Hades Trivia
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59 free Hades trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Hades trivia covering the god, the place and the pop culture. The quiz starts with the Greek myth: the eldest son of Cronus swallowed and regurgitated, the helm of invisibility, the drawing of lots that gave him the underworld, the abduction of Persephone and the pomegranate seed, and the mortals who crossed him - Sisyphus, Pirithous, Orpheus and Heracles. Then it maps his realm: Charon and the obol, the five rivers, the Asphodel Meadows, Elysium and Tartarus, the three judges, and the three-headed dog at the gate. It also covers the names the Greeks used to avoid saying his (Plouton, 'the rich one', which became the Roman Pluto), his cult and his sacrifices. The last section is for gamers and film fans: Supergiant's roguelike Hades and its Hugo Award, Zagreus, and James Woods's fast-talking Hades in Disney's Hercules. Every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. If you want the whole pantheon, try our Greek Mythology, Poseidon and Athena quizzes too.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Greek mythology, Hades is the god of what?
The dead and the underworld
Hades is the god of the dead and the underworld; his name became so synonymous with his realm that the Greeks used 'Hades' for the place as well as the god.
Q 02Which two gods are Hades's brothers, with whom he divided the cosmos?
Zeus and Poseidon
Zeus and Poseidon are Hades's brothers, the three sons of Cronus; Zeus took the sky, Poseidon the sea and Hades the underworld, with the earth common to all.
Q 03Persephone was doing what when Hades carried her off to be his queen?
Picking flowers
Persephone was picking flowers in a meadow when Hades burst from the earth in his chariot and seized her, an abduction her father Zeus had sanctioned.
Q 04What is the name of the three-headed dog that guards the underworld?
Cerberus
Cerberus, the hound of Hades, guards the gates of the underworld so the dead cannot leave; Hesiod makes him the offspring of Typhon and Echidna.
Q 05Hades was the eldest son of which Titan couple?
Cronus and Rhea
Hades's parents were the Titans Cronus and Rhea; in Hesiod's Theogony Rhea bears Cronus six children, and Hades is the elder of her sons.
Q 06What did Hades's father do to him and his siblings at birth?
Swallowed them whole
Cronus swallowed them whole at birth, fearing a prophecy that a child would overthrow him; Rhea hid the infant Zeus and gave Cronus a swaddled stone instead.
Q 07Which magical item did the Cyclopes forge for Hades to use in the war against his father's generation?
A helm of invisibility
The Cyclopes forged Hades a helm of invisibility, the Cap of Hades; Athena wears it in the Iliad to hide from Ares, and Perseus borrows it against the Gorgons.
Q 08How did the three brothers decide who would rule sky, sea and underworld?
They drew lots
The story comes from a single famous passage in Book 15 of the Iliad.
Q 09What did Hades secretly give Persephone to eat, binding her to the underworld?
A pomegranate seed
Hades gave Persephone a pomegranate seed to eat; in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, tasting food in the underworld bound her to return there every year.
Q 10Per the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, what fraction of the year is Persephone in the underworld?
One third
One third: the Homeric Hymn to Demeter has Zeus rule that Persephone spend a third of each year below with Hades and two thirds with her mother.
Q 11Persephone's mother, who cursed the land with famine after the abduction, is which goddess?
Demeter
Demeter, goddess of grain, withheld the harvest and brought famine until Zeus arranged her daughter's return; she and Persephone were the central figures of Greece's most famous mystery cult.
Q 12Which god does Zeus send down to persuade Hades to release Persephone?
Hermes
Hermes, the messenger god, is sent by Zeus in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter; he finds Hades with Persephone beside him and drives her back up in the chariot.
Q 13Which musician charmed Hades into freeing Eurydice, on condition he did not look back?
Orpheus
Orpheus played his lyre so movingly that Hades and Persephone let Eurydice follow him out, on condition he not look back before reaching daylight; he looked, and lost her.
Q 21Who ferries the dead across the river into Hades's realm in exchange for a coin?
