![]() Charon, however, only accepted the melody as a one-way trip. Orpheus wanted to look for his wife, Eurydice, who had been bitten by a snake and died untimely. Orpheus – Orpheus, the musician, poet and prophet managed to convince the ferryman to take him to the underworld with his singing.To get there, Odysseus managed to convince Charon to ferry him across the Acheron with his eloquence. Odysseus – During Odysseus’ calamitous return home, the enchantress Circe advised the Greek hero to seek the Theban seer, Tiresias, in the underworld.Psyche – In her search for Eros and as her service for Aphrodite, Psyche, the goddess of the soul, is said to have traveled to the underworld in Charon’s skiff.Here are some of the most popular myths involving Charon and a living mortal or god: However, there are many myths in which heroes and gods pay Charon’s fee for him to ferry them to the underworld and back. The underworld was not a place for the living, and Charon was not supposed to allow living people to enter the underworld. His role remains unchanged in these depictions. Charon the Ferryman of the DeadĬharon appears in the writing of a variety of poets such as Aeschylus, Euripides, Ovid, Seneca, and Virgil. In this way, Charon played an important role and influenced the burials in Ancient Greece. Some myths propose that these ghosts haunted those who failed to offer them the correct rite. If people did not perform the rite and the dead person arrived at the river without the coin, they were left to wander the earth as ghosts for 100 years. Charon is treated with great respect by mortals and gods alike, revered for his role in taking the dead to the ever after. Because of this belief, Ancient Greeks were typically buried with a coin their mouths for Charon’s fee to ferry them across the River Styx. All who used Charon’s services had to pay with an obolos, an ancient Greek coin. He journeyed through the rivers Styx and Acheron and carried the souls of those who had received the rites of burial. Charon’s Role in Greek MythologyĬharon was the ferryman in charge of transporting the dead to the underworld. Modern artwork, however, tends to show him as a frightening demon of tremendous strength, often with a mallet, associating him with hell and the devil. His apparel consisted of a tunic and a conic hat. The depictions of Charon show him as an ugly bearded man at the stern of a skiff with an oar. He may have been a later addition to the Greek pantheon of deities. Although various accounts say he existed in Greek mythology before the Olympians, Charon does not appear in the writings of the early poets of Greece. As a son of Nyx, Charon’s family consisted of a myriad of dark beings with associations to death, the night, and the underworld. Who Was Charon?Ĭharon was the son of Nyx, the primordial goddess of the night, and Erebus, the primordial deity of the darkness. As the ferryman of Hades, Charon had an important role and many heroes who went into the underworld for various purposes, would return from there, ferried by Charon. In Greek mythology, the great Charon was in charge of ferrying the dead to the underworld, a task he undertook with dignity and patience.
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