![]() ![]() This remoteness allowed for him to survive in the countryside long after the more prevalent gods had ceased to be worshipped. Orcus was chiefly worshipped in rural areas he had no official cult in the cities. As such a place, it was believed to be an abode for purification of the souls. Like the name Hades (or the Norse Hel, for that matter), “Orcus” could also mean the land of the dead. The name “Orcus” seems to have been given to his evil and punishing side, as the god who tormented evildoers in the afterlife. ![]() ![]() The Romans sometimes conflated Orcus with other gods such as Pluto, Hades, and Dis Pater, god of the land of the dead. The so-called Tomb of Orcus, an Etruscan site at Tarquinia, is a misnomer, resulting from its first discoverers mistaking as Orcus a hairy, bearded giant that was actually a figure of a Cyclops. The origins of Orcus may have lain in Etruscan religion. It is likely that he was transliterated from the Greek daemon Horkos, the personification of Oaths and a son of Eris. A temple to Orcus may have existed on the Palatine Hill in Rome. Orcus was portrayed in paintings in Etruscan tombs as a hairy, bearded giant. In the later tradition, he was conflated with Dis Pater. As with Hades, the name of the god was also used for the underworld itself. Orcus (Latin: Orcus) was a god of the underworld, punisher of broken oaths in Italic and Roman mythology. ![]()
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