Pluto

Pluto (in Latin Pluto, from the Greek Plouton, «the rich one») is the Roman god of the underworld and of the riches hidden in the subsoil, such as metals and minerals. According to Plato in the «Cratylus», his name alludes to the wealth (ploutos) that springs from the earth. He is the Roman equivalent of the Greek Hades, with whom he shares figure and attributes, and he was also assimilated to the ancient Italic deities Dis Pater («rich father») and Orcus. Son of Saturn and Ops, he is the brother of Jupiter and Neptune; when the three brothers overthrew the Titans and divided the cosmos by lot, the sky fell to Jupiter, the sea to Neptune and the kingdom of the dead to Pluto. He should not be confused with Plutus (Ploutos), the Greek god of wealth and son of Demeter, although both share the trait of the abundance that emanates from the earth.

As lord of the underworld, Pluto reigns over the souls of the deceased in an immutable domain from which almost no one returns. His realm, the Avernus, is guarded by Cerberus, the many-headed dog that prevents the dead from leaving and the living from entering. Unlike other gods, he rarely ascends to the surface and does not intervene in the affairs of the living, except to claim what belongs to him. Alongside his funerary aspect, he embodies the wealth of the subsoil: he is the owner of the precious metals, the gems and the mineral veins hidden beneath the earth, hence his name «the rich one». This dual nature, death and abundance, links him both to funeral rites and to agricultural fertility, for from the same soil that keeps the dead the harvests spring forth. He is depicted as stern and just, enthroned with the sceptre or the cornucopia, and often accompanied by his wife Proserpina.

Pluto's central myth is the abduction of Proserpina, daughter of Ceres and Jupiter. Smitten with the young woman, Pluto seized her while she gathered flowers and carried her off to his realm to make her his queen. Ceres, devastated, wandered the world searching for her and, in her grief, left the earth barren. Jupiter mediated an agreement: Proserpina would spend part of the year in the underworld, beside Pluto, and the rest on the surface with her mother, for she had tasted the pomegranate seeds that bound her to the kingdom of the dead. This cycle mythically explains the succession of the seasons: winter when the goddess descends and spring when she returns. The tale, sung by Ovid in the «Metamorphoses» and the «Fasti» and developed by Claudian in «De Raptu Proserpinae», is the quintessential Roman myth about death and renewal. In his cult, Pluto received chthonic offerings and was invoked alongside Proserpina at the Ludi Saeculares.