In Roman mythology, Orcus was a god of the underworld, punisher of broken oaths, more equivalent to Pluto than to the Greek Hades, and later identified with Dis Pater. He was portrayed in paintings in Etruscan tombs as a hairy, bearded giant. A temple to Orcus may have existed on the Palatine Hill in Rome. Roman mythology, the mythological beliefs of the people of Ancient Rome, can be considered as having two parts. ... Pluto is an alternate name for the Greek god Hades, but was more often used in Roman mythology in their presentation of the god of the underworld. ... Hades [from Greek HadÄ“s (), originally HaidÄ“s () or AïdÄ“s (); of uncertain origin,[1] although it has been ascribed to Greek unseen[2]] refers to both the ancient Greek abode of the dead and the god of that underworld. ... For the French nuclear ballistic missile system, see Hades (missile). ... 17th century aviaries on the hill, built by Rainaldi for Odoardo Cardinal Farnese: once wirework cages surmounted them. ... City motto: Senatus Populusque Romanus – SPQR (The Senate and the People of Rome) Founded 21 April 753 BC (mythical), early 1st millennium BC (archaeological) Region Latium Area  - City Proper  1285 km² Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density (city proper) 2,553,873 almost 4,300,000 1. ...

The origins of Orcus may have lain in Etruscan religion. Orcus was a name used by Roman writers to identify a Gaulish god of the underworld. The so-called "Tomb of the 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 Etruscans were a race of unknown origin from North Italy who were eventually integrated into Rome. ... Map of Gaul circa 58 BC Gaul (Latin Gallia, Greek Galatia) was the region of Western Europe occupied by present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine river. ... Tarquinia, formerly Corneto and in Antiquity Tarquinii, is an ancient city in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, Italy. ... Polyphemus the Cyclops. ...

'Orcus', in Roman mythology, was an alternative name for Pluto, Hades, or Dis Pater, god of 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. Like the name Hades (or the Norse Hel, for that matter), "Orcus" could also mean the land of the dead.

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 and the Italian orco are exactly the same sort of creature. An early example of an orco appears in Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, as a bestial, blind, tusk-faced monster inspired by the Cyclops of the Odyssey; this orco should not be confused with the orca, a sea-monster also appearing in Ariosto. Charles Perrault, 1665 Charles Perrault (January 12, 1628 – May 16, 1703) was a French author who laid foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, and whose best known tales include Le Petit Chaperon rouge (Little Red Riding Hood), La Belle au bois dormant (Sleeping Beauty), Le Chat bott... The Ogre from Tom Thumb illustrated by Gustave Doré An ogre (feminine: ogress) is a large and hideous humanoid monster. ... Ludovico Ariosto (September 8, 1474 – July 6, 1533) was an Italian poet, author of the epic poem Orlando furioso (1516), Orlando Enraged. He was born at Reggio, in Emilia. ... Ruggiero Rescuing Angelica by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres Orlando Furioso is an epic poem written by Ludovico Ariosto in 1516. ... Polyphemus the Cyclops. ... Odysseus and Nausicaä - by Charles Gleyre For other uses, see Odyssey (disambiguation). ... Binomial name Orcinus orca Linnaeus, 1758 Orca range (in blue) The orca (Orcinus orca) is the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family Delphinidae. ...

This orco probably inspired, at least in part, J. R. R. Tolkien's orcs in his Lord of the Rings trilogy. From this use, countless other fantasy games and works of fiction have borrowed the concept of the orc. Additionally, Orcus appears as the Lord of Demons in Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East series, and in the Role-Playing Game Dungeons & Dragons, Orcus is a demon prince and lord of the undead, and through this use appears in the game the computer game NetHack. In Nethack, Orcus is a demon prince found in Gehennom, and holds a wand of death. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE (January 3, 1892 – September 2, 1973) is best known as the author of The Hobbit and its sequel The Lord of the Rings. ... A comic fantasy orc. ... Dust jacket of the 1968 UK edition The Lord of the Rings is an epic fantasy story by J. R. R. Tolkien, a sequel to his earlier work, The Hobbit. ... // For other meanings see Fantasy (disambiguation) Fantasy is a genre of art that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. ... Fred Thomas Saberhagen (born 1930) is an American science fiction and fantasy fiction author most famous for his Berserker series of science fiction stories. ... For other uses, see Dungeons & Dragons (disambiguation). ... In the role playing game Dungeons & Dragons, Orcus is a demon prince, and lord of the undead. ... In the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, demon lords (also known as Abyssal lords in 2E AD&D) are demons who have gained great power and established a position of preeminence among demonkind. ... In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, undead is a type of creature, or creature type. Undead creatures were most often once-living creatures, which have been animated by spiritual or supernatural forces. ... NetHack is a roguelike computer game originally released in 1987. ... Medieval illustration of the Mouth of Hell Hell is, according to many religious beliefs about the afterlife, a place of torment, of great weeping and gnashing of teeth. ...

There is also a trans-Neptunian object called 90482 Orcus after this deity. A trans-Neptunian object (TNO) is any object in the solar system that orbits the sun at a greater distance on average than Neptune. ... 90482 Orcus (originally known by the provisional designation 2004 DW) is a Kuiper Belt object (KBO) that was discovered by Michael Brown of Caltech, Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory, and David Rabinowitz of Yale University. ...

See

• Orc
• Demogorgon
• Ogre

A comic fantasy orc. ... Demogorgon, although often ascribed to Greek mythology, is actually an invention of Christian scholars, imagined as the name of a pagan god or demon, associated with the underworld and envisaged as a powerful primordial being, whose very name had been taboo. ... The Ogre from Tom Thumb illustrated by Gustave Doré An ogre (feminine: ogress) is a large and hideous humanoid monster. ...

References

• Grimal, P. (1986). The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. (p. 328)
• Richardson, L. (1992). A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press. (p. 278)

External link

• "Tomb of the Orcus," Tarquinia