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Aploutonion[pronunciation?] (Ancient Greek:Πλουτώνιον,lit. "Place of Plouton") is asanctuary specially dedicated to the ancientGreek godPlouton (i.e.,Hades). Only a few such shrines are known from classical sources, usually at locations that produce poisonous emissions and were considered to represent an entrance to theunderworld.[2]
AtEleusis, the ploutonion was near the north entrance to the sacred district (temenos). It was built byPeisistratos in the 6th century BC and rebuilt two centuries later, when theEleusinian Mysteries were at the height of their influence. The cave was the traditional site of the birth of theDivine ChildPloutos.[3]
The Greek geographerStrabo mentioned three sites as having a ploutonion. One was on a hill betweenTralleis andNysa. Its precinct encompassed asacred grove, a temple dedicated to Plouton andPersephone, and an adjoining cave called the Charonion, after theferryman of the dead. According to Strabo, it "possesses some singular physical properties" and served as a shrine for healing and a dream oracle (incubation).[4]
Pluto's Gate, the ploutonion atPhrygianHierapolis (modernPamukkale in Turkey), was connected to the local cult ofCybele. Inhaling its vapors was said to be lethal to all living things except theGalli, the goddess'seunuch priests.[5] During theRoman Imperial era, the cult ofApollo subsumed existing religious sites there, including the ploutonion. Archaeological excavations in the 1960s showed that the ploutonion had been located within the sacred precinct ofApollo: "it consisted of a natural opening along a wall oftravertine, leading to agrotto in which streams of hot water gushed forth to release a noxious exhalation". This site was also associated with a dream oracle; theNeoplatonistDamascius dreamed that he wasAttis in the company of theGreat Mother.[6]
Strabo further records that LakeAvernus in Italy had been taken as a ploutonion because the gases it produced were so noxious that they overwhelmed birds flying overhead. According to earlier sources, he says, this was theoracle of the dead (nekumanteion) sought byOdysseus in Book 11 of theOdyssey; Strabo, however, seems not to have himself regarded Avernus as a ploutonion.[7]
There was a Ploutonion atAcharaca.[citation needed]