Editing Pluto (mythology) (section)

== Hesiod ==
[[File:The Abduction of Persephone by Pluto, Amphipolis.jpg|thumb|A [[mosaic]] of the [[Kasta Tomb]] in [[Amphipolis]] depicting the abduction of [[Persephone]] by Pluto, 4th century BC]]
The name ''Plouton'' does not appear in [[ancient Greek literature|Greek literature]] of the [[Archaic Greece|Archaic period]].<ref>[[Lewis Richard Farnell]], ''[[The Cults of the Greek States]]'' (Clarendon Press, 1907), vol. 3, p. 281.</ref> In [[Hesiod]]'s ''[[Theogony]]'', the six children of [[Cronus]] and [[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]] are [[Zeus]], [[Hera]], [[Poseidon]], [[Hades]], [[Demeter]], and [[Hestia]]. The male children divide the world into three realms. Hades takes Persephone by force from her mother [[Demeter]], with the consent of Zeus. ''Ploutos'', "Wealth," appears in the ''Theogony'' as the child of Demeter and [[Iasion]]: "fine Plutus, who goes upon the whole earth and the broad back of the sea, and whoever meets him and comes into his hands, that man he makes rich, and he bestows much wealth upon him." The union of Demeter and Iasion, described also in the ''[[Odyssey]]'',<ref>''[[Odyssey]]'' 5.125–128: ''And so it was when Demeter of the lovely hair, yielding / to her desire, lay down with Iasion and loved him / in a thrice-turned field'' (translation of [[Richmond Lattimore]]).</ref> took place in a [[fallow]] field that had been ploughed three times, in what seems to be a reference to a [[hieros gamos|ritual copulation]] or [[sympathetic magic]] to ensure the earth's fertility.<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''Theogony'' 969–74; [[Apostolos Athanassakis|Apostolos N. Athanassakis]], ''Hesiod. Theogony, Works and Days, Shield'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983, 2004), p. 56.</ref> "The resemblance of the name ''Ploutos'' to ''Plouton'' ...," it has been noted, "cannot be accidental. Plouton is lord of the dead, but as Persephone's husband he has serious claims to the powers of fertility."<ref>Athanassakis, ''Hesiod'', p. 56.</ref> Demeter's son Plutus merges in the narrative tradition with her son-in-law Pluto, redefining the implacable chariot-driver Hades whose horses trample the flowering earth.<ref>[[Emily Vermeule]], ''Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry'' (University of California Press, 1979), pp. 37, 219; [[Hendrik Wagenvoort]], "The Origin of the ''Ludi Saeculares''," in ''Studies in Roman Literature, Culture and Religion'' (Brill, 1956), p. 198.</ref>

That the underworld god was associated early on with success in agricultural activity is already evident in Hesiod's ''[[Works and Days]]'', line 465–469: "Pray to Zeus of the Earth and to pure Demeter to make Demeter's holy grain sound and heavy, when first you begin ploughing, when you hold in your hand the end of the plough-tail and bring down your stick on the backs of the oxen as they draw on the pole-bar by the yoke-straps."<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Works and Days]]'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0020.tlg002.perseus-eng1:448-478 465&ndash;9].</ref>