Acheron


 * This article concerns the Greek river. For other uses, see Acheron (disambiguation).

The Acheron (Αχέρων or Αχέροντας) is a river located in the Epirus region of northwest Greece. It flows into the Ionian Sea in Ammoudia, near Parga.

In mythology
In ancient Greek mythology, Acheron was known as the river of pain, and was one of the five rivers of the Greek underworld. In the Homeric poems the Acheron was described as a river of Hades, into which Cocytus and Phlegethon both flowed.

The Roman poet Virgil called it the principal river of Tartarus, from which the Styx and Cocytus both sprang. The newly-dead would be ferried across the Acheron by Charon in order to enter the Underworld.

The Suda describes the river as "a place of healing, not a place of punishment, cleansing and purging the sins of humans."

According to later traditions, Acheron had been a son of Helios and Gaia, who had been turned into the Underworld river bearing his name after he refreshed the Titans with drink during the titanomatchy. By this myth, Acheron is also the father of Ascalaphus by either Orphne or Gorgyra.

The river called Acheron with the nearby ruins of the Necromanteion is found near Parga on the mainland opposite Corfu. Another branch of Acheron was believed to surface at the Acherusian cape (now Eregli in Turkey) and was seen by the Argonauts according to Apollonius of Rhodes. Greeks who settled in Italy identified the Acherusian lake into which Acheron flowed with Lake Avernus. Plato in his Phaedo identified Acheron as the second greatest river in the world, excelled only by Oceanus. He claimed that Acheron flowed in the opposite direction from Oceanus beneath the earth under desert places.

The word is also occasionally used as a synecdoche for Hades itself. Virgil mentions Acheron with the other infernal rivers in his description of the underworld in Book VI of the Aeneid. In VII, line 390 he gives to Juno the famous saying, flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo: 'If I cannot deflect the will of Heaven, I shall move Hell.'

The Acheron was sometimes referred to as a lake or swamp in Greek literature, as in Aristophanes' The Frogs and Euripides' Alcestis.

In Dante's Inferno, the Acheron river forms the border of Hell. Following Greek mythology, Charon ferries souls across this river to Hell.

Links

 * Theoi Project - Potamos Akheron

Aheront (rijeka) Ac'heron Ахерон Aqueront Acherón Afon Acheron Acheron Αχέρων Aqueronte Akeronte fa:آخرون Achéron Aheront (rijeka) Akheron Akkeron Acheronte Acheronas Akherón Acheron (mythologie) アケローン川 Acheron Aqueronte Acheron Ахерон Acherón (mytológia) Aheron Ахерон Aheront (mitologija) Akheron Acheron Acheron (mitoloji) Ахеронт 阿刻戎河