Grecian Mythology, the lower world or kingdom of the dead. Etymologically, the word signifies the unseen or invisible world. The older Greek authors originally used the word to signify the king of this region, whom they afterwards called by the more euphemistic name of Pluto. This latter name was adopted by the Romans, and identified by them with Dis, Orcus, &c. Hades as Pluto was the son of Saturn, and the brother of Jupiter and Neptune. When the three brothers were parceling out the world into three kingdoms, that of the invisible world fell to the lot of Pluto, who is always described as the most terrible of the gods. He was as inexorable as the Fates, and as cruel; and no shade that entered his portals ever escaped from them. In accordance with these gloomy attributes, the victims offered in his honour were always black, and the worshippers in sacrificing them always turned away his head. There are few legends in the old mythology whose interest centres in this deity, if we except those of the rape of Proserpine, and the helmet which made the god invisible, and from which perhaps he got his name.

Hadhramaaut, a province of Arabia. See vol. iii., p. 356.