The Underworld of Ancient Greece: A Guided Tour

10/08/24 • 27 min

To celebrate spooky month, we're going on a tour of the Underworld of Greek mythology! Ancient Greece had a fascinating relationship with the afterlife and the myths about death and Hades are iconic. Today we're going to go on a guided tour of the Underworld and find out, what is the ancient Greek Underworld? Where do souls go? What is the afterlife really like in ancient greek myths? What is Asphodel, Tartarus and Elysium?
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Tiktok: @SabrinaSalisburyWriter
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References:
Mystery Cults of the Ancient World
Theoi
The Afterlife of Ancient Greece
The Odyssey and the Iliad- Emily Wilson translations
And of course a bit of ye olde wikipedia!
Pixaby for sound effects

Previous Episode

Epic the Musical: The Circe Saga with Jorge Rivera-Herrans

Circe is a deeply complex and often maligned character, so does Epic the Musical demonise or humanise her? In this episode, the final episode of the series, Jorge Rivera-Herrans returns to discuss Epic: The Circe saga with me.
Listen to Epic the Musical now!
Follow Jorge on Tiktok
Follow me!
Tiktok: @SabrinaSalisburyWriter
Instagram: @sabrinasalisburywriter
Sources:
Epic: The Musical by Jorge Rivera-Herrans
The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson
Great Courses Odyssey of Homer- Elizabeth Vandiver, Ph.D.
Segal, C. (1968). Circean Temptations: Homer, Vergil, Ovid. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 99, 419–442. https://doi.org/10.2307/2935855

https://www.britannica.com/art/deus-ex-machina

https://poets.org/poem/circe
https://www.livius.org/sources/content/epic-cycle/telegony/

Next Episode

Hades and Persephone: Romance or Horror?

The myth of Hades and Persephone has been fascinating to romance writers and readers alike, but their foundational Greek myth is more of a tale of kidnap and grief than it is anything romantic. How could Hades and Persphone end up being one of the most frequently retold romantic stories? Today we're going to look at the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hesiod, and discuss why their story might be a compelling romance.

Bibliography

https://fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/explore-our-collection/highlights/context/stories-and-histories/eleusis-myth-and-mysteries#:~:text=The%20temple%20of%20Demeter%20at,made%20to%20Demeter%20at%20Eleusis.

https://www.theoi.com/Cult/DemeterTitles.html

https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20111010143853768#:~:text=Epithets%20which%20euphemistically%20address%20his,Pluton%20('Wealth').

https://chs.harvard.edu/primary-source/homeric-hymn-to-demeter-sb/
Mystery Cults in the Ancient World- novel
Girl, Goddess, Queen- Bea Fitzgerald
https://www.theoi.com/image/R14.1Haides.jpg

Greeks and Geeks - The Underworld of Ancient Greece: A Guided Tour

Transcript

Hello and welcome to series 3 of Greek and Geeks, the podcast where I take us on a persnickity but fun journey deep diving into the lore behind our favourite stories. We’re first airing this in the month of October and so, to celebrate spooky month, series 3 will be focused entirely on The Underworld of Ancient Greece. We’ll be taking a deep dive into topics such as the many adaptations of the Hades and Persephone myth, a long-requested look at the Hades video game and at last I’ll get t