Charon (mythology) - Underworld Geography

Underworld Geography

Greek underworld
Residents
  • Aeacus
  • Cerberus
  • Charon
  • Erinyes
  • Hades
  • Hecate
  • Hypnos
  • Melinoe
  • Minos
  • Moirai
  • Persephone
  • Rhadamanthus
  • Thanatos
Geography
  • Acheron
  • Asphodel
    Fields
  • Cocytus
  • Elysion
  • Erebus
  • Lethe
  • Phlegethon
  • Styx
  • Tartarus
Famous inmates
  • The Danaides
  • Ixion
  • Salmoneus
  • Sisyphus
  • Tantalus
  • The Titans
  • Tityus
Visitors
  • Aeneas
  • Dionysus
  • Heracles
  • Hermes
  • Odysseus
  • Orpheus
  • Pirithous
  • Psyche
  • Theseus

Most accounts, including Pausanias (10.28) and later Dante's Inferno (3.78), associate Charon with the swamps of the river Acheron. Ancient Greek literary sources — such as Pindar, Aeschylus, Euripides, Plato, and Callimachus — also place Charon on the Acheron. Roman poets, including Propertius, Ovid, and Statius, name the river as the Styx, perhaps following the geography of Virgil’s underworld in the Aeneid, where Charon is associated with both rivers.

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