Message #190074

[Demiurge]

The "Helmet of Hades" is named by Homer (v. 845), which Pallas puts on in order to render herself invisible to Ares which helmet the scholiast explains by "cloud and invisibility"--whence it seems but natural to infer that, as this deity was rendered invisible by his very attribute, no attempt would be made to depict his personal appearance. A figure of a god in long flowing robes, and wielding a trident wanting one of its prongs, sometimes painted on the Nolan vases, has been taken for an Aïdoneus, but on no sufficient grounds, there being better reason to consider him a Poseidon in the archaic style. The epithet "Renowned for horses" is given to the same god elsewhere by Homer (v. 445), allusive doubtless to the swiftness of the Destroyer: and in the same title may, perchance, lie the motive which made the Greeks adopt the horse, as above noticed,

p. 187