Key Info

- Underworld prison for the vile and wicked

Brief Bio

In Greek mythology, Tartarus is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans. Tartarus is the place where, according to Plato's Gorgias (c. 400 BC), souls are judged after death and where the wicked received divine punishment. Tartarus appears in early Greek cosmology, such as in Hesiod's Theogony, where the personified Tartarus is described as one of the earliest beings to exist, alongside Chaos and Gaia (Earth).

Hesiod asserts that a bronze anvil falling from heaven would fall nine days before it reached the earth. In the Iliad (c. 8th century BC), Zeus asserts that Tartarus is "as far beneath Hades as heaven is above earth.

While according to Greek mythology the realm of Hades is the place of the dead, Tartarus also has a number of inhabitants. When Cronus came to power as the King of the Titans, he imprisoned the three ancient one-eyed Cyclopes and only the hundred-armed Hecatonchires in Tartarus and set the monster Campe as its guard. Campe was part scorpion and had a ring of animal heads around her waist, snapping at anyone who dared to get near. She also carried a whip to torture the Cyclopes and the hundred-armed ones. Zeus killed Campe and released these imprisoned giants to aid in his conflict with the Titans. The gods of Olympus eventually triumphed. Cronus and many of the other Titans were banished to Tartarus, though Prometheus, Epimetheus, and female Titans such as Metis were spared. Other gods could be sentenced to Tartarus as well. In the Homeric hymn to Hermes, Apollo threatens to throw Hermes into Tartarus. Apollo himself was almost condemned to Tartarus by Zeus for the act of killing the Cyclops. The Hecatonchires became guards of Tartarus's prisoners. Later, when Zeus overcame the monster Typhon, he threw him into "wide Tartarus".