<ref name="Gilbert-p124-125">Creighton Gilbert, ''Caravaggio and His Two Cardinals'' (Penn State University Press, 1995), pp. 124–125.</ref>

== In ancient literature and philosophy ==
[[File:Locri Pinax Of Persephone And Hades.jpg|left|thumb|Persephone and Pluto<ref>Identified as Pluto by Bernabé and Jiménez San Cristóbal, ''Instructions for the Netherworld'', p. 275.</ref> or Hades<ref>Identified as Hades by Hansen, ''Classical Mythology'', p. 181.</ref> on a [[pinax]] from [[Locri]]]]
The name ''Plouton'' is first used in [[ancient Greek literature|Greek literature]] by [[Theatre of ancient Greece|Athenian playwrights]].<ref name="Farnell" /> In [[Aristophanes]]' [[Old Comedy|comedy]] ''[[The Frogs]]'' (''Batrachoi'', 405 BC), in which "the Eleusinian colouring is in fact so pervasive,"<ref>A.M. Bowie, ''Aristophanes: Myth, Ritual and Comedy'' (Cambridge University Press, 1993, 1996), p. 229.</ref> the ruler of the underworld is one of the characters, under the name of ''Plouton''. The play depicts a mock [[descent to the underworld]] by the god [[Dionysus]] to bring back one of the dead [[Greek tragedy|tragic playwrights]] in the hope of restoring [[Theatre of ancient Greece|Athenian theater]] to its former glory. Pluto is a silent presence onstage for about 600 lines presiding over a contest among the tragedians, then announces that the winner has the privilege of returning to the [[Upper World (Greek)|upper world]].<ref>As summarized by [[Benjamin Bickley Rogers]], ''The Comedies of Aristophanes'' (London, 1902), pp. xvii and 214 (note to line 1414).</ref> The play also draws on beliefs and imagery from Orphic and Dionysiac cult, and rituals pertaining to Ploutos (Plutus, "wealth").<ref>Bowie, ''Aristophanes'', pp. 231–233, 269–271.</ref> In a fragment from another play by Aristophanes, a character "is comically singing of the excellent aspects of being dead", asking in reference to the tripartition of sovereignty over the world:
<blockquote><poem>
And where do you think Pluto gets his name [i.e. "rich"],
if not because he took the best portion?
:::...
How much better are things below than what Zeus possesses!<ref>Bernabé and Jiménez San Cristóbal, ''Instructions for the Netherworld'', pp. 127–128.</ref>
</poem></blockquote>

To Plato, the god of the underworld was "an agent in [the] beneficent cycle of death and rebirth" meriting worship under the name of ''Plouton'', a giver of spiritual wealth.<ref>Morrow, ''Plato's Cretan City'', pp. 452–453.</ref> In the dialogue ''[[Cratylus (dialogue)|Cratylus]]'', Plato has [[Socrates]] explain the etymology of ''Plouton'', saying that Pluto gives wealth (''ploutos''), and his name means "giver of wealth, which comes out of the earth beneath". Because the name Hades is taken to mean "the invisible", people fear what they cannot see; although they are in error about the nature of this deity's power, Socrates says, "the office and name of the God really correspond":
<blockquote>
He is the perfect and accomplished [[Sophist]], and the great benefactor of the inhabitants of the other world; and even to us who are upon earth he sends from below exceeding blessings. For he has much more than he wants down there; wherefore he is called Pluto (or the rich). Note also, that he will have nothing to do with men while they are in the body, but only when the soul is liberated from the desires and evils of the body. Now there is a great deal of philosophy and reflection in that; for in their liberated state he can bind them with the desire of virtue, but while they are flustered and maddened by the body, not even father [[Cronus|Cronos]] himself would suffice to keep them with him in his own far-famed chains.<ref>Translation by Benjamin Jowett, ''The Dialogues of Plato'' (London, 1873), vol. 1.</ref>
</blockquote>
Since "the union of body and soul is not better than the loosing,"<ref>[[Plato]], ''Laws'' 828d, translation from Long, ''The Twelve Gods'', p. 69.</ref> death is not an evil. [[Walter Burkert]] thus sees Pluto as a "god of dissolution."<ref>[[Walter Burkert]], ''Greek Religion'' (Harvard University Press, 1985, originally published 1977 in German), pp. 231, 336. See also ''[[Homo Necans]]'' (University of California Press, 1983, originally published 1972 in German), p. 143.</ref> Among the titles of Pluto was ''Isodaitēs'', "divider into equal portions," a title that connects him to the fate goddesses the [[Moirai]].<ref>[[Hesychius of Alexandria|Hesychius]], entry on Ἰσοδαίτης, 778 in the 1867 edition of Schmidt, as translated and discussed by Richard Seaford, ''Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy'' (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 51. Hesychius notes that Isodaites may alternatively refer to a son of Pluto as well as Pluto himself.</ref> ''Isodaitēs'' was also a cult title for Dionysus and [[Helios]].<ref>H.S. Versnel, ''Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion: Transition and Reversal in Myth and Ritual'' (Brill, 1993, 1994), p. 119, especially note 93.</ref>

In ordering his ideal city, Plato proposed a calendar in which Pluto was honored as a benefactor in the twelfth month, implicitly ranking him as one of the twelve principal deities.<ref>[[Plato]], ''Laws'' 828 B-D; Morrow, ''Plato's Cretan City'' p. 452; Long, ''The Twelve Gods'', p. 179.</ref> In the [[Attic calendar]], the twelfth month, more or less equivalent to June, was [[Skirophorion]]; the name may be connected to the rape of Persephone.<ref>Morrow, ''Plato's Cretan City'', p. 453; Long, ''The Twelve Gods'', p. 179.</ref>

== Theogonies and cosmology ==
=== Euhemerism and Latinization ===
In the theogony of [[Euhemerus]] (4th century BC), the gods were treated as mortal rulers whose deeds were immortalized by tradition. Ennius translated Euhemerus into Latin about a hundred years later, and a passage from his version was in turn preserved by the [[early Christian]] writer [[Lactantius]].<ref>[[Lactantius]], ''Divine Institutes'' 1.14; Brian P. Copenhaver, ''Polydore Vergil: On Discovery'' (Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 564.</ref> Here the union of [[Saturn (mythology)|Saturn]] (the Roman equivalent of [[Cronus]]) and [[Ops]], an [[ancient peoples of Italy|Italic]] goddess of abundance, produces [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]] (Greek Zeus), [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]] (Hera), Neptune, Pluto, and [[Glauce|Glauca]]:
<blockquote>
Then Saturn took Ops to wife. [[Titan (mythology)|Titan]], the elder brother, demanded the kingship for himself. [[Vesta (mythology)|Vesta]] their mother, with their sisters [[Ceres (mythology)|Ceres]] [Demeter] and [[Ops]], persuaded Saturn not to give way to his brother in the matter. Titan was less good-looking than Saturn; for that reason, and also because he could see his mother and sisters working to have it so, he conceded the kingship to Saturn, and came to terms with him: if Saturn had a male child born to him, it would not be reared. This was done to secure reversion of the kingship to Titan's children. They then killed the first son that was born to Saturn. Next came twin children, Jupiter and Juno. Juno was given to Saturn to see while Jupiter was secretly removed and given to Vesta to be brought up without Saturn's knowledge. In the same way without Saturn knowing, Ops bore [[Neptune (mythology)|Neptune]] and hid him away. In her third labor Ops bore another set of twins, Pluto and Glauce. (Pluto in Latin is Dis pater;<ref>This parenthetical remark is part of the original text. Several [[manuscript]]s of Lactantius read ''Diespiter'', which is usually a title of Jupiter, but ''Dis pater'' is regarded as the more likely reading. See Katherine Nell MacFarlane, "Isidore of Seville on the Pagan Gods (''Origines'' VIII. 11)," ''Transactions of the American Philosophical Society'' 70 (1980), p. 20, citing [[Jacques Paul Migne|Migne]], ''[[Patrologia Latina]]'' vol. VI, col. 190. The relation of the title ''Dis Pater'' to ''Diespiter'' in Latin is debated.</ref> some call him Orcus.) Saturn was shown his daughter Glauce but his son Pluto was hidden and removed. Glauce then died young. That is the pedigree, as written, of Jupiter and his brothers; that is how it has been passed down to us in holy scripture.
</blockquote>

