ancient Greek religion Religious practices in ancient Greece encompassed a collection of beliefs, rituals, and mythology, in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. The application of the modern concept of "religion" to ancient cultures has bee ...

and

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narra ...

, Plutus (; grc-gre, Πλοῦτος, Ploûtos, wealth) is the god and the

personification Personification occurs when a thing or abstraction is represented as a person, in literature or art, as a type of anthropomorphic metaphor. The type of personification discussed here excludes passing literary effects such as "Shadows hold their ...

of wealth, and the son of the goddess of agriculture

Demeter In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Demeter (; Attic Greek, Attic: ''Dēmḗtēr'' ; Doric Greek, Doric: ''Dāmā́tēr'') is the Twelve Olympians, Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over crops, ...

and the mortal

Iasion In Greek mythology, Iasion ( grc, Ἰασίων, Iasíōn) or Iasus ( grc, Ἴασος, Íasos), also called Eetion ( grc, Ἠετίων, Ēetíōn), was the founder of the mystic rites on the island of Samothrace. Family According to the myt ...

Family

Plutus is most commonly the son of

and

, with whom she lay in a thrice-ploughed field. He is alternatively the son of the fortune goddess

Tyche Tyche (; Ancient Greek: Τύχη ''Túkhē'', 'Luck', , ; Roman equivalent: Fortuna) was the presiding tutelary deity who governed the fortune and prosperity of a city, its destiny. In Classical Greek mythology, she is the daughter of Aphrod ...

Aesop Aesop ( or ; , ; c. 620–564 BCE) was a Greek fabulist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as ''Aesop's Fables''. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales c ...

, '' Fables'
413
Phaedrus_4.12.html" ;"title="Phaedrus_(fabulist).html" ;"title="Phaedrus (fabulist)">Phaedrus 4.12">Phaedrus_(fabulist).html" ;"title="Phaedrus (fabulist)">Phaedrus 4.12 Two ancient depictions of Plutus, one of him as a little boy standing with a cornucopia before Demeter, and another inside the cornucopia being handed to Demeter by a goddess rising out of the earth, perhaps implying that he had been born in the Underworld, were interpreted by Karl Kerenyi to mean that Plutus was supposed to be the son of Hades and Persephone, the king and the queen of the Greek Underworld, Underworld, though no such version is attested in any primary source.

In the arts

In the philosophized mythology of the later Classical period, Plutus is envisaged by

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion ( la, Cydathenaeum), was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his ...

as blinded by

Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label= genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label= genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek relig ...

, so that he would be able to dispense his gifts without prejudice; he is also lame, as he takes his time arriving, and winged, so he leaves faster than he came.'' Plutus'' (''Wealth'', second version, 388 BC) When the god's sight is restored, in Aristophanes' comedy, he is then able to determine who is deserving of wealth, creating havoc. Phaedrus records a

fable Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular m ...

where, after

Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the ...

is received in Olympus, greets all the gods but refuses to greet Plutus. When the king of gods

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...

asks him why, he replies that he hates the god of riches due to him being favouring the wicked and the corrupt. Among the Eleusinian figures painted on

Greek ceramics Ancient Greek pottery, due to its relative durability, comprises a large part of the archaeological record of ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it (over 100,000 painted vases are recorded in the Corpus vasorum antiquorum), it has exe ...

, regardless of whether he is depicted as child or youthful ''

ephebe ''Ephebe'' (from the Greek ''ephebos'' ἔφηβος (plural: ''epheboi'' ἔφηβοι), anglicised as ephebe (plural: ephebes), or Latinate ''ephebus'' (plural: ''ephebi'') is the term for an adolescent male. In ancient Greek society and myth ...

'', Plutus can be identified as the one bearing the

cornucopia In classical antiquity, the cornucopia (), from Latin ''cornu'' (horn) and ''copia'' (abundance), also called the horn of plenty, was a symbol of abundance and nourishment, commonly a large horn-shaped container overflowing with produce, flowers ...

—horn of plenty. In later allegorical bas-reliefs, Plutus is depicted as a boy in the arms of Eirene, as Prosperity is the gift of "Peace", or in the arms of

, the Fortune of Cities. In

Lucian of Samosata Lucian of Samosata, '; la, Lucianus Samosatensis ( 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridiculed superstiti ...

's satirical dialogue ''Timon'', Ploutus, the very embodiment of worldly goods written up in a parchment will, says to Hermes: In Canto VII of Dante's '' Inferno'', Plutus is a demon of wealth who guards the fourth circle of Hell, "The Hoarders and the Wasters". Dante likely included Plutus to symbolize the evil of hoarding wealth. He is known for saying the famous phrase, " Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe."

Etymology

Like many other figures in Greek and Roman mythology, Plutus' name is related to several English words. These include: *

Plutocracy A plutocracy () or plutarchy is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income. The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631. Unlike most political systems, plutocracy is not rooted in any establishe ...

, rule by the wealthy, and plutocrat, one who rules by virtue of wealth * Plutonomics, the study of wealth management * Plutolatry, the "worship" of money * Plutomania, an excessive desire for wealth

Notes

References

, '' Plutus'' (''Wealth''), in ''Aristophanes, Frogs, Assemblywomen, Wealth,'' edited and translated by Jeffrey Henderson,

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a series of books originally published by Heinemann in London, but is currently published by Harvard University Press. The library contains important works of ancient Greek and ...

No. 180, Cambridge, Massachusetts,

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...

, 2002
Online version at Harvard University Press
. *

Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus, or Diodorus of Sicily ( grc-gre, Διόδωρος ; 1st century BC), was an ancient Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history '' Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which ...

, ''Library of History, Volume III: Books 4.59-8'', translated by C. H. Oldfather,

No. 340. Cambridge, Massachusetts,

, 1939.
Online version at Harvard University Press
* Grimal, Pierre, ''The Dictionary of Classical Mythology'', Wiley-Blackwell, 1996. . *

Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...

, ''

Theogony The ''Theogony'' (, , , i.e. "the genealogy or birth of the gods") is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods, composed . It is written in the Epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contain ...

'', in ''The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White'', Cambridge, Massachusetts,

; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Hyginus, Gaius Julius, '' De Astronomica'', in ''The Myths of Hyginus'', edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960
Online version at ToposText
* Kerényi, Karl (1967), ''Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter'',

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...

, 1991. . * Morford, Mark P. O., Robert J. Lenardon, ''Classical Mythology'', Eighth Edition, Oxford University Press, 2007. . * '' The Oxford Classical Dictionary'', second edition, Hammond, N.G.L. and Howard Hayes Scullard (editors),

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

, 1992. . {{Authority control Abundance gods Fortune gods Greek gods Children of Demeter Personifications in Greek mythology Characters in Greek mythology

Family

In the arts

Etymology

See also

Notes

References