Orcus ( la, Orcus) was a god of the underworld, punisher of broken oaths in
Etruscan and
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. One of a wide variety of genres of Roman folklore, ''Roman mythology'' may also refer to the modern study of these representa ...
. As with
Hades, the name of the god was also used for the underworld itself. In the later tradition, he was conflated with
Dis Pater
Dis, DIS or variants may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* ''Dis'' (album), by Jan Garbarek, 1976
* ''Dís'', a soundtrack album by Jóhann Jóhannsson, 2004
* "Dis", a song by The Gazette from the 2003 album '' Hankou Seimeibun''
* "dis ...
.
A temple to Orcus may once have existed on the
Palatine Hill in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
. It is likely that he was transliterated from the Greek
daemon
Daimon or Daemon (Ancient Greek: , "god", "godlike", "power", "fate") originally referred to a lesser deity or guiding spirit such as the daimons of ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology and of later Hellenistic religion and Hell ...
Horkos
In Greek mythology, the figure of Horkos (; Ancient Greek: , ) personifies the curse that will be inflicted on any person who swears a false oath. He was the avenger of perjury and the punitive companion of the goddess Dike (Justice).
In A ...
, the personification of oaths and a son of
Eris.
Origins
The origins of Orcus may have lain in
Etruscan religion. The so-called “
Tomb of Orcus”, an
Etruscan site at
Tarquinia, is a misnomer, resulting from its first discoverers mistaking a hairy, bearded giant for Orcus; it actually depicts a
Cyclops.
The Romans sometimes conflated Orcus with other gods such as
Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest ...
,
Hades, and
Dis Pater
Dis, DIS or variants may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* ''Dis'' (album), by Jan Garbarek, 1976
* ''Dís'', a soundtrack album by Jóhann Jóhannsson, 2004
* "Dis", a song by The Gazette from the 2003 album '' Hankou Seimeibun''
* "dis ...
, all gods of the underworld. The name “Orcus” seems to have been given to the malicious and punishing side of the ruler of the
underworld
The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underwor ...
, as the god who tormented evildoers in their afterlife. Like the name Hades, “Orcus” could refer both to the underworld itself, as well as its ruling deity. In the charitable interpretation for such a place, it was believed to be an abode for purification of the souls of the deceased.
Orcus was chiefly worshipped in rural areas; he had no official cult in the cities.
This remoteness allowed for him to survive in the countryside long after the more prevalent gods had ceased to be worshipped. He survived as a folk figure into the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, and aspects of his worship were transmuted into the
wild man
The wild man, wild man of the woods, or woodwose/wodewose is a mythical figure that appears in the art and literature of medieval Europe, comparable to the satyr or faun type in classical mythology and to '' Silvanus'', the Roman god of the woodl ...
festivals held in rural parts of Europe through modern times.
[ Indeed, much of what is known about the celebrations associated with Orcus come from medieval sources.][
]
Persistence and later usage
From Orcus' association with death and the underworld, his name came to be used for demons and other underworld monsters, particularly in Italian where ''orco'' refers to a kind of monster found in fairy-tales that feeds on human flesh.
The French word ''ogre'' (appearing first in Charles Perrault's fairy-tales) may have come from variant forms of this word, ''orgo'' or ''ogro''; in any case, the French ''ogre
An ogre (feminine: ogress) is a legendary monster depicted as a large, hideous, man-like being that eats ordinary human beings, especially infants and children. Ogres frequently feature in mythology, folklore, and fiction throughout the world ...
'' and the Italian ''orco'' are exactly the same sort of creature.
Ariosto
An early example of an ''orco'' appears in Ludovico Ariosto's '' Orlando Furioso'' (1516), as a bestial, blind, tusk-faced monster inspired by the Cyclops of the ''Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Iliad'', th ...
''.
Tolkien
The ''orco'' from ''Orlando
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures re ...
'', along with the Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
word ''orc'' (in the sense of an ogre
An ogre (feminine: ogress) is a legendary monster depicted as a large, hideous, man-like being that eats ordinary human beings, especially infants and children. Ogres frequently feature in mythology, folklore, and fiction throughout the world ...
, like Grendel), was part of the inspiration for Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works '' The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawl ...
's ''orc
An Orc (or Ork) is a fictional humanoid monster like a goblin. Orcs were brought into modern usage by the fantasy writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially '' The Lord of the Rings''. In Tolkien's works, Orcs are a brutish, aggressive, ugl ...
s'' in his ''The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's b ...
'' In other manuscripts Tolkien wrote a side-note on the word:
:The word used in translation of Q ''urko'', S ''orch'', is orc. But that is because of the similarity of the ancient English word orc, 'evil spirit or bogey', to the Elvish words. There is possibly no connexion between them. The English word is now generally supposed to be derived from Latin Orcus.
Also, in an unpublished letter sent to Gene Wolfe
Gene Rodman Wolfe (May 7, 1931 – April 14, 2019) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith. He was a prolific short story writer and nove ...
, Tolkien also made this comment:
:Orc I derived from Anglo-Saxon, a word meaning demon, usually supposed to be derived from the Latin Orcus – Hell. But I doubt this, though the matter is too involved to set out here.
From this use, countless other fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...
games and works of fiction have borrowed the concept of the orc.
Other modern-era use
* The name "Orcus" appears in the ''Dungeons & Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TS ...
'' role-playing game as Orcus
Orcus ( la, Orcus) was a god of the underworld, punisher of broken oaths in Etruscan and Roman mythology. As with Hades, the name of the god was also used for the underworld itself. In the later tradition, he was conflated with Dis Pater.
A ...
, Prince of the Undead.
* Orcus appears as a character in Christopher Moore's novel ''A Dirty Job
''A Dirty Job'' is a novel by American writer Christopher Moore, published in 2006. While reflecting the author's absurdist tendencies, the content of the novel draws significantly from his own experiences in tending to the needs of close fami ...
'' (2006).
* The Kuiper belt object 90482 Orcus
Orcus (minor-planet designation 90482 Orcus, provisional designation ) is a trans-Neptunian object, trans-Neptunian dwarf planet with a large moon, Vanth (moon), Vanth. It has a diameter of . The surface of Orcus is relatively bright with albed ...
is named after Orcus. This was because Orcus was sometimes considered to be another name for Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest ...
, and also because Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest ...
and 90482 Orcus are both plutino
In astronomy, the plutinos are a dynamical group of trans-Neptunian objects that orbit in 2:3 mean-motion resonance with Neptune. This means that for every two orbits a plutino makes, Neptune orbits three times. The dwarf planet Pluto is the l ...
s.
* In the TV series '' Happy!'' (2017-2019), Orcus possesses members of the Scaramucci crime family.
See also
* Demogorgon
Notes
References
Other sources not cited
External links
"Tomb of the Orcus", Tarquinia
{{Roman religion
90482 Orcus
Roman gods
Roman underworld
Underworld gods
Hades