Prison of Tartarus
Please remember that these are just mythology!
In Greek mythology, Tartarus was the lowest point of the universe, even below the underworld but separate from it. Tartarus is known from Hesiod's TheogonÃa as the first being to appear in the universe, as well as the burial place for monsters, Titans and, in later legends, mortals who committed unpardonable sins. Penalties for each mortal were different and depended on the crime they committed. Despite being the father of Typhon as a god, Tartarus is not depicted as anything other than a dark abyss used as a prison, so there aren't many legends or stories of the primeval God.
At the beginning of the universe there was Chaos, which meant something like 'emptiness' and not turmoil or disorder as it does now. Chaos was personified as a primordial female deity and was closely followed by three other beings who emerged independently of Chaos: Gaia (Earth), Eros (Lust), and the misty gloom of Tartarus. As described by Hesiod (700 BC), "heaven's distance from being above earth was equivalent to the distance of 'Misty Tartarus' being below earth." (722-25). Hesiod describes Tartarus as a wide abyss, a gloomy, damp, and rotten place. It was the lowest region of the universe, a place lower than Hades. When Zeus and the Olympians deposed Kronos and the other Titans to rule the earth, these Titans were buried not only in Hades, the final resting place for mortal souls, but also in Tartarus, the lower realm of the universe. This area was used for exiled monsters and gods.
Tartarus and Gaia had a child named Typhon. Typhon was a giant monster with 100 snake heads and eyes full of fire. From each head came the distinct, indescribable voices of lions, herds of hounds, roaring bulls, and hissing snakes. Pots depicting Typhon show it winged and incredibly powerful. According to Apollodorus, Tartarus and Gaia were the parents of Ehidna, wife of Typhon, who was half woman, half serpent. These names were known as the father and mother of monsters.
According to Plato (428/7-348/7 BC), souls who were judged to be treacherous and unjust by the rulers of the dead (Rhadamanthys, Aiakos, and Minos) in his Gorgias were sent to Tartarus and cursed forever. Plato, in his Phaedo, says that all rivers pass through the abyss of Tartarus and then flow back from the earth.
Virgil (70-19 BC) changes the idea that, in his Aeneid epic, Hesiod considered the distances of Earth, Heaven, and Tartarus to be equal. Virgil states that "Tartarus himself descends through darkness twice as far as we look at Olympus in the heavens" (6.670-2). describes a large gate that prevented entry or escape from Tartarus, guarded by the 50-headed Hydra.
The inhabitants of Tartarus were sentenced to punishments for their crimes, except for the first prisoners of the abyss. The one-eyed Cyclopes and the 100-handed Hekatonkheir were the children of Gaia and Uranus, along with the other Titans. As soon as the monsters were born, Uranus hid them deep within Tartarus, making them the first captives of Tartarus. After Zeus and the Olympians defeated the Titans at Titanomahia (Battle of the Titans), most of them were imprisoned in Tartarus, along with their siblings, the Cyclopes and Hekatoncheirs.
There are three different versions of the evil that the Lydian King Tantalus did, which sent him to Tartarus, but the most well-known is the ugliest one. Tantalus wanted to see if the gods knew everything, and he cooked stew with his son Pelops to test whether the gods would notice. The gods immediately sensed that something was wrong, except for Demeter, who was still sad for her lost daughter Persephoni and ate some of the stew with Pelops' shoulder. Tantalus was doomed to perpetual hunger and thirst. Tantalus was kept in a pool of water, which he could never drink, and under a fruit tree, from which he could not gather a single piece of fruit.
Sisyphus was the first king and founder of Corinth, and his punishment in Tartarus remained final, although his mythology has many different variants and often conflicts between them. Sisyphus deceived death not once, but twice, with his evil cunning. By the third time he tried, Sisyphus was dead and had come to gloomy Tartarus. Zeus had intervened specifically to make sure that no other mortal would be inspired by Sisyphus and his tricks to deceive death. He was cursed to keep pushing a huge boulder up the hill. When he lifted the rock up, he rolled it down again.
Ixion had made the foolish mistake of trying to seduce Hera, the wife of Zeus, the King of the Gods. Although he was tricked into making love to a cloud instead of Hera (thereby creating the race of centaurs), he was cursed to be tied to a fiery wheel in Tartarus.
Giant Tityos is the son of Zeus and Elara. He died when Apollo shot him after he tried to rape Leto, the mother of Artemis and Apollo, at Hera's request. Two vultures ate the liver of the lying Tityos every day when he fell in Tartarus. His liver would grow back at night to be eaten and destroyed again the next day.
The Danaids are the 50 daughters of Danaos and they are married to the 50 sons of Danaos' twin brother and the legendary king of Egypt, Egyptos. Danaos ordered his daughters to kill their husbands in one fell swoop, which Hypermnestra was only able to attempt. Lynceus, the only surviving son, killed Danaos in revenge, and 49 Danaids were sentenced to the task of carrying water jugs to fill a bowl, but each of the jugs had holes. By the time they brought the water-filled jugs to each bowl, the jugs were already empty.
