Atu and Utu

Shamash (Akkadian: šamaš^[a]), also known as Utu (Sumerian: ^dutu 𒀭𒌓 “Sun“^[2]) was the ancient Mesopotamian sun god. He was believed to see everything that happened in the world every day, and was therefore responsible for justice and protection of travelers. As a divine judge, he could be associated with the underworld. Additionally, he could serve as the god of divination, typically alongside the weather god Adad. While he was universally regarded as one of the primary gods, he was particularly venerated in Sippar and Larsa. The moon god Nanna (Sin) and his wife Ningal were regarded as his parents, while his twin sister was Inanna (Ishtar). Occasionally other goddesses, such as Manzat and Pinikir, could be regarded as his sisters too. The dawn goddess Aya (Sherida) was his wife, and multiple texts describe their daily reunions taking place on a mountain where the sun was believed to set. Among their children were Kittum, the personification of truth, dream deities such as Mamu, as well as the god Ishum. Utu’s name could be used to write the names of many foreign solar deities logographically. The connection between him and the Hurrian solar god Shimige is particularly well attested, and the latter could be associated with Aya as well.

On Pluto

As Pluto gained importance as an embodiment of agricultural wealth within the Eleusinian Mysteries, from the 5th century BC onward the name Hades was increasingly reserved for the underworld as a place.^[56] Neither Hades nor Pluto was one of the traditional Twelve Olympians, and Hades seems to have received limited cult,^[57] perhaps only at Elis, where the temple was opened once a year.^[58] During the time of Plato, the Athenians periodically honored the god called Plouton with the “strewing of a couch” (tên klinên strôsai).^[59] At Eleusis, Plouton had his own priestess.^[60] Pluto was worshipped with Persephone as a divine couple at Knidos, Ephesos, Mytilene, and Sparta as well as at Eleusis, where they were known simply as God (Theos) and Goddess (Thea).^[61]

Pluto as The Ruler

In his central myth, Orpheus visits the underworld in the hope of retrieving his bride, Eurydice, relying on the power of his music to charm the king and queen of Hades. Greek narratives of Orpheus’s descent and performance typically name the ruler of the underworld as Plouton, as for instance in the Bibliotheca.^[50] The myth demonstrates the importance of Pluto “the Rich” as the possessor of a quest-object. Orpheus performing before Pluto and Persephone was a common subject of ancient and later Western literature and art, and one of the most significant mythological themes of the classical tradition.^[51]

Pluto on Children

Unlike his freely procreating brothers Zeus and Poseidon, Pluto is monogamous, and is rarely said to have children.^[36] In Orphic texts,^[37] the chthonic nymph Melinoe is the daughter of Persephone by Zeus disguised as Pluto,^[38] and the Eumenides (“The Kindly Ones”) are the offspring of Persephone and Zeus Chthonios, often identified as Pluto.^[39] The Augustan poet Vergil says that Pluto is the father of the Furies,^[40] but the mother is the goddess Nox (Nyx),^[41] not his wife Persephone.The lack of a clear distinction between Pluto and “chthonic Zeus” confuses the question of whether in some traditions, now obscure, Persephone bore children to her husband. In the late 4th century AD, Claudian’s epic on the abduction motivates Pluto with a desire for children. The poem is unfinished, however, and anything Claudian may have known of these traditions is lost.^[42]

The best-known myth involving Pluto or Hades is the abduction of Persephone, also known as Kore (“the Maiden”). The earliest literary versions of the myth are a brief mention in Hesiod’s Theogony and the extended narrative of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter; in both these works, the ruler of the underworld is named as Hades (“the Hidden One”). Hades is an unsympathetic figure, and Persephone’s unwillingness is emphasized.^[28] Increased usage of the name Plouton in religious inscriptions and literary texts reflects the influence of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which treated Pluto and Persephone as a divine couple who received initiates in the afterlife; as such, Pluto was disassociated from the “violent abductor” of Kore.^[29] Two early works that give the abductor god’s name as Pluto are the Greek mythography traditionally known as the Library of “Apollodorus” (1st century BC)^[30] and the Latin Fabulae (ca. 64 BC–AD 17).^[31]

The Fear of Saying Plouton’s Name

Plouton was one of several euphemistic names for Hades, described in the Iliad as the god most hateful to mortals.^[10] Plato says that people prefer the name Plouton, “giver of wealth,” because the name of Hades is fear-provoking.^[11] The name was understood as referring to “the boundless riches of the earth, both the crops on its surface—he was originally a god of the land—and the mines hidden within it.”^[12] What is sometimes taken as “confusion” of the two gods Plouton and Ploutos (“Wealth”) held or acquired a theological significance in antiquity. As a lord of abundance or riches, Pluto expresses the aspect of the underworld god that was positive, symbolized in art by the “horn of plenty” (cornucopia),^[13] by means of which Plouton is distinguished from the gloomier Hades.^[14]