Who is Hades – Greek God of the Underworld?
Hades is one of the most important of the Greek Gods. He is God of wealth, death and the Underworld.
Hades’ Roman form is Pluto, named after the planet Pluto which isn’t classified as a planet in our solar system anymore. The Romans named him this as they were amazed by the astronomy of the universe.
Hades’ parents
Hades is a son of Rhea (Queen of the Titans) and Cronos (leader of the first generations of Titans).
Hades’ siblings
Hades’ siblings are:
Together they are known as The Big Three and are the three biggest Greek Gods.
There are also:
- Hera
- Hestia
- Demeter
Hades’ children
His most renown children consist of Macaria, Zagreus, Melinoë and Erinyes.
Some of Hades’ children are born with a gift/curse (it depends how they use it) that when they want to, the child of Hades or Pluto can summon rare and precious jewels such as diamonds and rubies to the surface of the earth.
In Rick Riordan’s book ‘Heroes of Olympus‘ it says that Hazel sort of absorbed the curse when she was younger. That was how a child of Pluto found out about the curse. Although it can be extremely powerful at times, it is unbelievably rare as Hades is a brother of the big three.
Hades’ pets
His pet is an extraordinary mythical beast called Cerberus that guards the Underworld from any living souls entering. Cerberus is the offspring of Echidna (known as She-viper for her being half snake and half woman) and Typhon (youngest child of Gaia and Tartarus).
He is said to have 100 dragon heads emerging from all over his body. He is such a formidable force that all the Olympians were needed to defeat him in, ‘Percy Jackson and the last Olympian’.
It is said that Cerberus has three heads, a snake as a tail and snake heads sprouting out of his back. Hades’ weapon that was forged by the elder cyclopses is the Dark Helm. It is able to make him invisible.
Hades’ weapons
Ares (the Major God of weapons and war) once secretly stole Zeus’ Master Bolt (the strongest Greek weapon ever to be forged), being the annoying nephew of Hades, he wanted to use it as a prank for Zeus, Poseidon and Hades to declare war on each other.
Zeus had magically enchanted his Master Bolt to reinforce it so that if anyone other than him tried to behold it the lightening bolt would not react or not do nearly as much damage as it would if it was willing to. This infuriated Ares, he took his anger out by taking Hades’ Dark Helm.
Hades noticed that his weapon was missing so he ordered his servants then figured out Ares had stolen his weapon. Hades was so enraged he picked up Ares, stormed to the edge of a cliff and dropped Ares whom plummeted hundreds of metres down.
Ares wasn’t really affected by this since he was and still is an immortal being. Hades then retrieved his Helm of Darkness and returned to the Underworld to keep it under strict security (though he does wear his helmet a lot).
