|
Dromo's Den
|
|
[Up] [Dromo's Den] Charon Biography CHARON, (Lat., from Gk. Etrusc. Charun). In classical mythology, the ferryman of the lower world, who conveys to the realm of Hades the souls of the dead that have been duly buried. He does not appear in Homer or Hesiod but was early prominent in popular belief and appeared in one of the lost epics, whence Polygnotus introduced him into his great painting of "Odysseus in the Lower World." From the fifth century B.C. Charon appears frequently in literature. He is also often represented on the Athenian white lecythi, vases buried with the dead, where he is depicted as a bearded old man wearing the short tunic and pointed cap of a seaman, in a skiff with a single oar. To pay the fare a small coin (obolus) was placed in the mouth of the dead; bodies with coins in the mouth have been found even in Switzerland and Italy. On Etruscan monurnents Charon is represented as a demon of death, with bestial face, huge tusks, and pointed ears, carrying snakes or, more commonly, a large hammer. The bodies of fallen gladiators were dragged from the arena by a man disguised as this Etruscan demon. In modern Greece Charon survives as Charos or Charontas, who, as a black bird of prey or as a winged horseman, bears victims to the world of the dead. Consult Ambrosch, De Charonte Etrusco (Bresslau, 1837), and Waser, Charon, Charun, Charos (Berlin, 1898). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. V (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 78-79. |