Pluto (mythology) - Plouton and Ploutos

Plouton and Ploutos

Plouton was one of several euphemistic names for Hades, described in the Iliad as the god most hateful to mortals. Plato says that people prefer the name Plouton, "giver of wealth," because the name of Hades is fear-provoking. 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." 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), by means of which Plouton is distinguished from the gloomier Hades.

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. 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. 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."

During the 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 (Roman Spain), he says that among the Turdetani, it is "Pluto, and not Hades, who inhabits the region down below." In the discourse On Mourning by the Greek author Lucian (2nd century AD), Pluto's "wealth" is the dead he rules over in the abyss (chasma); the name Hades is reserved for the underworld itself.