In this theogony, which Ennius introduced into Latin literature, Saturn, "Titan,"<ref>"Titan" usually refers to a class or race of deities, but sometimes means [[Helios]] or other divine personifications of the Sun.</ref> Vesta, Ceres, and Ops are siblings; Glauca is the twin of Pluto and dies mysteriously young. There are several mythological figures named Glauca; the sister of Pluto may be the Glauca who in Cicero's account of the three aspects of [[Diana (mythology)|Diana]] conceived the third with the equally mysterious Upis.<ref>[[Cicero]], ''De natura deorum'' 3.58: "Likewise, there are multiple Dianas. The first is said to have been born as a winged [[Cupid]], with Jove and [[Proserpina]] [as parents]. The second, whom we regard as the daughter of the third Jove and [[Latona]], is better known. A tradition holds that Upis is the father and Glauca the mother of the third [Diana]" ''(Dianae item plures: prima Iovis et Proserpinae, quae pinnatum Cupidinem genuisse dicitur; secunda notior, quam Iove tertio et Latona natam accepimus; tertiae pater Upis traditur, Glauce mater: eam saepe Graeci Upim paterno nomine appellant)''; Copenhaver, ''Polydore Vergil: On Discovery'', p. 564.</ref> This is the genealogy for Pluto that [[Boccaccio]] used in his ''[[Genealogia Deorum Gentilium]]'' and in his lectures explicating the ''[[Divine Comedy]]'' of [[Dante]].<ref>''Boccaccio's Expositions on Dante's Comedy'', translated by Michael Papio (University of Toronto Press, 2009), pp. 332–333, 355.</ref>

In Book 3 of the [[Sibylline Oracles]], dating mostly to the 2nd century AD, [[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]] gives birth to Pluto as she passes by [[Dodona]], "where the watery paths of the River Europus flowed, and the water ran into the sea, merged with the [[Pineios (Peloponnese)|Peneius]]. This is also called the [[Styx|Stygian river]]."<ref>Rieuwerd Buitenwerf, ''Book III of the Sibylline Oracles and Its Social Setting'' (Brill, 2003), p. 157.</ref>

=== Orphic and philosophical systems ===
The Orphic theogonies are notoriously varied,<ref>Gábor Betegh, ''The Derveni Papyrus: Cosmology, Theology and Interpretations'' (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 151, has noted that "one cannot establish a linear descent between the different versions"; though efforts to do so have been made, "we cannot find a single [[mytheme]] which would occur invariably in all the accounts and could thus create the core of all Orphic theogonies."</ref> and Orphic cosmology influenced the varying [[Gnosticism|Gnostic]] theogonies of [[late antiquity]].<ref>J. van Amersfoort, "Traces of an Alexandrian Orphic Theogony in the Pseudo-Clementines," in ''Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions, Presented to [[Gilles Quispel]] on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday'' (Brill, 1981), p. 13.</ref> [[Clementine literature]] (4th century AD) preserves a theogony with explicit Orphic influence that also draws on [[Hesiod]], yielding a distinctive role for Pluto. When the primordial elements came together by orderly cyclonic force, they produced a generative sphere, the "egg" from which the primeval Orphic entity [[Phanes (mythology)|Phanes]] is born and the world is formed. The release of Phanes and his ascent to the heavenly top of the [[world egg|world-egg]] causes the matter left in the sphere to settle in relation to weight, creating the tripartite world of the traditional theogonies:<ref>Van Amersfoort, "Traces of an Alexandrian Orphic Theogony," pp. 16–17.</ref>

<blockquote>
Its lower part, the heaviest element, sinks downwards, and is called Pluto because of its gravity, weight, and great quantity (''plêthos'') of matter. After the separation of this heavy element in the middle part of the egg the waters flow together, which they call Poseidon. The purest and noblest element, the fire, is called Zeus, because its nature is glowing (ζέουσα, ''zeousa''). It flies right up into the air, and draws up the spirit, now called [[Metis (mythology)|Metis]], that was left in the underlying moisture. And when this spirit has reached the summit of the [[Aether (classical element)|ether]], it is devoured by Zeus, who in his turn begets the intelligence (σύνεσις, ''[[Synesis|sunesis]]''), also called [[Athena|Pallas]]. And by this artistic intelligence the etherial artificer creates the whole world. This world is surrounded by the air, which extends from Zeus, the very hot ether, to the earth; this air is called [[Hera]].<ref>Van Amersfoort, "Traces of an Alexandrian Orphic Theogony," pp. 17–18. Betegh, ''The Derveni Papyrus'', p. 151, summarizes this version as follows: "The story starts with Chaos; then comes the egg; the bottom part of the egg submerges and becomes Pluton, and Kronos – not a separate god but identified with [[Chronos]] – swallows this heavy matter. The middle part, covering the first sediment, becomes Poseidon. The upper part of the egg, being purer and lighter, fiery in nature, goes upward and is called Zeus, and so forth."</ref>
</blockquote>

This cosmogony interprets Hesiod allegorically, and so the heaviest element is identified not as the Earth, but as the netherworld of Pluto.<ref>Van Amersfoort, "Traces of an Alexandrian Orphic Theogony," p. 23; Betegh, ''The Derveni Papyrus'', p. 150.</ref> (In modern [[geochemistry]], [[Plutonium#Discovery|plutonium]] is the heaviest [[primordial element]].) Supposed etymologies are used to make sense of the relation of physical process to divine name; ''Plouton'' is here connected to ''plêthos'' (abundance).<ref>[[Arthur Bernard Cook]], ''Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion'' (Cambridge University Press, 1925), p. 746.</ref>

In the [[Stoicism|Stoic system]], Pluto represented the lower region of the [[Air (classical element)|air]], where according to [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]] (1st century AD) the soul underwent a kind of [[purgatory]] before ascending to the ether.<ref>Cornutus 5; Varro, ''De lingua latina'' 5.66 (on Dis); Seneca, ''Consolatio ad Marciam'' 25; all as cited by Joseph B. Mayor, ''De natura deorum libri tres'' (Cambridge University Press, 1883), vol. 2, p. 175, note to 2.26.66.</ref> Seneca's contemporary Cornutus made use of the traditional etymology of Pluto's name for Stoic theology. The Stoics believed that the form of a word contained the original truth of its meaning, which over time could become corrupted or obscured.<ref>R.M. van den Berg, ''Proclus' Commentary on the'' Cratylus'' in Context: Ancient Theories of Language and Naming'' (Brill, 2008), pp. 34–35.</ref> ''Plouton'' derived from ''ploutein'', "to be wealthy," Cornutus said, because "all things are corruptible and therefore are 'ultimately consigned to him as his property.'"<ref>David Dawson, ''Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria'' (University of California Press, 1992), p. 33, citing ''Epidrome'' 5.5.7–9.</ref>

