Tartarus Mythology

One can believe that old myths and stories about the Underworld and the evil belong to the past …

… but if you come here, you will be taught better. Because the mythical underworld does still exist. A place from which chaos was born, in the darkness of the depths of the earth, the absolute “Erebos”. The Greek myths tell the story of one of the most imaginative and also most horrible of these underworlds which is called Hades.
Its entrance was at the end of the world, on the shore of the Okeanos, in the land of the Cimmerians. It was where the black waters of the rivers Pyriphlegeton and Kokytos plunged into the depths.
A huge and insurmountable abyss formed the entrance to the realm of the dead.

Further the myth tells how the souls were brought there by the old ferryman Charon over the river Acheron to the gate of Hades, the Underworld. For getting there, they just had to give a small “Obolus”, the smallest Greek coin. The fearsome three-headed hellhound Cerberus, surrounded by snakes, watched over this gate.

He never allowed any of the souls to return.

After the three judges and guardians of Hades Aikos, Minos and Rhadamanthys had decided in court on the fate of those, they came either to the Elysium, where they were given a carefree life for all eternity – or they came to the Asphodel Meadows, a desolate place where they had to live as shadows forever.

Doubters, wrong-doers and miscreants came to the furthest and most terrible corner of Hades, the Tartarus. They had to leave their former lives behind, they had to drink from the river Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. For what awaited them were unceasing torments and never-ending suffering.

The Tartarus itself is said to be so deep, it would take an iron anvil nine days and nine nights to fall down to its ground.

It is surrounded by a triple wall and the burning river Pyriphlegeton, to make escape impossible.