#Underworld

The Greek realm of the dead: Styx, Elysium, Tartarus.

A marble bust of Hades — a mature, heavy-bearded god with thick wavy hair falling to the shoulders, deep-set blank eyes and a furrowed, stern brow, gazing off to the side. A dark near-black marble mantle (a modern restoration) is draped over his right shoulder, set against a plain grey ground.

Hades, Lord of the Dead

He drew the darkness by lot, not by choice, and the Greeks feared his name so much they called him the Rich One instead.

5 minHesiod

An engraving of a colossal, heavily muscled Hercules standing frontally, the Nemean lion-skin worn as a hood over his head and draped down his left side, the knotted olive-wood club resting over his right shoulder; small background vignettes show his combats with Antaeus, Cacus and Achelous in a classical landscape.

Greek

Heracles, the Greatest Hero

The strongman son of Zeus strangled serpents in his cradle and cleaned the world of monsters, but the labour that made him a god began in the ruin of his own house.

6 minPseudo-Apollodorus

The young Hermes, unbearded and long-haired, wearing the winged traveller's hat (petasos) with its pale feathers spread at either side. A coral-rose mantle is clasped at one shoulder with a gold brooch and falls across his bare torso; he stands against a dark ground, his head turned to gaze aside.

Greek

Hermes, the Messenger God

Born at dawn, he had invented the lyre and stolen a god's cattle before nightfall. The trickster who talks his way onto Olympus and walks the dead down to Hades.

6 minHomeric Hymn 4