Within the [[Pythagoreanism|Pythagorean]] and [[Neoplatonism|Neoplatonic]] traditions, Pluto was allegorized as the region where souls are purified, located between the Moon (as represented by Persephone) and the Sun.<ref>[[Plutarch]], ''The Face of the Moon'', [[LacusCurtius]] edition of the [[Loeb Classical Library]] translation [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/The_Face_in_the_Moon*/D.html online], as discussed by Leonard L. Thompson, "ISmyrna<!--sic--> 753: Gods and the One God," in ''Reading Religions in the Ancient World: Essays Presented to Robert McQueen Grant on His 90th Birthday'' (Brill, 2007), p. 113, with reference also to [[Iamblichus]]. See also Van den Berg, ''Proclus' Commentary'', p. 49, with reference to Plutarch, ''On the ''E'' at Delphi''.</ref> Neoplatonists sometimes interpreted the Eleusinian Mysteries as a ''fabula'' of celestial phenomena:

<blockquote>
Authors tell the fable that Ceres was Proserpina's mother, and that Proserpina while playing one day was kidnapped by Pluto. Her mother searched for her with lighted torches; and it was decreed by Jupiter that the mother should have her daughter for fifteen days in the month, but Pluto for the rest, the other fifteen. This is nothing but that the name Ceres is used to mean the earth, called Ceres on analogy with ''crees'' ('you may create'), for all things are created from her. By Proserpina is meant the moon, and her name is on analogy with ''prope serpens'' ('creeping near'), for she is moved nearer to the earth than the other planets. She is called earth's daughter, because [[Earth (classical element)|her substance has more of earth]] in it than of the other [[classical elements|elements]]. By Pluto is meant the shadow that sometimes obstructs the moon.<ref>This interpretation is attributed to the Greek Neoplatonist [[Numenius of Apamea|Numenius]] (2nd century AD), by the French [[Scholasticism|scholastic]] [[William of Conches]], as cited and translated by [[Peter Dronke]], ''Fabula: Explorations into the Uses of Myth in Medieval Platonism'' (Brill, 1985), p. 54.</ref>
</blockquote>

==== Plouton Helios ====
[[File:Caravaggio Jupiter Neptune Pluto vertical.jpg|thumb|left|''Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto'', ceiling mural (''ca.'' 1597) by [[Caravaggio]] (see description under [[#Fine art|Fine art below)]]]]
A dedicatory inscription from [[Smyrna]] describes a 1st–2nd century sanctuary to "God Himself" as the most exalted of a group of six deities, including clothed statues of ''Plouton Helios'' and ''Koure Selene'', "Pluto the Sun" and "Kore the Moon."<ref>Thompson, "ISmyrna 753," p. 101ff. The other deities are ''Helios Apollon'', who is paired with [[Artemis]] (p. 106); Zeus, who is subordinated to "God Himself"; and [[Men (god)|Mēn]], an Anatolian moon deity sometimes identified with [[Attis]], who had a table before him for ceremonial dining (pp. 106, 109).</ref> The status of Pluto and Kore as a divine couple is marked by what the text describes as a "linen embroidered bridal curtain."<ref>Thompson, "ISmyrna 753," pp. 104–105.</ref> The two are placed as bride and groom within an enclosed temple, separately from the other deities cultivated at the sanctuary.

''Plouton Helios'' is mentioned in other literary sources in connection with ''Koure Selene'' and ''Helios Apollon''; the sun on its nighttime course was sometimes envisioned as traveling through the underworld on its return to the east. [[Apuleius]] describes a rite in which the sun appears at midnight to the initiate at the gates of Proserpina; it has been suggested that this midnight sun could be ''Plouton Helios''.<ref>Thompson, "ISmyrna 753," p. 111.</ref>

The Smyrna inscription also records the presence of ''Helios Apollon'' at the sanctuary. As two forms of Helios, Apollo and Pluto pose a dichotomy:
{| class="wikitable" style="margin:1em auto;"
! Helios Apollon !! Plouton Helios
|-
| One || Many
|-
| clarity || invisibility
|-
| bright || dark
|-
| memory || oblivion<ref>Thompson, "ISmyrna 753," pp. 110–111, 114, with reference to the teachings of [[Ammonius of Athens|Ammonius]] as recorded by [[Plutarch]], [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/misctracts/plutarchE.html ''The E at Delphi''.] The relevant passage (21) is: "This appears from the names, in themselves opposite and contradictory. He is called Apollo, another is called Pluto; he is Delius (apparent), the other Aidoneus (invisible); he is Phoebus (bright), the other Skotios (full of darkness); by his side are the [[Muses]], and [[Mnemosyne|Memory]], with the other are Oblivion and Silence; he is Theorius and Phanæus, the other is 'King of dim Night and ineffectual Sleep'." See also Frederick E. Brenk, "Plutarch's Middle Platonic God," ''Gott und die Götter bei Plutarch'' (Walter de Gruyter, 2005), pp. 37–43, on Plutarch's etymological plays that produce these antitheses.</ref>
|}
It has been argued that the sanctuary was in the keeping of a [[Pythagoreanism|Pythagorean]] [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#sodalitas|sodality or "brotherhood"]]. The relation of Orphic beliefs to the mystic strand of Pythagoreanism, or of these to [[Platonism]] and [[Neoplatonism]], is complex and much debated.<ref>Thompson, "ISmyrna 753," ''passim'', conclusion presented on p. 119. Thompson bases his argument on the particular collocation of deities at the sanctuary, and explicating theological details in the inscription through comparative material. See also [[Neoplatonism and Gnosticism]].</ref>

==== Plutonius ====
[[File:Serapis.JPG|thumb|left|Serapis with moon and sun on oil lamp]]
In the [[Hellenistic era]], the title or epithet ''Plutonius'' is sometimes affixed to the names of other deities. In the [[Hermetica|Hermetic Corpus]],<ref>In the Latin dialogue ''Asclepius'' sometimes attributed to [[Apuleius]]; see B.L. Hijmans, "Apuleius, Philosophus Platonicus," ''Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt'' II.36.1 (1987), p. 441, ''et passim'' on the question of authorship.</ref> Jupiter Plutonius "rules over earth and sea, and it is he who nourishes mortal things that have soul and bear fruit."<ref>[[File:Bardo Baal Thinissut.jpg|thumb|75px|[[Baal-Hammon]] ]]''Terrae vero et mari dominatur Iupiter Plutonius, et hic nutritor est animantium mortalium et fructiferarum'' (''Asclepius'' 27), noted by G.F. Hildebrand, ''L. Apuleii Opera Omnia'' (Leipzig, 1842), p. 314, as equivalent to the Pluto described by [[Gaius Valerius Flaccus|Valerius Flaccus]], ''Argonautica'' 1.780, where, however, the god is called Dis and not Pluto. Translation from Brian P. Copenhaver, ''Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius'' (Cambridge University Press, 1992, 2002), p. 83; see also note to the passage p. 245. Influence from [[Africa (Roman province)|Roman Africa]], particularly the figure of [[Baal-Hammon]], may explain this particular syncretism; [[Jean-Pierre Mahé]], ''Le fragment du "Discours parfait" dans la Bibliothèque de Nag Hammadi'', ''Colloque International sur les textes de Nag hammadi (Québec, 22–25 août 1978)'' (Éditions Peeters, 1981), p. 310.</ref>

