The unburied, or those who couldn’t pay Charon, were left on the banks of the Acheron (or possibly the Cocytus or Styx, depending.) All of these locations were broadly in Hades or the proper Greek Underworld. Getting there, though, is the quest of at least three lifetimes.Ī few less popular locations: the Mourning Fields are where the tragic, or possibly tragically whiney, victims of unrequited love went. The Islands of the Blessed may have been in that same zip code, which are not just pleasant but paradisical. The Elysian Fields is pretty much the same, but and endlessly pleasant place, untouched by sorrows. But from the perspective of a military or self-bettering, striving culture (that is, Greek and Roman) it doesn’t sound very desirable…an endless sameness. Where does your soul go when you die (according to the Greeks?) Probably the Fields of Asphodel, which is not particularly awful, although it seems to be at times quite bleak and mirthless (at least in the Odyssey this is the case.) It sounds generally like it’s not bad, if a bit boring. I can’t figure out what a single mon was worth…not much. We talk about Mon in this episode and in E4 a bit, it’s the smallest unit of currency in Japan from about 1350 to 1860. The coin at right was a special just-for-funerals version of the coin, not for currency (except in a metaphorical sense.) I like the “bee” motif on this one, Victoria’s a beekeeper and this will definitely come up in a later episode! Since burial practices were so extremely important mythologically and as a way of emphasizing the importance of society and ritual, an obol seemed to symbolize burial as an act, the price of the ferryman. Probably not.Įxchange rate: six obols equals one drachma, or a handful (the word comes from drassomai, “to grasp.” Obol is basically “nail,” sort of a unit of money and/or measurement.)Īnyway, in Greek funerary practices, a body was buried with an obol in their mouth. And, also, something that your character could become if they were in the wrong place and wrong time, as a soul could be smelted down to a single obolus coin, later to be redeemed for valuable goods and services or a round of skee-ball at the Stygian arcade. Penny for your thoughts? Jacob says: I first learned about obols in, predictably, a White Wolf game – “Wraith the Oblivion,” where they were the dominant currency in the faintly hellish underworld for the setting. And then go to Wikipedia for more information on Potomoi, the anthropomorphic personifications of quite a number of rivers, including more than a few fictional/mythical ones. Check their page on Styx, and Pyriphlegathon and the other underworld rivers/potomoi. So far as “mythic context” goes, I’m not sure the website can be beat, it’s a fantastic aggregator for mythic references. Original image post from the excellent Human Odyssey project. It’s worth remembering that the myths were made for and by storytellers, not cartographers, and to quote a great poet, “repeat to yourself it’s just a show, you should really just relax.” I do like the more infographic-flowchart map at right, though. Searching around for maps of the underworld just leads to more confusion. Because the geology is three-dimensional, these rivers can reasonably run over and under each other, and the Styx or Archeron variously serves as the border marker of the Underworld itself. Broadly, the Oceanus (the great river/ocean around the world) flows into or borders the Acheron, which flows down to Hell. It is REALLY HARD to get agreement on the exact infernal geography of the five rivers of the underworld.
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