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In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon ( ; ) is a psychopomp, the ferryman of the Greek underworld. He carries the souls of those who have been given funeral rites across the rivers Acheron and Styx, which separate the worlds of the living and the dead. Archaeology confirms that, in some burials, low-value coins known generically as Charon's obols were placed in, on, or near the mouth of the deceased, or next to the cremation urn containing the ashes. This has been taken to confirm that at least some aspects of Charon's mytheme are reflected in some Greek and Roman funeral practices, or else the coins function as a viaticum for the soul's journey.Coins were not placed on the eyes; all literary sources specify the mouth. Callimachus, Hecale fragment 278 in R. Pfeiffer's text Callimachus (Oxford UP, 1949), vol.2, p. 262; now ordered as fragment 99 by A.S.D. Hollis, in his edition, Callimachus: Hecale (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1990), pp. 284f., from the Suda, English translation online, specifying the mouth, also Etymologicum Graecum ("Danakes"). See also Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, entry on "Charon" online for placement in the mouth, though archaeology disproves Smith's statement that every corpse was given a coin; see article on Charon's obol. In Virgil's epic poem, Aeneid, the dead who could not pay the fee, and those who had received no funeral rites, had to wander the near shores of the Styx for one hundred years before they were allowed to cross the river.Virgil, Aeneid 6, 324–330. Charon also ferried the living mortals Heracles and Aeneas to the underworld and back again.
In Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, the Italian Renaissance writer Giovanni Boccaccio wrote that Charon, who he identified as the god of time, was a son of Erebus and Nyx. (2025). 9780674057104, Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674057104 The idea appears to have originated from the similarity between the names "Charon" and "Chronos" (a connection already made by earlier writers such as Fulgentius), the fact that both are said to be very old, and that the Geras is said to be the child of Erebus and Night according to Cicero's De natura deorum. (2025). 9780802099754, Univ. of Toronto Press. ISBN 9780802099754
In the 1st century BC, the Latin poetry Virgil describes Charon, manning his rust-colored skiff, in the course of Aeneas's descent to the underworld ( Aeneid, Book 6), after the Cumaean Sibyl has directed the hero to the golden bough that will allow him to return to the world of the living:
There Charon stands, who rules the dreary coast;
A sordid god: down from his hairy chin
A length of beard descends, uncombed, unclean;
His eyes, like hollow furnaces on fire;
A girdle, foul with grease, binds his obscene attire.Virgil, Aeneid 6.298–301, as translated by John Dryden.
Other Latin authors also describe Charon, among them Seneca in his tragedy Hercules Furens, where Charon is described in verses 762–777 as an old man clad in foul garb, with haggard cheeks and an unkempt beard, a fierce ferryman who guides his craft with a long pole. When the boatman tells Heracles to halt, the Greek hero uses his strength to gain passage, overpowering Charon with the boatman's own pole.See Ron Terpening, Charon and the Crossing: Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Transformations of a Myth (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1985 and London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1985), pp. 97–98.
In the second century, Lucian employed Charon as a figure in his Dialogues of the Dead, most notably in Parts 4 and 10 ("Hermes and Charon" and "Charon and Hermes").For an analysis of these dialogues, see Terpening, pp. 107–116.
In the 14th century, Dante Alighieri described Charon in his Divine Comedy, drawing from Virgil's depiction in Aeneid 6. Charon is the first named mythological character Dante meets in the underworld, in Canto III of the Divine Comedy. Dante depicts him as having eyes of fire. Elsewhere, Charon appears as a mean-spirited and gaunt old man or as a winged demon wielding a double hammer, although Michelangelo's interpretation, influenced by Dante's depiction in the Inferno, shows him with an oar over his shoulder, ready to beat those who delay ("batte col remo qualunque s'adagia", Inferno 3, verse 111).For an analysis of Dante's depiction of Charon and other appearances in literature from antiquity through the 17th century in Italy, see Ron Terpening, Charon and the Crossing. In modern times, he is commonly depicted as a living skeleton in a cowl, much like the Grim Reaper. The French artist Gustave Dore depicted Charon in two of his illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy. The Flemish painter Joachim Patinir depicted Charon in his Crossing the River Styx. And the Spanish painter Jose Benlliure y Gil portrayed Charon in his La Barca de Caronte.
Though named after Charon, the Etruscan death-demon Charun has a different origin and functions, being an assistant to Death as well as psychopomp and guardian, delivering the newly dead to the underworld by horseback or chariot. He is winged, with pointed ears and a hideous and threatening appearance, and has a vulture's beak. He is armed with a very large hammer, with which to "mercilessly pummel" the dead.DeGrummond, Nancy & Simon, Erika, The Religion of the Etruscans, University of Texas Press, 2006, p. 57.
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