Editing Pluto (mythology) (section)

=== Christianization ===
[[Christian literature|Christian writers]] of [[late antiquity]] sought to discredit the competing gods of Roman and Hellenistic religions, often adopting the euhemerizing approach in regarding them not as divinities, but as people glorified through stories and cultic practices and thus not true deities worthy of worship. The infernal gods, however, retained their potency, becoming identified with the [[Devil]] and treated as [[demon]]ic forces by [[Christian apologetics|Christian apologists]].<ref>[[Friedrich Solmsen]], "The Powers of Darkness in [[Prudentius]]' ''Contra [[Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|Symmachum]]'': A Study of His Poetic Imagination," ''Vigiliae Christianae'' 19 (1965) 237–257; Margaret English Frazer, "Hades Stabbed by the Cross of Christ," ''Metropolitan Museum Journal'' 9 (1974) 153–161.</ref>

One source of Christian revulsion toward the chthonic gods was the arena. Attendants in divine costume, among them a "Pluto" who escorted corpses out, were part of the ceremonies of the [[gladiator]]ial games.<ref>K.M. Coleman, "Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments," ''Journal of Roman Studies'' 80 (1990), p. 67.</ref> [[Tertullian]] calls the mallet-wielding figure usually identified as the [[Etruscan religion|Etruscan]] [[Charun]] the "brother of Jove,"<ref>[[Tertullian]], ''Ad nationes'' 1.10. [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]] regularly calls the Roman ruler of the underworld ''Pluto'' in ''[[City of God (book)|De civitate Dei]]''; see 2.15, where Pluto and [[Neptune (mythology)|Neptune]] are described as the brothers of Jove; 4.10, in noting their three-way division of sovereignty over the earth and with Proserpina as Pluto's spouse ''(coniunx)''; 4.11, in deriding the allegorizing of divinity in physical cosmogony; and 6.7, in denouncing the mysteries ''([[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#sacra|sacra]])'' as obscene.</ref> that is, Hades/Pluto/Dis, an indication that the distinctions among these denizens of the underworld were becoming blurred in a Christian context.<ref>Daniel P. Harmon, "The Religious Significance of Games in the Roman Age," in ''The Archaeology of the Olympics: The Olympics and Other Festivals in Antiquity'' (University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), p. 242; Paul-Marie Duval, "Sucellus, the God with a Hammer," in ''American, African, and Old European Mythologies'' (University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 222.</ref> [[Prudentius]], in his poetic polemic against the religious traditionalist [[Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|Symmachus]], describes the arena as a place where savage vows were fulfilled on an altar to Pluto ''(solvit ad [[Glossary of ancient Roman religion#ara|aram]] / Plutonis fera [[votum|vota]])'', where fallen gladiators were [[human sacrifice]]s to Dis and [[Charon (mythology)|Charon]] received their souls as [[Charon's obol|his payment]], to the delight of the underworld Jove ''(Iovis infernalis)''.<ref>Prudentius, ''Contra Symmachum'' 1.379–398; Donald G. Kyle, ''Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome'' (Routledge, 1998, 2001), p. 59.</ref>