Acheron
The Vestibule of Hell and the Souls Mustering to Cross the Acheron by William Blake (ca. 1824–1827)
The National Gallery of Victory, Melbourne, AustraliaPublic Domain
Overview
Acheron was one of the rivers of the Underworld, as well as the name of the river’s god. “Acheron” could also be used, by extension, as a name for the Underworld itself. The River Acheron, whose name comes from the Greek word for “pain” or “woe,” was usually identified with a river in Thesprotia in southern Epirus which flowed underground and was thought to run into the Underworld. Sometimes, the Acheron was imagined as the final boundary across which Charon ferried the souls of the dead.
As a god, Acheron was the husband of an Underworld nymph named Orphne or Gorgyra, with whom he fathered Ascalaphus. Some made him a lover of Nyx as well and by her the father of the Erinyes. Acheron himself was not generally worshiped in antiquity, but there was an oracle of the dead on the banks of the River Acheron in Thesprotia.[1]