In [[History of Alexandria#Ptolemaic era|Ptolemaic Alexandria]], at the site of a dream oracle, [[Serapis]] was identified with Aion Plutonius.<ref>[[Alexander romance|Pseudo-Callisthenes]], I.30–33, as cited by Jarl Fossum, "The Myth of the Eternal Rebirth: Critical Notes on G.W. Bowersock, ''Hellenism in Late Antiquity''," ''Vigiliae Christianae'' 53.3 (1999), p. 309, note 15. On the oracle and for the passage in which Aion Plutonius is named, see Irad Malkin, ''Religion and Colonization in Ancient Greece'' (Brill, 1987), p. 107, especially note 87.</ref> [[Gilles Quispel]] conjectured that this figure results from the integration of the Orphic Phanes into [[Mithraic mysteries|Mithraic religion]] at Alexandria, and that he "assures the eternity of the city," where the birth of [[Aion (deity)|Aion]] was celebrated at the sanctuary of Kore on 6 January.<ref>"On this day and at this hour the Virgin gave birth to Aion": [[Gilles Quispel]], "Hermann Hesse and Gnosis," in ''Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica: Collected Essays'' (Brill, 2008), p. 258, noting that this date coincided with [[Epiphany (holiday)|Epiphany]] and was a new year's celebration.</ref> In Latin, ''Plutonius'' can be an [[adjective]] that simply means "of or pertaining to Pluto."<ref>As at [[Horace]], ''Carmen'' 1.4.17, where the ''domus ... Plutonia'' renders in Latin the Greek phrase "house of Hades."</ref>

==== Neoplatonic demiurge ====
The Neoplatonist [[Proclus]] (5th century AD) considered Pluto the third [[demiurge]], a [[Sublunary sphere|sublunar]] demiurge who was also identified variously with Poseidon or [[Hephaestus]]. This idea is present in [[Renaissance Neoplatonism]], as for instance in the cosmology of [[Marsilio Ficino]] (1433–99),<ref>Entry on "Demiurge," ''The Classical Tradition'' (Harvard University Press, 2010), p. 256.</ref> who translated Orphic texts into Latin for his own use.<ref>Entry on "Orpheus," ''The Classical Tradition'', p. 665. It was even said that the soul of Orpheus had been reborn into Ficino.</ref> Ficino saw the sublunar demiurge as "a [[daimon|daemonic]] 'many-headed' [[sophist]], a [[magus]], an enchanter, a fashioner of images and reflections, a [[Shapeshifting|shape-changer]] of himself and of others, a poet in a way [[being|of being and of not-being]], a royal Pluto." This demiurgic figure identified with Pluto is also "'a purifier of souls' who presides over the magic of love and generation and who uses a fantastic counter-art to mock, but also ... to supplement, the divine [[Jacopo Mazzoni#Theory|icastic or truly imitative art]] of the [[Sublime (philosophy)|sublime]] translunar Demiurge."<ref>Entry on "Demiurge," in ''The Classical Tradition'' p. 256.</ref>

== In Western art and literature ==
{{See also|Planets in astrology#Pluto}}
[[File:Charun hammer Cdm Paris 2783.jpg|thumb|upright|Etruscan Charun presiding over an execution]]

=== Christianization ===
[[Christian literature|Christian writers]] of [[late antiquity]] sought to discredit the competing gods of Roman and Hellenistic religions, often adopting the euhemerizing approach in regarding them not as divinities, but as people glorified through stories and cultic practices and thus not true deities worthy of worship. The infernal gods, however, retained their potency, becoming identified with the [[Devil]] and treated as [[demon]]ic forces by [[Christian apologetics|Christian apologists]].<ref>[[Friedrich Solmsen]], "The Powers of Darkness in [[Prudentius]]' ''Contra [[Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|Symmachum]]'': A Study of His Poetic Imagination," ''Vigiliae Christianae'' 19 (1965) 237–257; Margaret English Frazer, "Hades Stabbed by the Cross of Christ," ''Metropolitan Museum Journal'' 9 (1974) 153–161.</ref>

One source of Christian revulsion toward the chthonic gods was the arena. Attendants in divine costume, among them a "Pluto" who escorted corpses out, were part of the ceremonies of the [[gladiator]]ial games.<ref>K.M. Coleman, "Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments," ''Journal of Roman Studies'' 80 (1990), p. 67.</ref> [[Tertullian]] calls the mallet-wielding figure usually identified as the [[Etruscan religion|Etruscan]] [[Charun]] the "brother of Jove,"<ref>[[Tertullian]], ''Ad nationes'' 1.10. [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]] regularly calls the Roman ruler of the underworld ''Pluto'' in ''[[City of God (book)|De civitate Dei]]''; see 2.15, where Pluto and [[Neptune (mythology)|Neptune]] are described as the brothers of Jove; 4.10, in noting their three-way division of sovereignty over the earth and with Proserpina as Pluto's spouse ''(coniunx)''; 4.11, in deriding the allegorizing of divinity in physical cosmogony; and 6.7, in denouncing the mysteries ''([[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#sacra|sacra]])'' as obscene.</ref> that is, Hades/Pluto/Dis, an indication that the distinctions among these denizens of the underworld were becoming blurred in a Christian context.<ref>Daniel P. Harmon, "The Religious Significance of Games in the Roman Age," in ''The Archaeology of the Olympics: The Olympics and Other Festivals in Antiquity'' (University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), p. 242; Paul-Marie Duval, "Sucellus, the God with a Hammer," in ''American, African, and Old European Mythologies'' (University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 222.</ref> [[Prudentius]], in his poetic polemic against the religious traditionalist [[Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|Symmachus]], describes the arena as a place where savage vows were fulfilled on an altar to Pluto ''(solvit ad [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#ara|aram]] / Plutonis fera [[votum|vota]])'', where fallen gladiators were [[human sacrifice]]s to Dis and [[Charon (mythology)|Charon]] received their souls as [[Charon's obol|his payment]], to the delight of the underworld Jove ''(Iovis infernalis)''.<ref>Prudentius, ''Contra Symmachum'' 1.379–398; Donald G. Kyle, ''Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome'' (Routledge, 1998, 2001), p. 59.</ref>

=== Medieval mythography ===
Medieval mythographies, written in Latin, continue the conflation of Greek and Roman deities begun by the ancient Romans themselves. Perhaps because the name Pluto was used in both traditions, it appears widely in these Latin sources for the classical ruler of the underworld, who is also seen as the double, ally, or adjunct to the figure in [[Christian mythology]] known variously as the [[Christian teaching about the Devil|Devil]], [[Satan]], or [[Lucifer]]. The classical underworld deities became casually interchangeable with Satan as an embodiment of [[Hell]].<ref>Solmsen, "The Powers of Darkness," pp. 237–257; Frazer, "Hades Stabbed by the Cross of Christ", pp. 153–161.</ref> For instance, in the 9th century, [[Abbo Cernuus]], the only witness whose account of the [[Siege of Paris (885–886)|Siege of Paris]] survives, called the invading [[Vikings]] the "spawn of Pluto."<ref>''Dic igitur, praepulchra polis, quod Danea munus / Libavit tibimet soboles Plutonis amica'', ''Bella Parisiacae urbis'' 1.21, as noted by Nirmal Dass, "Temporary Otherness and Homiletic History in the Late Carolingian Age: A Reading of the ''Bella Parisiacae urbis'' of Abbo of Stain-Germain-des-Prés," in ''Difference and Identity in Francia and Medieval France'' (Ashgate Publishing, 2010), p. 106. In his earlier edition, translation, and commentary of the work, Dass gives "Speak, most wondrous of cities, of the gift the Danes brought for you, / Those friends of Pluto", in ''Viking Attacks on Paris: The 'Bella Parisiacae Urbis' of Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés'' (Peeters, 2007), pp. 28–29, but ''{{lang|la|soboles}}'' (classical Latin ''{{lang|la|suboles}}'') means "progeny, offspring," modified by ''{{lang|la|amica}}'', "dear, beloved."</ref>

