Plutus (from the Greek Πλοῦτος, wealth) is the name of various figures in Greek mythology. He is the personification of wealth and later the god of riches coming from the earth, including grain reserves, earth resources, and germinating plants. Plutus is not to be confused with the god of the underworld, Pluton/Pluto (the Roman equivalent of Hades), although both may have the same origins. In later times, however, the two gods were sometimes equated.
Related Words
The name Plutus is linked to various English terms:
- Plutomania, an intense craving for wealth.
- Plutocracy, governance by the affluent, and plutocrat, an individual who governs due to their wealth.
- Plutolatry, the idolization or reverence of money.
- Plutonomics, the examination of wealth administration.
Plutus, personification of wealth
In Greek mythology, Plutus personifies wealth, and therefore he was also the god of agriculture, relating to abundant harvests as a source of income. However, this aspect of worship became increasingly generalized into an abstract personification of wealth, so Plutus became unrelated to Demeter and also became an underworld god, as a metaphor for the underground wealth of minerals and mines. Because of this association with Hades, that god received the nickname Plutus and the Romans called that god precisely Plutus. He was usually depicted as a youth or child carrying the horn of plenty, which Heracles gave to him during his visit to Hades.
He appears in Hesiod’s Theogony as the son of the Cretan goddess Demeter and the demigod Iasion, with whom he lay in a thrice-plowed field. Plutus played a major role in the Eleusinian Mysteries, a prominent cult dedicated to the agricultural goddess. However, metaphorically, Aesop asserts that his mother was Tyche, the goddess of fortune. According to Hyginus, he had a brother named Philomelus.
“Demeter, mother, supreme Goddess, with the hero Jason, in the fertile soil of Crete, in the furrow plowed three times, bore good Pluto, who above the Earth and the vast Ocean, goes everywhere; and whoever finds him, whoever can lay hands on him, immediately makes him rich and grants him fortune.”
(Hesiod, Theogony, 969-974)
The union of Demeter and Iasion is also described in the Odyssey.
According to Aristophanes, Zeus blinded him so that Plutus could distribute his gifts randomly and without prejudice as a good helper to Tyche (Fortune). He was also lame (because wealth takes time to arrive), but he has wings (because he can disappear quickly). This comedian jokes about what could happen if Plutus were given back his sight.
Plutus taught humanity the concept of possession, besides the diligence needed to manage possessions and the desire to acquire more than what is necessary. When someone succeeded in doing that, it was commonly said that they had Plutus. Although wealth was distributed only by fate, Plutus was considered a kind-hearted god who rewarded those who hosted him. He was usually accompanied by fame and power, so people asked Zeus for the opportunity to host Plutus.
Having valuable possessions was considered a consequence of virtue and the most desirable thing, along with health, beauty, and strength. No one got tired of it, and even the progress of humanity was attributed to Plutus, which is why to acquire it, people devised the most useful tools and professions. However, some writers warned about its negative side: greed leads to arrogance, wars, and crimes. According to them, unjust wealth does not favor the owner in any way, it does not improve the human essence, and it may even happen that the possession possesses the possessor.
Plutarch admitted that he would like to receive Plutus, but he explains that only if accompanied by Justice, a slower but more certain way to achieve a good life. Because Plutus had no connection to justice or friendship, He warns about this because he never helped his brother Philomelus, who suffered many hardships and only because he devised a plow to produce food did he manage to survive.
Plutus in the Arts
In the ceramics depicting Eleusinian worship, Plutus appears as a child or youth carrying the horn of plenty. Later, on allegorical low reliefs, he is presented as a child in the arms of Irene, symbolizing that peace brings wealth, or of Tyche, the fortune of cities. Pausanias describes statues of the god in the arms of Tyche in Thebes, of Irene in Athens, and of Ergane in Athens in Tegea, which appear as mothers of Plutus because they symbolize the sources of wealth: peace, fortune, and wisdom.
Dante describes him in the Divine Comedy as a wolf-shaped demon guarding the fourth circle of hell, reserved for the greedy. It is very likely that he confused the god of wealth with Plutus, the king of the underworld according to Roman mythology.
Aristophanes’ comedy, “Plutus,” was translated into Esperanto by Dr. Eugène Noël in 1906. A second edition of this translation was published by the Andalusian Esperanto Union in 1998.
Plays
In Aristophanes’ work of the same name, Plutus is an old man blinded by Zeus, which is why he could not distribute his gifts fairly.
Zeus blinded me, envious of all of you.
As a child, I once threatened him,
That to visit the state of only the righteous,
Clever, honest: he blinded me,
So that I could not distinguish between any of them.
He envies so honest people!
When sight returns to the god, it can determine who deserves wealth, creating chaos.
Chiron:
The master’s life turned out happily.
And Plutus is happier, more significant:
The blind man has received his sight, now his eyes shine,
By the grace of Asclepius the Healer.
Priest:
Ever since Plutus became sighted again,
I am dying of hunger, I have nothing to eat.
And this is for me – a priest of Zeus, I am a savior!
Ceramics
In ancient Greek pottery, whether he is depicted as a child or an Ephebos, Plutus is the one who carries the cornucopia.
Sculpture
In later allegorical bas-reliefs, Plutus is depicted as an infant in the arms of Eirene, as prosperity is a gift of “Peace”, or in the arms of Tyche, the Fortune of the City.
Poetry
He is mentioned in the poems of Timocreon of Rhodes:
You, blind Plutus, would rather not appear on land or sea,
but he would dwell in Tartarus and on the shores
Acheron, for all the troubles that men suffer are from you.
Plutus, Mother of Tantalus
Plutus (from the Greek Ρλουτω) was also one of the Oceanids, daughters of Oceanus and Tethys. With Zeus or with the king Tmolus of Lydia, she was the mother of Tantalus, one of the first kings of the world. In her childhood, Plutus accompanied the goddesses Persephone, Artemis, and Athena in their games.
However, Hyginus asserts that the mother of Tantalus was not an Oceanid, but a nymph from Mount Sipylus. She was the daughter of the Lydian Himas or Himantus, a Greek-adapted name of the traditionally first king of Lydia, Manes. Plutus’s connection to the Lydian royal family may have symbolized the proverbial wealth of that kingdom. Nonnus gave her the epithet “Berekynthia,” a customary invocation of the Phrygian goddess Cybele. Thus, it is very possible that Plutus was identified with that goddess, who actually received prominent worship in the region of Mount Sipylus. Ancient commentators also relate her to Demeter, the personification of agricultural prosperity, and therefore they mention that her father was the Titan Cronus.