THE HADES OF HOMER AND VIRGIL. 647 



employed the word Hades, or certain forms of it, not merely to 

 designate the god or ruler of the infernal regions, but also the place 

 to which the souls of men are su.pposed to go at death. It is to the 

 house of Hades and of dread Persephone that Ulysses is admonished 

 to go, eiq 'Atdao doiibuq xaX iratvr/q Ilepaefovsiyjq. These phrases or 

 epithets, and Erebus, are the only words which Homer employs to 

 designate the abodes of the dead in connection with the visit of 

 Ulysses to Hades. It is to Erebus that Ulysses is requested to turn 

 when he is sacrificing the sheep which he conveyed in his ship to 

 Hades. It is out from Erebus that the souls of the dead are said to 

 assemble. In the description which Ulysses himself gives of his 

 descent to Hades, there is no mention made either of Tartarus or 

 Elysium. Homer elsewhere employs the term Tartarus. In Iliad 

 VIII. Jupiter is represented as threatening the gods on Olympus in 

 this manner : " Whomsoever of the gods I shall discover, having gone 

 apart from [the rest], wishing to aid either the Trojans or the Greeks, 

 disgracefully smitten shall he return to Olympus ; or, seizing, I will 

 hurl him into gloomy Tartarus, very far hence ; where there is a 

 very deep gulf beneath the earth, and iron portals, and a brazen 

 threshold, as far below Hades as heaven is from earth." In Iliad 

 XYIII. Juno is represented as swearing "by all the gods who dwell 

 under Tartarus (xohq vnoraprapiouc;), that are called Titans." In his 

 Theogony (vv. 719, 720), Hesiod thus alludes to Tartarus : "As far 

 under earth as heaven is from the earth ; for equal is the space from 

 beneath earth to murky Tartarus." In uiSlneid YI. Virgil thug 

 describes Tartarus : 



" Turn Tartarus ipse 

 Bis patet in prseceps tantum, tenditque sub umbras, 

 Quantus ad aetherium cceli suspectus Olympum." 



It is reasonable to maintain that, in the description which he gives 

 of Tartarus, Hesiod followed Homer very closely ; and that Virgil 

 is indebted to both of the Greek poets for the view which he enter- 

 tained respecting the locality of Tartarus, and those who were im- 

 prisoned in. it : 



"Hie genus antiquum Terrse, Titania pubes, 



Eulmine dejecti, fundo volvuntur in imo." 



Though no mention is made of Elysium in connection with the 

 descent of Ulysses to Hades, it is clear that Homer was acquainted 

 with the term, for in Odyssey IV. (vv. 563-568), Proteus, the old man 

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