In the ''Little Book on Images of the Gods'', Pluto is described as
<blockquote>
an intimidating personage sitting on a throne of sulphur, holding the scepter of his realm in his right hand, and with his left strangling a soul. Under his feet three-headed Cerberus held a position, and beside him he had three [[Harpies]]. From his golden throne of sulphur flowed four rivers, which were called, as is known, [[Lethe]], [[Cocytus]], [[Phlegethon]] and [[Acheron]], tributaries of the [[Styx|Stygian swamp]].<ref>''De deorum imaginibus libellus'', chapter 6, "De Plutone": ''homo terribilis in solio sulphureo sedens, sceptrum regni in manu tenens dextra: sinistra, animam constringes, cui tricipitem Cerberum sub pedibus collocabant, & iuxta se tres Harpyias habebat. De throno aurê eius sulphureo quatuor flumina manabunt, quae scilicet Lethum, Cocytû, Phlegethontem, & Acherontem appellabant, & Stygem paludem iuxta flumina assignabant''.</ref>
</blockquote>
This work derives from that of the [[Vatican Mythographer|Third Vatican Mythographer]], possibly one Albricus or Alberic, who presents often extensive allegories and devotes his longest chapter, including an [[excursus]] on the nature of the soul, to Pluto.<ref>The questions of authorship involving the ''De deorum imaginibus libellus''  and the ''Liber Ymaginum deorum'' ("Book of Images of the Gods") are vexed; Ronald E. Pepin, ''The Vatican Mythographers'' (Fordham University Press, 2008), pp. 7–9.</ref>

=== Medieval and Renaissance literature ===

In [[Dante]]'s ''[[Divine Comedy]]'' (written 1308–1321), Pluto presides over the [[Inferno (Dante)#Fourth Circle (Greed)|fourth circle of Hell]], to which the greedy are condemned.<ref>[[Dante]], ''[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]]'', Canto VII.</ref> The Italian form of the name is ''Pluto'', taken by some [[commentary (philology)|commentators]]<ref>For instance, [[Peter Bondanella]] in his note to the translation of [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]], ''The Inferno: Dante Alighieri'' (Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003), pp. 202–203. Dante may simply be preserving the longstanding conflation of Greek ''Plouton'' and ''Ploutos''; see [[Allen Mandelbaum]], note to his translation of ''The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno'' (Bantam Dell, 2004, originally published 1980), p. 357. In modern Italian, the name of the classical ruler of the underworld is ''Plutone''.</ref> to refer specifically to Plutus as the god of wealth who would preside over the torment of those who hoarded or squandered it in life.<ref>The tormented souls wail ''"Perché tieni? e "Perché burli?"'' ("'Why do you hoard?' 'Why do you squander?'"): ''Inferno'', Canto VII, line 30.</ref> Dante's Pluto is greeted as "the great enemy"<ref>''Il gran nemico'', ''Inferno'', Canto VI, line 115.</ref> and utters the famously impenetrable line ''[[Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe]]''. Much of this Canto is devoted to the power of [[Fortuna]] to give and take away. Entrance into the fourth circle has marked a downward turn in the poet's journey, and the next landmark after he and his guide cross from the circle is the [[Styx|Stygian]] swamp, through which they pass on their way to the [[Dis (Divine Comedy)|city of Dis]] (Italian ''Dite''). Dante's clear distinction between Pluto and Dis suggests that he had Plutus in mind in naming the former. The city of Dis is the "citadel of Lower Hell" where the walls are garrisoned by [[fallen angel]]s and [[Furies]].<ref>Bondanella, ''The Inferno'' p. 206; Mandelbaum, ''Inferno'' p. 69.</ref> Pluto is treated likewise as a purely Satanic figure by the 16th-century Italian poet [[Torquato Tasso|Tasso]] throughout his epic ''[[Jerusalem Delivered]]'',<ref>Ralph Nash, ''Jerusalem Delivered: An English Prose Version'' (Wayne State University Press, 1987), pp. xi and 475.</ref> in which "great Dis, great Pluto" is invoked in the company of "all ye devils that lie in deepest hell."<ref>Tasso, ''Jerusalem Delivered'', Canto 13.7, translated by Edward Fairfax (1907).</ref>

Influenced by Ovid and Claudian, [[Geoffrey Chaucer]] (1343–1400)<ref>In ''The House of Fame'' (lines 1510–1511), Chaucer explicitly acknowledges his debt to Claudian "That bar up al the fame of helle, / Of Pluto, and of Proserpyne," as noted by Radford, ''The Lost Girls'', p. 25.</ref> developed the myth of Pluto and [[Proserpina]] (the Latin name of Persephone) in [[English literature]]. Like earlier medieval writers, Chaucer identifies Pluto's realm with [[Hell]] as a place of condemnation and torment,<ref>In ''Troilus and Criseyde'' (lines 590–503), as noted by Rosalyn Rossignol, ''Critical Companion to Chaucer: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work'' (Facts on File, 2006), p. 540.</ref> and describes it as "derk and lowe" ("dark and low").<ref>Chaucer, "The Knight's Tale" 2082 and 2299.</ref> But Pluto's major appearance in the works of Chaucer comes as a character in "[[The Merchant's Tale]]," where Pluto is identified as the "Kyng of Fayerye" ([[Fairy]] King).<ref>Rossignol, ''Critical Companion'' pp. 432, 540.</ref> As in the anonymous [[Romance (heroic literature)|romance]] ''[[Sir Orfeo]]'' (''ca.'' 1300), Pluto and Proserpina rule over a fantastical world that melds classical myth and [[Álfheimr|fairyland]].<ref>John M. Fyler, "Pagan Survivals," in ''A Companion to Chaucer'' (Blackwell, 2000, 2002), p. 351.</ref> Chaucer has the couple engage in a comic [[wikt:battle of the sexes|battle of the sexes]] that undermines the [[Christian symbolism|Christian imagery]] in the tale, which is Chaucer's most sexually explicit.<ref>Seth Lerer, "The Canterbury Tales," in ''The Yale Companion to Chaucer'' (Yale University Press, 2006), p. 270. Pluto and Proserpina in ''The Merchant's Tale'' have been seen as Shakespeare's model for [[Titania (A Midsummer Night's Dream)|Titania]] and [[Oberon]] in ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'', a view at least as old as Chaucer's editor [[Thomas Tyrwhitt]] (see [https://books.google.com/books?id=vM0_AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA97 1798 edition]) and reiterated by [[Walter William Skeat]] in his edition of ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]'' ([https://archive.org/details/completeworksge08chaugoog <!-- quote=pluto oberon. --> 1894 edition]).</ref> The Scottish poet [[William Dunbar]] ''ca.'' 1503 also described Pluto as a folkloric supernatural being, "the elrich [[incubus]] / in cloke of grene" ("the [[wikt:eldritch|eldritch]] incubus in cloak of green"), who appears among the [[courtier]]s of [[Cupid]].<ref>[[William Dunbar]], ''The Goldyn Targe'' (1503), lines 126–7, as cited by Ian Simpson Ross, ''William Dunbar'' (Brill, 1981), p. 252. Compare also [[Arthur Golding]]'s "elves of hell" to translate Ovid's ''Avernales ... nymphas'', "[[nymph]]s of [[Avernus]]" (''Metamorphoses'' 5.670, in his account of the abduction).</ref>

