Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tartarus

TARTARUS, in the Iliad (viii. 13 sq., 481), is a dark underground prison with iron gates, as far below Hades as earth is below heaven, whither Cronus and the Titans were thrust down by Zeus (vol. xxi. p. 321), and to which the sovereign of Olympus threatens to consign other gods who may disobey his behests. Later writers make Tartarus the place of punishment of the wicked after death: Æneas, in his visit to the abode of the shades, comes to a point where the road divides, the branch to the right leading to Elysium and that on the left to the prison-house of Tartarus, girt about by a triple wall, with the fiery Phlegethon as a moat, and guarded by the fury Tisiphone (Æn., vi. 540 sq.). Tartarus is personified as the son of Æther and Ge, and father of the giants Typhoeus and Echidna.