+779+. As among other peoples, so among the Greeks the government of the Underworld was gradually organized, and a head thereof appointed.[1345] Already in the Iliad and in Hesiod[1346] the universe is divided into three parts under the rule of the Kronids Zeus, Poseidon, and Aïdes respectively; the earth, however, and Olympos, says Poseidon, are the common property of them all--there was no complete governmental separation between the Underworld and the Upperworld. The Greeks, with their joy in the present, gave comparatively little prominence to the future (being herein sharply contrasted with the Egyptians). +780+. The title generally given to the underground chief, Hades (apparently 'the invisible one'), indicates the vagueness that attached to this deity.[1347] In the Iliad he is a dark and dread divinity. The precise significance of his title Plouton[1348] is uncertain; but under this name he is connected in the myths with processes of vegetation--it is Plouton who carries off Persephone, leaving the world in the deadness of winter. The figure of the underground deity appears to have taken shape from the combination of two mythological conceptions--the underground fructifying forces of nature, and the assemblage of the dead in a nether world or kingdom.[1349] His only moral significance lay in his relation to oaths, wherein, perhaps, is an approach to the idea of a divine judge below the earth.[1350] +781+. The _female deities_ of the Greeks are no less elaborately worked out than the male gods, and, like these, are types of human character and representatives of human pursuits.[1351] +782+. The great goddess Hera is in Homer attached especially to Argos, Sparta, and Mycenæ, but at a very early time was Pan-Hellenic. The meaning of her name and her origin are uncertain. There is no good ground for regarding her as having been originally a moon-goddess (Selene was the real moon-goddess). What is certain is that she had a special relation to women and particularly to childbirth; but such a function is so generally attributed to some goddess that we can only suppose that she rose to eminence through local conditions unknown to us. The most interesting point about her is that she came to be the representative of the respectable Greek matron, jealous of her wifely rights, holding herself aloof from love affairs, a home person, entitled to respect for the decency of her life, but without great womanly charm.