The name ''Pluto'' for the classical ruler of the underworld was further established in English literature by [[Arthur Golding]], whose translation of Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'' (1565) was of great influence on [[William Shakespeare]],<ref>Shakespeare's references to Pluto are conventional. Pluto is associated with Hell in the "Roman" plays ''[[Coriolanus]]'' (I.iv, "Pluto and Hell!" as an exclamation) and ''[[Titus Andronicus]]'' (IV.iii, "Pluto's region," and "Pluto sends you word, / If you will have Revenge from hell, you shall"), as also in ''[[Henry IV, Part 2]]'' (II.iv): "I'll see her damn'd first; – to Pluto's damned lake, by this hand, to th' infernal deep, with [[Erebus]] and tortures vile also." Pluto's gates are a [[metaphor]] for strength in ''[[Troilus and Cressida]]'' (V.ii), where Pluto is also sworn by (III.iv and V.ii). The performance of Orpheus is referenced in ''[[The Rape of Lucrece]]'' (line 553): "And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays." Shakespeare also uses the name of Roman Dis, as in Perdita's catalogue of flowers in ''[[A Winter's Tale]]'' (IV.iii): "O Proserpina, / For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou lett'st fall / From Dis's waggon!"</ref> [[Christopher Marlowe]],<ref>In ''[[Doctor Faustus (play)|Doctor Faustus]]'' (III.ii, 1616 [[quarto]]), [[Mephistopheles]] invokes "Pluto's blue fire" in casting a spell of invisibility on the protagonist. In his translation of [[Lucan]]'s epic, Marlowe uses ''Pluto'' for ''Dis'' (''First Book of Lucan'', lines 449, where "Pluto" refers to the [[druid]]ic god [[Julius Caesar]] [[interpretatio romana|identified with]] Dis, and 576), but uses both names in the mythological narrative ''[[Hero and Leander (poem)|Hero and Leander]]''.</ref> and [[Edmund Spenser]].<ref>Spenser plays on the conflation of Pluto and Plutus: "but a little stride ... did the house of Richesse from hell-mouth divide" and "Here Sleep, there Richesse, and Hel-gate them both betwext" (24.5), as noted by Thomas E. Maresca, entry on "Hell", ''The Spencer Encyclopedia'', p. 352. See [[#Offspring|Offspring of Pluto (above)]] on the daughter Spenser invents for Pluto. His favored epithet for Pluto is ''griesly'', an [[archaism]] for "[[wikt:grisly|grisly]]" (''FG'' I.iv.11.1, II.vii.24.1, IV.iii.13.2, VI.xii.35.6, applied to Proserpina at I.i.37.4; Pluto named also at ''FG'' I.v.14.8, II.viii.24.1, VI.xii.35.6, VII.vii.5.9, and ''[[The Shepheardes Calender]]'' "October" 29).</ref><ref>Robert DeMaria Jr. and Robert D. Brown, ''Classical Literature and Its Reception: An Anthology'' (Blackwell, 2007), p. 453. Both ''Dis'' and ''Pluto'' appear in the works of Shakespeare and Marlowe, but ''Pluto'' with greater frequency; Spenser prefers the name Pluto.</ref> Golding translates Ovid's ''Dis'' as Pluto,<ref>[[Arthur Golding]], ''Ovid's Metamorphoses'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=tdWe6KGKVOEC&q=pluto passim]'', with a few instances of [https://books.google.com/books?id=tdWe6KGKVOEC&q=Dis Dis]; Radford, ''The Lost Girls'', p. 25.</ref> a practice that prevails among English translators, despite [[John Milton]]'s use of the Latin ''Dis'' in ''[[Paradise Lost]]''.<ref>For instance, at ''Paradise Lost'' 4.270, as cited by Radford, ''The Lost Girls'', p. 25, where Proserpine is described as a flower fairer than those she was gathering and "by gloomy Dis / was gathered."</ref> The Christian perception of the classical underworld as Hell influenced Golding's translation practices; for instance, Ovid's ''tenebrosa sede tyrannus / exierat'' ("the [[tyrant]] ''[Dis]'' had gone out of his shadowy realm") becomes "the prince of fiends forsook his darksome hole".<ref>''Ovid's Metamorphosis Translated by Arthur Golding'', edited by Madeleine Forey, (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), p. 164. Pluto rules over Hell throughout Spenser's ''Faerie Queene,'' as noted by Maresca, ''The Spenser Encyclopedia'', p. 352.</ref>

Pluto's court as a literary setting could bring together a motley assortment of characters. In [[Huon de Méry]]'s 13th-century poem "The Tournament of the [[Antichrist]]", Pluto rules over a congregation of "classical gods and demigods, biblical devils, and evil Christians."<ref>John Block Friedman, ''Orpheus in the Middle Ages'' (Syracuse University Press, 2000), p. 238; ''Li Tournoiemenz Anticrit'' ''(Le tornoiement de l'Antéchrist)'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=o8QZAAAAYAAJ&q=pluton+OR+pluto text.]</ref> In the 15th-century [[dream allegory]] ''[[The Assembly of Gods]]'', the deities and personifications are "apparelled as medieval nobility"<ref>Theresa Lynn Tinkle, ''Medieval Venuses and Cupids: Sexuality, Hermeneutics, and English Poetry'' (Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 132.</ref> basking in the "magnyfycence" of their "lord Pluto," who is clad in a "smoky net" and reeking of sulphur.<ref>''The Assembly of Gods'', lines 82, 51, 311, 314, in the edition of Oscar Lovell Triggs (London, 1896).</ref>

Throughout the [[Renaissance]], images and ideas from [[classical antiquity]] entered [[popular culture]] through the [[Renaissance technology#Printing press|new medium of print]] and through [[masque|pageants]] and other public performances at festivals. The [[Corpus Christi (feast)|Fête-Dieu]] at [[Aix-en-Provence]] in 1462 featured characters costumed as a number of classical deities, including Pluto,<ref>Entry on "Popular Culture," ''The Classical Tradition'', p. 766.</ref> and Pluto was the subject of one of seven pageants presented as part of the 1521 [[Midsummer Eve]] festival in [[Tudor London|London]].<ref>Sheila Lindenbaum, "Ceremony and Oligarchy: The London Midsummer Watch," in ''City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe'', (University of Minnesota Press, 1994), p. 171; Maria Hayward, ''Rich Apparel: Clothing and the Law in Henry VIII's England'' (Ashgate, 2009), p. 290. The court of Pluto continued to inspire public pageantry into the late 19th century, when floats such as the "blazing 'Palace of Pluto'" were part of the [[New Orleans Mardi Gras|Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans]]; Henri Schindler, ''Mardi Gras Treasures: Costume Designs of the Golden Age'' (Pelican, 2002), p. 15.</ref> During the 15th century, no mythological theme was brought to the stage more often than Orpheus's descent, with the court of Pluto inspiring fantastical [[stagecraft]].<ref>Nino Pirrotta, ''Music and Theatre from [[Poliziano]] to Monteverdi'' (Cambridge University Press, 1992, originally published in Italian 1969), ''passim'', especially p. ix.</ref> [[Leonardo da Vinci]] designed a set with a rotating mountain that opened up to reveal Pluto emerging from the underworld; the drawing survives and was the basis for a modern recreation.<ref>Pirrotta, ''Music and Theatre from [[Poliziano]] to Monteverdi'', with [https://books.google.com/books?id=rDTeG7IG8jIC&dq=Pluto+%22rotating+stage+and+the+interior+of+Hades%22+-fabula&pg=PA274-IA6 Leonardo's drawing] (n.p.); Carlo Pedretti, ''Leonardo: The Machines'' (Giunti, 1999), p. 72.</ref>