Charon
Charon, the ferryman, rows the buried dead across the river; an obol was placed in the corpse's mouth to pay his fare.
Q 22Which underworld river did even the gods swear their oaths upon?
Styx
Styx: in Hesiod's Theogony the gods swear their binding oaths by the water of Styx, and a god who breaks one lies breathless for a year. The name means 'hateful'.
Q 23Which underworld river's name means 'oblivion', its waters erasing memory?
Lethe
Lethe, whose name means forgetfulness, wiped away memory of earthly life; in Aeneid Book VI souls drink its water before being reborn, while Orphic initiates sought the pool of Mnemosyne instead.
Q 14Which mortal king was punished by rolling a boulder uphill forever after twice cheating death?
Sisyphus
Sisyphus, king of Corinth, chained Death so that nobody could die until Ares freed him, then tricked his way back to life; his boulder rolls down forever.
Q 15Which friend of Theseus went to the underworld to steal Persephone and was trapped there?
Pirithous
Pirithous, king of the Lapiths, dragged Theseus along to carry off Persephone; Hades seated them on chairs they could not rise from, and only Theseus was later freed by Heracles.
Q 16Who was the only living hero to wound Hades, shooting him with an arrow at Pylos?
Heracles
Heracles shot Hades with an arrow at Pylos, as Dione recalls in Iliad Book 5; the wounded god went up to Olympus to be healed by Paean, physician of the gods.
Q 17Before fetching the hound of Hades, Heracles was initiated into which town's mysteries?
Eleusis
Eleusis: Apollodorus says Heracles was purified for killing the centaurs and initiated into the mysteries at Eleusis before descending for the hound.
Q 18Which demigod physician was killed by Zeus, at Hades's urging, for raising the dead?
Asclepius
Asclepius, son of Apollo, raised the dead; Diodorus says Hades complained to Zeus that his subjects were dwindling, and Zeus killed the healer with a thunderbolt.
Q 19Hades's nymph lover, trampled by a jealous Persephone, became which plant?
Mint
Mint: the nymph Minthe became the mint plant; Ovid has Persephone transform her, while Oppian says Demeter trampled her for boasting she outshone Persephone.
Q 20Which nymph, a daughter of Oceanus loved by Hades, became the poplar of Elysium?
Leuce
Leuce: Servius says Hades carried off the Oceanid Leuce and, when she died, made the white poplar grow in Elysium in her memory; Heracles wore its leaves on returning from the underworld.
Q 24Which of the underworld's rivers is the river of fire?
Phlegethon
Phlegethon, 'the flaming one', is the river of fire; in Aeneid Book VI it encircles Tartarus with torrents of flame, and Homer calls it Pyriphlegethon.
Q 25How many rivers run through the realm of Hades?
5
Each carries a symbolic meaning: sorrow, lamentation, fire, oblivion and hate.
Q 26In which region of the underworld do the shades of ordinary heroes wander, twittering like bats?
The Fields of Asphodel
The Fields of Asphodel: in the Odyssey the shades of Achilles and of the slain suitors gather on the asphodel meadow, and only a libation of blood briefly restores their wits.
Q 27Which part of the underworld is reserved for the punishment of the impious and evil?
Tartarus
Tartarus is the pit where Zeus imprisoned the Titans and where sinners such as Tantalus suffer; Hesiod places it as far below the earth as heaven is above it.
Q 28Who are the three judges who sit in the forecourt of Hades's palace?
Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus
Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus: in Plato's Gorgias, Aeacus judges the dead from Europe and Rhadamanthus those from Asia, with Minos settling disputed cases, at a meadow where three roads meet.
Q 29What was Hades's name generally understood to mean since antiquity?
The unseen one
'The unseen one': the Greeks explained the name as a- (not) plus idein (to see), an etymology Plato already discusses in the Cratylus around 400 BC.
Q 30What does Plouton, the Greek euphemism used for Hades, mean?
The rich one
'The rich one': Plouton comes from ploutos, 'wealth', because crops and precious metals come from beneath the earth; the name avoided speaking the dreaded Hades aloud.