Vimque deum infernam: Virgil's God of the underworld

The god Hades is referenced several times in the Virgilian corpus, in passages of high emotional import (the drama of Orpheus and Eurydice; the death of Dido; Aeneas' voyage to the underworld). Careful study of these allusions to the underworld lord reveal a Virgilian preoccupation with the problem of the stability of the Olympian order, and the looming question of the fate of the individual human soul after death. Hades and the infernal powers of his realm figure as key players in the ultimate resolution of the war in Latium, and the coming into being of the new order of Trojan rebirth.