Acheron - Wikipedia Acheron From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search "Acheron River" redirects here. For other uses, see Acheron (disambiguation). Acheron Acheron river near the village of Glyki Location Country Greece Physical characteristics Source    • location Ioannina regional unit, Epirus Mouth    • location Ionian Sea  • coordinates 39°14′10″N 20°28′34″E / 39.23611°N 20.47611°E / 39.23611; 20.47611Coordinates: 39°14′10″N 20°28′34″E / 39.23611°N 20.47611°E / 39.23611; 20.47611 Length 52 km (32 mi) Basin size 705 km2 (272 sq mi) The Acheron (/ˈækərən/; Ancient Greek: Ἀχέρων Acheron or Ἀχερούσιος Acherousios; Greek: Αχέροντας Acherontas) is a river located in the Epirus region of northwest Greece. It is 52 km (32 mi) long, and its drainage area is 705 km2 (272 sq mi).[1] Its source is near the village Zotiko, in the southwestern part of the Ioannina regional unit and it flows into the Ionian Sea in Ammoudia, near Parga. Contents 1 Mythology 2 Modern references in popular culture 3 Namesake 4 Gallery 5 References 6 External links Mythology[edit] In ancient Greek mythology, Acheron was known as the "river of woe", and was one of the five rivers of the Greek underworld. The word is of uncertain etymology.[2] In the Homeric poems, the Acheron was described as a river of Hades, into which Cocytus and Phlegethon both flowed.[3][4] The Roman poet Virgil called it the principal river of Tartarus, from which the Styx and Cocytus both sprang.[5] The newly dead would be ferried across the Acheron by Charon in order to enter the Underworld.[6] William Blake's depiction of "The Vestibule of Hell and the Souls Mustering to Cross the Acheron" in his Illustrations to Dante's "Divine Comedy" object 5 c. 1824–27. The original for the work is held by the National Gallery of Victoria.[7] The Suda describes the river as "a place of healing, not a place of punishment, cleansing and purging the sins of humans".[8] According to later traditions, Acheron had been a son of Helios and either Gaia or Demeter, who had been turned into the Underworld river bearing his name after he refreshed the Titans with drink during their contest with Zeus.[9] By this myth, Acheron is also the father of Ascalaphus by either Orphne[10] or Gorgyra.[11] The river called Acheron with the nearby ruins of the Necromanteion (oratory of the dead) is found near Parga on the mainland of Greece opposite Corfu. Another branch of Acheron was believed to surface at the Acherusian cape (now Karadeniz Ereğli 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. Following Greek mythology, Charon ferries souls across the Acheron to Hell. Those who were neutral in life sit on the banks 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 Book VII, line 312[12] he gives to Juno the famous saying, flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo: 'If I cannot bend the will of Heaven, I shall move Hell.' The same words were used by Sigmund Freud as the dedicatory motto for his seminal book The Interpretation of Dreams, figuring Acheron as psychological underworld beneath the conscious mind. 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. Those who were neutral in life sit on the banks. Modern references in popular culture[edit] The name Acheron was used as a reference within the Alien film series for the planet LV426 (where the crashed alien vessel containing the face-huggers was originally found). Known solely by its alphanumeric designation during the first film, the planet was named as Acheron during the sequel Aliens. Robert E. Howard used Acheron as the name of an ancient kingdom, ruled by evil sorcerers a few thousand years before The Hyborian Age. In The Hour of the Dragon, the only novel-length Conan the Barbarian story by Howard, the wizard Xaltotun, formerly of Acheron, is resurrected by necromancy and is Conan's main antagonist. Acheron was the French privateer ship that Captain Jack Aubrey pursued in the film of the book; Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003). The first movement of the first track on the album Warp Riders by The Sword is titled "Acheron". The name "Acheron" is also used for the Lawful (Neutral) Evil Outer Plane in Dungeons & Dragons, however it is described as consisting of a huge number of iron cubes of varying size, instead of a river. Acheron was referenced in Golden Sun: The Lost Age as a critical hit named 'Acheron's Grief' by one of Golden Sun's endgame weapons: 'Darksword'. In addition, the River Acheron makes multiple appearances in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. In the universe of The Mechanisms Album Ulysses Dies At Dawn The Acheron is a massive database of disembodied brains that run and process The City. "Acheron" is a track name off the debut album Pantheon of the Nightside Gods by the band Belzebubs. Acheron is the name of an alliance lord from the video game Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Namesake[edit] Acheron Lake in Antarctica is named after the mythical river. Gallery[edit] Acheron river Acheron river (another view) Truss bridge over the Acheron river Eurasian penduline tit nest above the river References[edit] ^ Preliminary Flood Risk Assessment Archived 2017-12-09 at the Wayback Machine, Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change, p. 54 ^ R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 182. ^ Homer, The Odyssey x. 513 ^ Pausanias, Description of Greece i. 17, § 5 ^ Virgil, Aeneid vi. 297 ^ Virgil, Aeneid 6. 323 ^ Morris Eaves; Robert N. Essick; Joseph Viscomi (eds.). "Illustrations to Dante's "Divine Comedy", object 5 (Butlin 812.5) "The Vestibule of Hell and the Souls Mustering to Cross the Acheron"". William Blake Archive. Retrieved January 25, 2015. ^ Suda On Line ^ Natalis Comes. Mythologiae, 3.1 ^ Ovid, Metamorphoses 5. 539 ^ Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 33 ^ Line 312 in the conventional lineation, see J.W. Mackail (Editor and Translator), The AEneid (Clarendon press, Oxford: 1930), p. 271. External links[edit] Wikimedia Commons has media related to Acheron. Look up Acheron in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. L'Achéron, Viol Consort v t e Dante's Divine Comedy Characters and locations Inferno Acheron Alichino Barbariccia Ciampolo Cocytus Dis Ugolino della Gherardesca Malacoda Paolo Malatesta Malebranche Malebolge Minos Odysseus Phlegethon Francesca da Rimini Satan Scarmiglione Styx Virgil Purgatorio Cato the Younger Forese Donati Eunoe Beatrice Portinari Statius Paradiso Adam Thomas Aquinas Bernard of Clairvaux Bonaventure Cacciaguida Charles Martel of Anjou David Empyrean Justinian I Peter Lombard Piccarda Verses "Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe" "Raphèl mai amècche zabì almi" Adaptations Classical music Après une Lecture de Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata (Liszt, 1849) Dante Symphony (Liszt, 1857) Francesca da Rimini (Tchaikovsky, 1876) Francesca da Rimini (Rachmaninoff, 1904) Francesca da Rimini (Zandonai, 1914) Gianni Schicchi (Puccini, 1918) The Divine Comedy (Smith, 1996) Paintings The Barque of Dante (Delacroix, 1822) The Wood of the Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the Suicides (Blake, 1827) Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta Appraised by Dante and Virgil (Scheffer, 1835) Dante in Hell (Flandrin, 1835) The Barque of Dante (1850s, Manet) Pia de' Tolomei (Rossetti, 1868) Paolo and Francesca da Rimini (Rossetti, 1885) La barca de Aqueronte (Hidalgo, 1887) La Laguna Estigia (Hidalgo, 1887) Sculptures The Kiss (Rodin, 1882) The Thinker (Rodin, 1904) The Gates of Hell (Rodin, 1917) Architecture Danteum (Terragni, 1938) Modern music Inferno (1973 album) "Dante's Inferno" (1995 song) Dante XXI (2006 album) A Place Where the Sun Is Silent (2011 album) Film L'Inferno (1911) Dante's Inferno (1924) Dante's Inferno (1935) The Dante Quartet (1987) A TV Dante (1989) Dante's Inferno (2007) Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010) Dante's Hell Animated (2013) Literature The Story of Rimini (1816) La Comédie humaine (1830–1850) Earth Inferno (1905) The Cantos (1917–1962) As I Was Going Down Sackville Street (1937) The System of Dante's Hell (1965) Demon Lord Dante (1971) Inferno (1976) The Dante