Encyclopedia > Acheron

  Article Content

Acheron

The Acheron river was a mythical stream (or sometimes a lake) in ancient Greek mythology, though it is also occasionally associated with the real Epirus river, which flows underground in part of its passage. Acheron translates as "river of woe" and, contrary to popular belief, is also the river that Charon ferried the newly dead souls across into Hades.

The word is also occasionally used as a metaphor for Hades itself.

The god of the river, an Oceanid and son of Oceanus and Tethys, fathered Ascalaphus with Orphne.

Virgil VI, 107



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Northwest Harbor, New York

... size is 2.59 and the average family size is 3.04. In the town the population is spread out with 25.2% under the age of 18, 4.8% from 18 to 24, 27.3% from 25 to 44, ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 41 ms