Acheron

The Acheron is a river that stems in the Tomaros mountains in Epirus, north west Greece. Acheron translates as "river of woe" and is believed to be a branch of the underworld river Acheron over which in ancient Greek mythology Charon ferried the newly-dead souls across into Hades.

The lake called Acherousia and the river still called Acheron with the nearby ruins of the Necromanteion are found near Parga on the mainland opposite Corfu.

Another branch of Acheron was believed to surface at the Acherusian cape (now Eregli in Turkey) and was seen by the Argonauts according to Apollonius of Rhodes.

Greeks settled in Italy identified the Acherusian lake into which Acheron flowed with Lake Avernus.

Plato in his Phaedo identified Acheron as the second greatest river in the world, excelled only by Oceanus. He claimed that Acheron flowed in the opposite direction from Oceanus beneath the earth under desert places.

The word is also occasionally used as a synecdoche for Hades itself.

The god of the river fathered Ascalaphus with Orphne or Gorgyra.

Virgil mentions Acheron with the other infernal rivers in his description of the underworld in Book VI of the Aeneid.

In Dante's Inferno, the Acheron river forms the border of Hell, in the Ante-Inferno. Following Greek mythology, Charon ferries souls across this river to Hell.

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