Asphodel Fields
The vast grey meadow in the underworld where the majority of ordinary souls wandered after death
The Story of Asphodel Fields
The Asphodel Fields were the default destination of the dead in Greek mythology — a vast, dim, featureless meadow where the shades of those who had been neither especially virtuous nor especially wicked drifted for eternity. Homer describes Odysseus encountering the dead in this region during his visit to the underworld in Book 11 of the Odyssey: the shades are insubstantial, unable to speak until they drink sacrificial blood, and they long pathetically for the world of the living. Achilles' shade famously tells Odysseus that he would rather be a living servant to a poor farmer than king of all the dead — a devastating verdict on the afterlife from the greatest of heroes. The asphodel plant itself is a grey-green perennial with pale flowers that grows abundantly in dry Mediterranean soils, particularly in rocky, inhospitable ground — its subdued appearance perfectly matched the colourless existence imagined for the dead. The Asphodel Fields represented the distinctly unromantic Greek view of death: for most people, the afterlife was not punishment or reward but simply a diminished, shadow-like continuation of existence.
Parents
None recorded
Symbols
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth. See our full guide to English words from Greek mythology.
Explore Further
Hades
🏛 placeUnderworld geography
The vast underground kingdom of the dead ruled by the god Hades and his queen Persephone
Underworld
🏛 placeRealm of the dead
The Underworld was the vast subterranean realm where all mortal souls went after death — a geography of rivers, fields, and judges more detailed than any other mythological afterlife.
Elysium
🏛 placeParadise for the blessed dead
The paradise at the edge of the world where heroes and the virtuous spent eternity in perfect happiness. Also called the Elysian Fields or the Isles of the Blessed.
Asphodel Meadows
💭 conceptUnderworld
The neutral afterlife realm in Greek mythology where ordinary souls wandered after death.
Acheron River
🏛 placeUnderworld geography
The river of woe in the Greek underworld across which the dead were ferried by Charon
Acheron
🏛 placeRiver of Woe in the underworld
The Acheron was the River of Woe in the underworld, which the dead had to cross — in some traditions it was Charon's river rather than the Styx.
Elysian Fields
🏛 placeafterlife
Paradise reserved for heroes and the virtuous dead, located at the western edge of the world or in the depths of the Underworld.
Lerna
🏛 placeSwamp of the Hydra
Lerna was a marshy region near Argos, famed as the lair of the Lernaean Hydra and believed to contain one of the entrances to the underworld.
Oracle of the Dead
🏛 placeunderworld, prophecy
The Oracle of the Dead at Ephyra in Epirus where the living consulted ghosts of the deceased through elaborate underground rituals.
Taenarum
🏛 placeSacred geography
A promontory at the southern tip of the Peloponnese believed to contain an entrance to the underworld
Stygian
💭 conceptLanguage and the underworld
An English adjective meaning extremely dark, gloomy, or hellish, derived from the River Styx, the boundary between the world of the living and the Greek underworld
Lilybaeum
🏛 placegeography
The westernmost promontory of Sicily, near where Odysseus encountered the land of the dead in some traditions.