=== Opera and ballet ===
The tragic descent of the hero-musician Orpheus to the underworld to retrieve his bride, and his performance at the court of Pluto and Proserpina, offered compelling material for [[libretto|librettists]] and composers of opera (see [[List of Orphean operas]]) and [[History of ballet|ballet]]. Pluto also appears in works based on other classical myths of the underworld. As a singing role, Pluto is almost always written for a [[bass (voice type)|bass voice]], with the low [[vocal range]] representing the depths and weight of the underworld, as in [[Claudio Monteverdi|Monteverdi]] and [[Ottavio Rinuccini|Rinuccini]]'s ''[[L'Orfeo]]'' (1607) and ''[[Il ballo delle ingrate]]'' (1608). In their ''[[ballo]]'', a form of ballet with vocal numbers, Cupid invokes Pluto from the underworld to lay claim to "ungrateful" women who were immune to love. Pluto's part is considered particularly virtuosic,<ref>Mark Ringer, ''Opera's First Master: The Musical Dramas of Claudio Monteverdi'' (Amadeus Press, 2006), pp. 34, 75, 103–104; Tim Carter, ''Monteverdi's Musical Theatre'' (Yale University Press, 2002), p. 95; [[Enid Welsford]], ''The Court Masque'' (Cambridge University Press, 1927), pp. 112–113.</ref> and a reviewer at the première described the character, who appeared as if from a blazing Inferno, as "formidable and awesome in sight, with garments as given him by poets, but burdened with gold and jewels."<ref>Tim Carter, ''Monteverdi's Musical Theatre'' p. 81, quoting Follino, ''Compendio delle sontuose feste'' (1608), and p. 152.</ref>

[[File:Jean Raoux – Orpheus and Eurydice.jpg|thumb|left|[[Jean Raoux]]'s ''Orpheus and Eurydice'' (1718–20), with Pluto and Proserpina releasing the couple]]
The role of Pluto is written for a bass in [[Jacopo Peri|Peri]]'s ''[[Euridice (Peri)|Euridice]]'' (1600);<ref>George J. Buelow, ''A History of Baroque Music'' (Indiana University Press, 2004), p. 37.</ref> [[Giulio Caccini|Caccini]]'s ''[[Euridice (Caccini)|Euridice]]'' (1602); [[Luigi Rossi|Rossi]]'s ''[[Orfeo (Rossi)|Orfeo]]'' (1647); [[Antonio Cesti|Cesti]]'s ''[[Il pomo d'oro]]'' (1668);<ref>Kristiaan Aercke, ''Gods of Play: Baroque Festive Performances as Rhetorical Discourse'' (SUNY Press, 1994), p. 230.</ref> [[Antonio Sartorio|Sartoris]]'s ''[[Orfeo (Sartorio)|Orfeo]]'' (1672); [[Jean-Baptiste Lully|Lully]]'s ''[[Alceste (Lully)|Alceste]]'', a ''[[tragédie en musique]]'' (1674);<ref>Piero Gelli and Filippo Poletti, ''Dizionario dell'opera 2008'' (Baldini Castoldi Dalai, 2005, 2007), p. 36.</ref> [[Marc-Antoine Charpentier|Charpentier]]'s [[chamber opera]] ''[[La descente d'Orphée aux enfers]]'' (1686);<ref>Charpentier's Pluto is a [[bass-baritone]].</ref> [[Georg Philipp Telemann|Telemann]]'s ''[[Orpheus (Telemann)|Orpheus]]'' (1726); and [[Jean-Philippe Rameau|Rameau]]'s ''[[Hippolyte et Aricie]]'' (1733).<ref>Gelli and Poletti, ''Dizionario dell'opera 2008'', p. 625.</ref> Pluto was a [[baritone]] in [[Proserpine (Lully)|Lully's ''Proserpine'']] (1680), which includes a duo dramatizing the conflict between the royal underworld couple that is notable for its early use of musical characterization.<ref>James R. Anthony, ''French Baroque Music from Beaujoyeulx to Rameau'' (Amadeus Press, 1997), p. 115.</ref> Perhaps the most famous of the Orpheus operas is [[Jacques Offenbach|Offenbach]]'s satiric ''[[Orpheus in the Underworld]]'' (1858),<ref>Pluto does not have a singing role in [[Christoph Willibald Gluck|Gluck]]'s ''[[Orfeo ed Euridice]]'' (1762).</ref> in which a [[tenor]] sings the role of ''Pluton'', disguised in the giddily convoluted plotting as Aristée ([[Aristaeus]]), a farmer.

Scenes set in Pluto's realm were [[orchestration|orchestrated]] with [[Instrumentation (music)|instrumentation]] that became conventionally "hellish", established in Monteverdi's ''L'Orfeo'' as two [[cornet]]s, three [[trombone]]s, a [[bassoon]], and a [[Regal (musical instrument)|régale]].<ref>Aercke, ''Gods of Play'', p. 250; Ringer, ''Opera's First Master'', p. 71.</ref>

Pluto has also been featured as a role in ballet. In Lully's "Ballet of Seven Planets'" interlude from [[Francesco Cavalli|Cavalli]]'s opera ''[[Ercole amante]]'' ("[[Hercules]] in Love"), [[Louis XIV]] himself danced as Pluto and other characters; it was a spectacular flop.<ref>Andrew Trout, ''City on the Seine: Paris in the Time of Richelieu and Louis XIV'' (St. Martin's Press, 1996), pp. 189–190; Buelow, ''A History of Baroque Music'', p. 160.</ref> Pluto appeared in [[Jean-Georges Noverre|Noverre]]'s lost ''La descente d'Orphée aux Enfers'' (1760s). [[Gaétan Vestris]] danced the role of the god in [[Florian Johann Deller|Florian Deller]]'s ''Orefeo ed Euridice'' (1763).<ref>Daniel Heartz, ''Music in European Capitals: The Galant Style, 1720–1780'' (W.W. Norton, 2003), pp. 488–492.</ref> The ''Persephone'' choreographed by [[Robert Joffrey]] (1952) was based on [[André Gide]]'s line "king of winters, the infernal Pluto."<ref>Sasha Anawalt, ''The Joffrey Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making of an American Dance Company'' (University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 66.</ref>

=== Fine art ===
[[File:Dürer - Die Entführung auf dem Einhorn - Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum.png|thumb|[[Albrecht Dürer]], ''Abduction of Proserpine on a Unicorn'' (1516)]]
[[File:Rembrandt - The Rape of Proserpine - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|Rembrandt's ''Abduction of Proserpina'' (''ca.'' 1631)]]
The abduction of Proserpina by Pluto was the scene from the myth most often depicted by [[fine art|artists]], who usually follow Ovid's version. The influential emblem book ''[[Iconologia]]'' of Cesare Ripa (1593, second edition 1603) presents the allegorical figure of Rape with a shield on which the abduction is painted.<ref>Frederick Kiefer, ''Shakespeare's Visual Theatre: Staging the Personified Characters'' (Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 60–61.</ref> [[Jacob Isaacsz. van Swanenburg]], the first teacher of [[Rembrandt]], echoed Ovid in showing Pluto as the target of [[Cupid]]'s arrow while [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]] watches her plan carried out (location of painting unknown). The [[:File:Ovid Met 5 395ff – Rubens – Pluto taking Proserpina.jpg|treatment of the scene]] by [[Rubens]] is similar. Rembrandt incorporates Claudian's more passionate [[characterization]]s.<ref>Amy Golahney, "Rembrandt's Abduction of Proserpina," in ''The Age of Rembrandt: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting'' (Penn State University Press, 1988), p. 30; Eric Jan Sluijter, ''Rembrandt and the Female Nude'' (Amsterdam University Press, 2006), pp. 109–111.</ref> The performance of Orpheus in the court of Pluto and Proserpina was also a popular subject.

