Denizens

Inhabitants of the Ancient Underworlds

This page contains some details about some of the underworld characters you might meet on 8th October 2010. This alphabetical list provides brief backgrounds of characters being brought to life by our piece and one other Light Night project (Hermes - "The Crossing" by Pointed Arrow at the Left Bank Leeds) and some that are always to be found in Leeds... More details and indications of relevant blog posts will be added as the piece progresses.
Information about other Underworld denizens can be found on the pages Homer's Underworld, The Roman Underworld and the Egyptian Underworld.

Aeneas - the Trojan-born founder of Rome (for Troy fans: the guy who, while escaping with the his elderly father and young son, is given the 'Sword of Troy'). Journeys to the Underworld with the Sibyl of Cumae (see below) after a dream sent by his dead father asks Aeneas to come and speak with in the elysian fields to learn the location of his new home and receive a vision of the future heroes of Rome.
Our main sources: Virgil's Aeneid.


Circe - an immortal goddess, the daughter of Helios (the Sun god), sister of Aietes (king of Colchis) and aunt of Medea, an enchantress also skilled in the use of drugs. Resides on an island off the west coast of Italy and provides Odysseus with instructions to pass safely in the Underworld as a living man.
Our main sources: Homer's Odyssey, Apollonius of Rhodes' Voyage of Argo. (See 18th August blog post.)


Charon - the Ferryman who ferries the souls of those who have been buried (and therefore have grave goods with which to pay him) across the River Styx into the Underworld. He appears in this role in both the Greek and Roman Underworlds but in Rome he is also recognised as an Etruscan demon and employed in the arena to dispatch dead gladiators with a hammer blow to the temple after they were burned by Mercury and before they were taken out through the Gate of the Dead - this prevented them from feigning death, oddly enough!

Demeter (Greek) aka Ceres (Roman) - (see also Persephone)

Egyptian Lector Priest -

Eurydice - (see also Orpheus)

Heracles (Greek) aka Hercules (Roman) - his twelfth labour was to fetch Cerberus, the triple-headed guard dog of the palace of the ruler of the Underworld, into the light of day. This involved journeying to the Underworld while still alive - a rare feat for a mortal.
Our main sources: Euripides' Heracles, Seneca's The Mad Hercules.


Hercules (Roman) aka Heracles (Greek) - see Heracles above.

Hermes - a messenger god able to travel between the worlds of gods and men and even into the Underworld. His official roles as "psychopomp" (literally "Leader of Souls") means that he appears frequently in funerary art guiding the dead individual - who may appear as they do in life or with wings (looking like an angel) - into the Underworld and passing them safely to Charon for ferrying across the River Styx.

Horus - ancient Egyptian falcon-headed god.
Mercury - the Roman name for Hermes, see above.

Nesyamun - a genuine ancient Egyptian priest who served at the temple of Amun at Karnak, Thebes -modern-day Luxor - by tending to the sacred statue of the god Amun, performing rituals, saying prayers and making offerings of food, clothing, jewellery and incense. Nesyamun, whose name means "The One Belonging to Amun", died in the reign of Ramesses XI, who ruled Egypt 1113-1085 BC and his mummy is preserved in the Leeds City Museum's Ancient Worlds Gallery. He will provide the starting point for the Egyptian Underworld experience but will be treated with respect as all human remains housed in museums should be.

Orpheus - (see also Eurydice)
Persephone - queen of the Underworld. Abducted by Hades/Pluto as a girl, Persephone reluctantly became his wife but longed to return to the upper air and her mother. Although heroes, like Theseus and Pirithous, tried to rescue her they failed and in the end her mother, Demeter, who had travelled all over the world seeking her daughter had to journey to the Underworld herself. Hades/Pluto made a deal that he would let Persephone go if she had not eaten anything while in the Underworld. Alas, she had eaten six pomegranate seeds and that is why we have six months of spring and summer - the time Persephone spends on the earth with her delighted mother. (See also Demeter aka Ceres.)

Sibyl of Cumae (the) - a prophetess who forgot to ask for eternal youth to go with her immortality. Resides in a cave at Cumae near Naples in Italy, gives out prophecies written on leaves and guides living mortals into the Underworld and back again.
Our main sources: Virgil Aeneid, Petronius Satyricon.

Sisyphus - king of Corinth who defeats death twice, only to be punished by an eternity in the Underworld spent rolling a heavy stone to the top of a hill only to have it roll down again. The first time Sisyphus beat death was when Zeus (king of the gods) commanded Thanatos (Death personified) to chain Sisyphus to a rock for having revealed the location of a girl he had abducted to her father: Sisyphus asked Death to demonstrate the strength of the chains and escaped. Choas ensued because, with Death in chains no-one could die.  [I think this is a reasonable candidate as the myth that inspired Terry Pratchet's Reaper Man]. The second time Sisyphus beat death was after he had died: he persuaded his wife not to bury his body, which meant that he could not be ferried across the River Styx into the Underworld by Charon. He persauded Persephone (queen of the Underworld) to let him return to the upper air to scold his undutiful wife but failed to return to the Underworld.
Our main sources: Homer's Odyssey, [Plato]'s Sisyphus, Virgil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Apollodorus' Library. Cf. Albert Camus' philosophical essay The Myth of Sisyphus  
(Chapter 4)
.