When the cosmos was divided up, Zeus was given the heavens, Poseidon the seas and Pluto the underworld. This is how it is presented in Greek mythology. Pluto rules in the underworld and is now better known as Hades. Hades is also the name given to his realm of the dead. But “Plutos” is the Greek term for wealth. So the name suggests that there was a rather different understanding of the ruler over dead souls from what we know from Christianity, where it is personified by Lucifer or the Devil. The idea of Pluto encompasses an idea reflecting the course of nature – something has to die in order for new life to emerge.
However, few people have visited Hades and returned from his kingdom, at the gate of which Cerberus, the dog with three heads, stands guard. But Apuleius’s story of Cupid and Psyche tells how Psyche managed to do just this. She took with her a honey cake with which to bribe Cerberus to allow her to enter Hades and another honey cake to persuade it to let her out again. So Psyche became one of the few exceptions who managed to come back.