Major artists who produced works depicting Pluto include:
* [[Albrecht Dürer|Dürer]], ''Abduction of Proserpine on a Unicorn'' (1516), [[etching]]. Dürer's first English biographer called this work "a wild, weird conception" that "produces a most uncomfortable, shuddering impression on the beholder."<ref>[[Mary Margaret Heaton]], ''The History of the Life of Albrecht Dürer of Nürnberg'' (London, 1870), p. 187; Walter L. Strauss, ''The Complete Engravings, Etchings, and Drypoints of Albrecht Dürer'' (Dover, 1973), p. 178.</ref> The source or significance of the [[unicorn]] as the form of transport is unclear; Dürer's preparatory drawing showed a conventional horse. Pluto seems to be presented in a manner that recalls the [[Wild Hunt#Leader of the Wild Hunt|leader of the Wild Hunt]].<ref>Strauss, ''The Complete Engravings'', p. 178.</ref>
*[[Caravaggio]], ''Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto'' (Italian ''Giove, Nettuno e Plutone'', ''ca.'' 1597), a [[mural|ceiling mural]] (pictured under [[#Orphic and philosophical systems|Theogonies and cosmology above]]) intended for viewing from below, hence the unusual perspective. Caravaggio created the work for a room adjacent to the [[alchemy|alchemical]] [[Distillation#History|distillery]] of [[Cardinal (Catholic Church)|Cardinal]] [[Francesco Maria Del Monte]], his most important [[patronage|patron]]. The three gods hover around a translucent globe that represents the world: Jupiter with his eagle, Neptune holding a bident, and Pluto accompanied by a bluish-gray horse and a [[Cerberus]] who resembles a three-headed [[Border Collie|border collie]] more than a [[hellhound]]. In addition to personifying the [[classical elements]] [[Air (classical element)|air]], [[Water (classical element)|water]], and [[Earth (classical element)|earth]], the three figures represent "an allegory of the [[applied science]] of alchemy".<ref name="Gilbert-p124-125" />
* [[Jan Brueghel the Elder]], [[:File:Jan Brueghel (I) - Orpheus in the Underworld - WGA03564.jpg|''Orpheus before Pluto and Proserpina'']] (1604), painting.<ref>Entry on "Orpheus," ''The Classical Tradition'' p. 665.</ref>
* [[Gian Lorenzo Bernini|Bernini]], ''Pluto and Proserpina'' (1621–22), also known as ''[[The Rape of Proserpina]]'', sculpture with a Cerberus looking in three different directions.<ref>Entry on "Sculpture," ''The Classical Tradition'', p. 870.</ref>
* [[Rembrandt]], ''Abduction of Proserpina'' (''ca.'' 1631), painting influenced by Rubens (via the [[engraving]] of his student [[Pieter Soutman]]).<ref>Golahny, "Rembrandt's Abduction of Proserpina," p. 30ff.</ref> Rembrandt's leonine Pluto draws on Claudian's description of the god as like a ravening lion.<ref>Amy Golahny, ''Rembrandt's Reading: The Artist's Bookshelf of Ancient Poetry and History'' (Amsterdam University Press, 2003), pp. 102–103.</ref>

=== Modern literature ===
After the Renaissance, literary interest in the abduction myth waned until the revival of classical myth among the [[Romanticism|Romantics]]. The work of mythographers such as [[J.G. Frazer]] and [[Jane Ellen Harrison]] helped inspire the recasting of myths in modern terms by [[Victorian literature|Victorian]] and [[Modernism|Modernist]] writers. In ''[[Tess of the d'Urbervilles]]'' (1891), [[Thomas Hardy]] portrays Alec d'Urberville as "a grotesque parody of Pluto/Dis" exemplifying the late-[[Victorian morality|Victorian culture]] of [[patriarchy|male domination]], in which women were consigned to "an endless breaking ... on the wheel of biological reproduction."<ref>Radford, ''The Lost Girls'', pp. 85, 98, 114, citing Chelser, ''Women and Madness'', pp. 240, 266.</ref> A similar figure is found in ''[[The Lost Girl]]'' (1920) by [[D.H. Lawrence]], where the character Ciccio<ref>Perhaps a play on the Italian verb ''chioccia'' used by Dante to describe Pluto's manner of speaking in ''Inferno'', Canto VII, line 2.</ref> acts as Pluto to Alvina's Persephone, "the deathly-lost bride ... paradoxically obliterated and vitalised at the same time by contact with Pluto/Dis" in "a prelude to the grand design of rebirth." The darkness of Pluto is both a source of regeneration, and of "merciless annihilation."<ref>Radford, ''The Lost Girls'', pp. 247, 252, 254, ''et passim''.</ref> Lawrence takes up the theme elsewhere in his work; in ''The First Lady Chatterley'' (1926, an early version of ''[[Lady Chatterley's Lover]]''), Connie Chatterley sees herself as a Persephone and declares "she'd rather be married to Pluto than Plato," casting her earthy gamekeeper lover as the former and her philosophy-spouting husband as the latter.<ref>Radford, ''The Lost Girls'', p. 254.</ref>

In [[Rick Riordan]]'s [[young adult literature|young adult]] fantasy series ''[[The Heroes of Olympus]]'', the character [[Hazel Levesque]] is the daughter of Pluto, god of riches. She is one of seven characters with a parent from classical mythology.<ref>[[Rick Riordan]], ''The Son of Neptune'' (Disney-Hyperion Books, 2011), p. 111 (vol. 2 of ''The Heroes of Olympus'' series).</ref>

== Scientific terms ==
Scientific terms derived from the name of Pluto include:

* [[Pluto]], the dwarf planet, with related terms [[plutoid]] and [[plutino]];
* [[plutonium]], the heaviest [[Primordial element#Naturally occurring nuclides that are not primordial|naturally occurring element]], named after the dwarf planet;
* [[pluton]], a geologic term;
* [[plutonism]], a geologic theory.

== Notes ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
* [https://iconographic.warburg.sas.ac.uk/category/vpc-taxonomy-000142 The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Pluto)]
{{Commons category}}

{{Greek religion}}
{{Roman religion}}
{{Roman myth (mortal)}}

[[Category:Chthonic beings]]
[[Category:Abundance gods]]
[[Category:Deities in classical mythology]]
[[Category:Eleusinian Mysteries]]
[[Category:Epithets of Hades]]
[[Category:Residents of the Greek underworld]]
[[Category:Greek death gods]]
[[Category:Roman gods]]
[[Category:Underworld gods]]