Any Greek hero worth their salt makes a trip to the Underworld at some point during their adventures. Mary and Charlotte follow in their footsteps, crossing the River Styx to ask: what exactly was the Underworld? How was it different to the Judeo-Christian ‘Heaven’? And why has the idea of it proven so enduring even though nobody believes in it?
The Underworld can’t be mapped (although some scholars have tried) because it didn’t exist, but there are consistent features in the many myths in which it features: the River Styx, Charon the Ferryman, the god Hades, his wife Persephone, and the numberless dead like autumn leaves. Orpheus and Theseus visited. Hercules - hard man that he was - went twice. A human princess called Psyche also went in search of her lover.
Mary and Charlotte dwell on the longish accounts in Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid. Through these stories they get some sense of what the Underworld really meant to the Ancient Greeks and Romans - and what it still means to us.
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Mary and Charlotte recommend some further reading:
We focus on Odysseus’ encounter with the dead in Homer, Odyssey Book 11, and on Aeneas’ visit to the underworld in Virgil, Aeneid Book 6. But there are more!
https://www.thecollector.com/mortals-underworld-katabasis-greek-roman-mythology/ is an online, well-illustrated, article detailing 14 ancient visits to the underworld.
Modern fictions of the underworld based on the Odyssey are the theme of one chapter of Edith Hall’s Return of Ulysses (available free at https://edithhall.co.uk/)
Some of our very recent favourites are Carol Ann Duffy’s poem, “Eurydice”, from her collection, The World’s Wife (1999) and R. F. Kuang’s novel Katabasis (2025)
Instant Classics handmade by Vespucci
Producer: Jonty Claypole
Executive Producer: Natalia Rodriguez Ford
Video Editor: Jak Ford
Theme music: Casey Gibson
Production intern: Amelia Reichert
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