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Katabasis: descent to the underworld

A reference page linking a name, group, or concept to the materials that discuss it.

Comparative term for a journey to the realm of the dead; does not by itself establish that its traveler died and rose.

Attic red-figure vessel, 4th century BCE; depicts Heracles’s apotheosis, not Alcestis’s rescue. Metropolitan Museum, 52.11.18; public-domain photograph
Attic red-figure vessel, 4th century BCE; depicts Heracles’s apotheosis, not Alcestis’s rescue. Metropolitan Museum, 52.11.18; public-domain photographThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, 52.11.18; Public Domain · Public domainObject record

Text

Distinguish a living traveler’s journey from restoring a dead human. In Alcestis Heracles proposes visiting the underworld if Death is absent at the tomb; the closing dialogue instead reports combat beside the tomb. A plan is not a reported event. The cover depicts Heracles’s apotheosisApotheosis: acquiring divine statusTransformation granting divine status; differs from returning to an earlier human life or raising the dead for judgment.Glossary · Click to read the explanation, not this journey. [2][3][8]

References and notes

  1. Specified passages of Coleridge’s historical translation read, not the whole play. TEI: Perseus/Tufts, CC BY-SA4.0; underlying translation public domain. Alternative plan distinguished from reported action. Euripides, Alcestis; E. P. Coleridge, 1906 printing; lines 1–75, 244–392, 837–860, 962–1007, 1118–1163; Perseus TEI Return to the text ↑
  2. Full article and29notes read; CC BY4.0. Its cited works not thereby read; interpretation not generalized to every Greek belief. Michael Lloyd, Death, Resurrection, and Realism in Euripides’ Alcestis, Greece & Rome72(1),2025,109–125; DOI10.1017/S0017383524000214 Return to the text ↑
  3. Catalogue, API and rights checked; original viewed. Scene is Heracles’s apotheosis, not Alcestis’s rescue. Metropolitan Museum52.11.18; Attic red-figure calyx-krater,4thcenturyBCE; Herakles’s death/apotheosis Return to the text ↑

Research history

Substantive changes are retained here. Minor copy edits remain in the internal operational log.

  1. Edition 2 · 12 October 2026 · editor:aladmin

    Substantive record update

    Read this revision in its original language (Arabic)

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Cite this record

IL Archive, «Katabasis: descent to the underworld», Edition 2, https://ilarchive.com/en/entities/katabasis