Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Hades.
The gallery
The Rape of Proserpina
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1621–1622
A virtuoso Baroque marble group carved by the young Gian Lorenzo Bernini, showing Pluto — the Roman Hades — seizing Proserpina as she twists away from him. The god's fingers pressing into her marble flesh are celebrated as a technical marvel, and the three-headed Cerberus guards the base. The sculpture stands in the Galleria Borghese in Rome.
Hades Abducting Persephone (Vergina fresco)
Unknown Macedonian painter, c. 340 BC
A wall painting from the Tomb of Persephone at Vergina (Aigai) in Macedonia: Hades drives a four-horse chariot as he seizes Persephone, Demeter grieving in the background. One of the rare surviving monumental Greek depictions of the abduction, it places the underworld king at the centre of a royal Macedonian burial chamber.
Pinax with Persephone and Hades Enthroned
Unknown (Locri Epizephyrii), c. 500–450 BC
A terracotta pinax from the Mannella sanctuary of Persephone at Locri Epizephyrii, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Hades and Persephone sit enthroned as a married pair — not the snatch from the meadow but the cult image of underworld sovereignty, offered by Locrian worshippers who knew the king of the dead as a consort as much as a abductor.
The Rape of Proserpina
Hans von Aachen, c. 1587
An oil by the Prague court painter Hans von Aachen showing Pluto — Hades in Roman dress — carrying Proserpina skyward as attendants scatter below. The Mannerist swirl of limbs and drapery turns the underworld king's abduction into a compact allegory of irresistible force, long circulating among Imperial Habsburg collections.
Proserpina Sarcophagus
Unknown Roman sculptor, c. 250 AD
A Roman marble sarcophagus in the Aachen Cathedral Treasury whose front relief stages the Rape of Proserpina: Pluto seizes the goddess as her companions recoil. Reused for Carolingian and later burials, the chest carried Hades' myth into the heart of medieval imperial ceremony — antique underworld iconography recycled as Christian tomb.
On screen
Hercules
Ron Clements & John Musker
Disney's Hades — blue flame, fast talk, soul contracts — stole the film and became the modern face of the underworld king for a generation.
Clash of the Titans
Louis Leterrier
Ralph Fiennes' Hades is the film's true engine of dread — the underworld king as jealous brother, bargaining in souls while Zeus still plays the sky.
Wrath of the Titans
Jonathan Liebesman
Fiennes returns as Hades in the sequel's Titan war — the brother of Zeus still dealing in fear, even as Olympus itself begins to fall.
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Chris Columbus
Steve Coogan's Hades rules a Las Vegas underworld of trapped souls — the king of the dead as Hollywood's neon landlord of doom.
In music & on stage
Hadestown
Anaïs Mitchell
Mitchell's folk-jazz musical rebuilds the underworld as an industrial company town: Hades the boss, Persephone his seasonal wife, Orpheus the boy who walks in singing — and walks out alone.
L'Orfeo
Claudio Monteverdi
Monteverdi's founding opera sends Orpheus before Plutone — Hades as the underworld king who can be moved, briefly, by song.
Orfeo ed Euridice
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Gluck's reform opera keeps the underworld court as the trial Orpheus must pass — Hades' realm as the stage where love bargains with death.
Orphée aux enfers
Jacques Offenbach
Offenbach's opéra bouffe turns Hades' kingdom into a can-can underworld — Pluto as comic rival for Eurydice in the birth of the infernal gallop.
In play
Hades
Supergiant Games
Supergiant's breakout names the game after him and then makes him a father: stern, wounded, and the boss at the end of every escape Zagreus attempts.
Hades II
Supergiant Games
The sequel keeps the house of Hades at its centre — now through Melinoë, the daughter raised to wage war while her father is held by Chronos.
Kingdom Hearts
Square
Disney's Hades crosses into Square's crossover RPG as a recurring schemer in Olympus Coliseum — the same blue flame, now trading blows with Sora.
God of War III
Santa Monica Studio
Hades is a major boss in Kratos' war on Olympus — the underworld king as a towering adversary whose soul-fire arms the Spartan's climb.
Percy Jackson & the Olympians
Rick Riordan
Riordan's Hades is stern, wronged and unexpectedly nuanced — father of Nico and Bianca, lord of a underworld that is more bureaucracy than cartoon evil.