18th-century painting showing Mercury (center), Flora (right), and Dis Pater (left), from Convito per le nozze di Amore e Psiche (The Wedding Feast of Cupid and Psyche), Galleria Nazionale di Palazzo Spinola, Genoa
Dis Pater's name was commonly shortened to Dis, and this name has since become an alternative name for the underworld or a part of the underworld, such as the City of DisofDante'sThe Divine Comedy, which comprises Lower Hell.
The name Dis is a contraction of the Latin adjective dives ('wealthy, rich'), probably derived from divus, dius ('godlike, divine') via the form *deiu-(o)t-or*deiu-(e)t- ('who is like the gods, protected by/from the gods').[1][2] The occurrence of the deity Dis together with Pater ('father') may be due to association with Di(e)spiter (Jupiter).[1]
Cicero gave a similar etymology in De Natura Deorum, suggesting the meaning 'father of riches', and comparing the deity to the Greek name Pluto (Plouton, Πλούτων), meaning "the rich one", a title bestowed upon the Greek god Hades.
Dis Pater eventually became associated with death and the underworld because mineral wealth such as gems and precious metals came from underground, wherein lies the realm of the dead, i.e. Hades' (Pluto's) domain.
In being conflated with Pluto, Dis Pater took on some of the latter's mythological attributes, being one of the three sons of Saturn (Greek Cronus) and Ops (Greek Rhea), along with Jupiter (Greek Zeus) and Neptune (Greek Poseidon). He ruled the underworld and the dead beside his wife, Proserpina (Greek Persephone).[3] In literature, Dis Pater's name was commonly used as a symbolic and poetic way of referring to death itself.
In 249 BC and 207 BC, the Roman Senate under senator Lucius Catellius ordained special festivals to appease Dis Pater and Proserpina. Every hundred years, a festival was celebrated in his name. According to legend, a round marble altar, Altar of Dis Pater and Proserpina (Latin: Ara Ditis Patris et Proserpinae), was miraculously discovered by the servants of a Sabine called Valesius, the ancestor of the first consul. The servants were digging in the Tarentum on the edge of the Campus Martius to lay foundations following instructions given to Valesius's children in dreams, when they found the altar 20 feet (6 m) underground. Valesius reburied the altar after three days of games. Sacrifices were offered to this altar during the Ludi SaecularesorLudi Tarentini. It may have been uncovered for each occasion of the games, to be reburied afterwards, a clearly chthonic tradition of worship. It was rediscovered in 1886–1887 beneath the Corso Vittorio Emanuele in Rome.[7][8]
^Servius' commentary to Aeneid, XI. 785 "Mount Soracte is located in the territory of the Hirpini next to Via Flaminia. It was on this mountain that a sacrifice to Dis Pater was once performed – because it is devoted to chthonic deities – as wolves suddenly appeared and plundered the entrails from the ire. The shepherds chased the wolves for a long time, until they arrived at a cave emanating pestilential gases that killed people standing nearby. The reason for the emergence of this plague was that they had chased the wolves. They received a message that they could calm it down by imitating wolves; that means, living by plundering. They did so, and since then these people have been called Hirpi Sorani."
^Green. Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend. London: Thames and Hudson. pp. 81–82. ISBN0-500-01516-3.
^Vendryes, Joseph (1958). Études celtiques (in French). Les Belles Lettres.
Media related to Dis Pater at Wikimedia Commons
