To Homer the underworld was a terrible place, grim and dark for the good and the wicked alike. Even the great hero, Achilles, said that he would rather be a slave in the land of the living than king of all the dead. Life and glory was all one had. The dead were nothing but faint shades.

It was only later that the myth changed and a garden of paradise for the spirits of the worthy to enjoy for eternity was included in the underworld.