Side by side, from the sources
Tartarus vs Hades
These two are set against one another in the texts, which is itself a claim worth attributing. Beneath and distinct: Hades holds the dead, Tartarus holds defeated powers. Hesiod keeps them separate and English translation does not.
Realm · Greek cosmology · c. 700 BCE
Tartarus
also called Tartaros, tartaroo
The Greek pit below Hades, built to hold defeated gods rather than dead people, and borrowed once by the New Testament to say where the sinning angels went.
- Alignment
- Disputed
- Rank
- The Deep Below the Dead
- First attested
- Theogony & Works and Days · c. 700 BCE
- Named there as
- Tartaros
- Texts naming it
- 2
- Powers attributed
- 0
Deity · Greek · c. 700 BCE
Hades
also called Aidoneus, Plouton, Pluton
Ruler of the dead by lot rather than by punishment — a god of the underworld who is not evil, a distinction Christian cosmology cannot express.
- Alignment
- Disputed
- Rank
- Lord of the Underworld
- First attested
- The Iliad · c. 750 BCE
- Named there as
- Aïdes
- Texts naming it
- 4
- Powers attributed
- 3
Where do they actually overlap?
Texts naming both
Powers credited to both
No shared office is recorded. Where two figures are said to be the same and share no job description at all, the identification is usually doing polemical work rather than descriptive work.