Dis Pater was a Roman god of both the riches of the soil – both fertile soil and minerals – and a god of the underworld. His name specifically means “father of riches” and was often shortened to just Dis in inscription.
Greek Mythology
Dis Pater became equated with other gods of the underworld. He was linked with Hades, who became Pluto in the Roman world. Through this connection, he adopted some of the Olympian mythology. He was a son of Saturn (Cronus) and Ops (Rhea) and the brother of Jupiter (Zeus) and Neptune (Poseidon). While Jupiter was given overall power, and Poseidon took the sea, Dis Pater became the god of the underworld. He was also married to the fertility goddess Proserpina (Persephone) who was his queen.
Other Connections
He was also linked to Etruscan deities of the underworld, specifically Orcus, from the Geek Horkus, who was an Etruscan god of retribution against oath breakers and the underworld. He was also sometimes conflated with the Sabine god Soranus, and called by the name Rex Infernus, as king of the underworld.
Julius Caesar suggested that the people of Gaul claimed to be descended from Dis Pater, but he is using the Roman name for an unfamiliar Celtic god. This could be Cernunnos, who was also associated with wealth and death.
A scholium of the Pharsalia suggests that Dis Pater was the equivalent of Taranis, the Gallic god of thunder. This probably comes from an association with the proto-Indo-European god Dyeu Phter, which literally means “Sky Father.”
Roman Worship
Legend suggests that Dis Pater was discovered early in Roman history, during the days of the kings. Apparently, a marble altar of Dis Pater and Proserpina was miraculously discovered by the servants of a Sabine man called Valesius, who was an ancestor of the first consul. They began excavating after Valesius’ children had prophetic dreams. This led them to dig at the edge of the Campus Martius and uncovered the altar about six meters down. This gave rise to three days of games that were celebrated, and then the altar was reburied and dug up for subsequent games. The alter was rediscovered in 1886/7 beneath the Corso Vittorio Emanuele in Rome.
This is probably an alternative origin story for the games described as ordained sometime between 249 and 207 BCE by the Senate, under the leadership of Lucius Catellius, specifically to appease Dis Pater and Proserpina. These only seem to have been celebrated every hundred years. This suggests that while Dis Pater was extremely important, he was not an object of devotion. There are hardly any statues surviving of Dis Pater, and he is usually mentioned in literature as an allegory for death. Epigraphic dedications to the god in funerary contexts were more common.
There are records of sacrifices to Dis Pater during the Ludi Saeculares, Ludi Tarentini, and Ludi Tauri, though it is unclear which correspond with the above games. Records suggest that an altar was uncovered for the purpose, that black victims, sometimes sheep and sometimes bulls, were sacrificed, and that those involved in the ritual had to avert their eyes. These are all signs of chthonic worship.
Roman Mythology
A few peculiarities of Dis Pater seem to belong specifically to Roman tradition and not the Greek tradition. First, when Dis Pater was in the underworld, only oaths and curses could reach him and people invoked him by striking the earth with his hands. This linked him to the Etruscan god and suggests that he may have been summoned to witness particularly serious oaths.
He was the leader of a variety of underworld deities, including the Furies (underworld goddess of vengeance), Libitina (a Roman goddess of funerals and burials), and others.
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