Club (2003) Jimbo's Inferno (2006) Inferno (2013) Video games Devil May Cry series (2001) Bayonetta series (2009) Dante's Inferno (2010) The Lost (cancelled) Related Cultural references in the Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy in popular culture English translations Divine Comedy Illustrated by Botticelli Botticelli Inferno (2016 documentary) Hell in popular culture Category v t e Ancient Greek religion and mythology Classical religious forms Ancient Greek religion Gnosticism Paleo-Balkan mythology Proto-Indo-European religion Hellenistic religion Alchemy Orphism Pythagoreanism Mycenaean deities Mystery religions and sacred mysteries Delos Mysteries Dionysian Mysteries Eleusinian Mysteries Imbrian Mysteries Mithraism Samotracian Mysteries Main beliefs Ages of Man Apotheosis Euhemerism Eusebeia Greek Heroic Age Interpretatio graeca Monism Mythology Nympholepsy Paganism Paradoxography Polytheism Theism Texts/epic poems/odes Aretalogy Argonautica 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Hermaphroditus Himeros Hymen/Hymenaeus Pothos Aphrodite Aphroditus Philotes Peitho War deities Adrestia Alala Alke Amphillogiai Androktasiai Ares Athena Bia Deimos Enyalius Enyo Eris Gynaecothoenas Homados Hysminai Ioke Keres Kratos Kydoimos Ma Machai Nike Palioxis Pallas Perses Phobos Phonoi Polemos Proioxis Chthonic deities Psychopomps Hermanubis Hermes Thanatos Achlys Angelos Hades / Pluto Hecate Hypnos Keres Lampad Macaria Melinoë Persephone Health deities Aceso Aegle Artemis Apollo Asclepius Chiron Eileithyia Epione Hebe Hygieia Iaso Paean Panacea Telesphorus Sleep deities Empusa Epiales Hypnos Pasithea Oneiroi Messenger deities Angelia Arke Hermes Iris Trickster deities Apate Dolos Hermes Momus Magic deities Circe Hecate Hermes Trismegistus Other major deities Azone Eileithyia The Erinyes Harmonia The Muses Nemesis Pan Unknown God Zelus Heroes/heroines Abderus Achilles Actaeon Aeneas Argonauts Ajax the Great Ajax the Lesser Akademos Amphiaraus Amphitryon Antilochus Atalanta Autolycus Bellerophon Bouzyges Cadmus Chrysippus Cyamites Daedalus Diomedes Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux) Echetlus Eleusis Erechtheus Eunostus Ganymede Hector Heracles Icarus Iolaus Jason Meleager Odysseus Oedipus Orpheus Pandion Peleus Pelops Penthesilea Perseus Theseus Triptolemus Mythical tribes Amazons Anthropophage Atlantians Bebryces Curetes Dactyls Gargareans Halizones Korybantes Lapiths Lotus-eaters Myrmidons Pygmies Telchines Oracles/seers Aesacus Aleuas Amphiaraus Amphilochus Ampyx Anius Asbolus Bakis Branchus Calchas Carnus Carya Cassandra Delphic Sibyl Elatus Ennomus Epimenides Halitherses Helenus Iamus Idmon Manto Melampus Mopsus Munichus Phineus Polyeidos Polypheides Pythia Sibyl Telemus Theiodamas Theoclymenus Tiresias Magic Apotropaic magic Greek Magical Papyri Pella curse tablet Philia Mythical realms Aethiopia Atlantis Erytheia Hyperborea Libya Nysa Ogygia Panchaia Scheria Scythia Themiscyra Underworld Entrances to the underworld Rivers Acheron Cocytus Eridanos Lethe 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Games Nemean Games Isthmian Games Agon Panathenaic Games Rhieia Festivals/feasts Actia Adonia Agrionia Amphidromia Anthesteria Apellai Apaturia Aphrodisia Arrhephoria Ascolia Bendidia Boedromia Brauronia Buphonia Chalceia Diasia Delphinia Dionysia Ecdysia Elaphebolia Gamelia Haloa Heracleia Hermaea Hieromenia Iolaia Kronia Lenaia Lykaia Metageitnia Munichia Oschophoria Pamboeotia Pandia Plynteria Pyanopsia Skira Synoikia Soteria Tauropolia Thargelia Theseia Thesmophoria Vessels Argo Phaeacian ships Modern offshoot religions Discordianism Gaianism Feraferia Hellenism Modern popular culture Greek mythology in popular culture Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Acheron&oldid=1001984498" Categories: Potamoi Rivers of Greece Rivers of Hades Geography of ancient Epirus Epirotic mythology Landforms of Ioannina (regional unit) Rivers of Epirus (region) Landforms of Preveza (regional unit) Drainage basins of the Ionian Sea Hidden categories: Webarchive template wayback 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