Charon's Ferryman

A single obol for the ferryman who rows souls across the river dividing the living from the dead.

Charon's obol is an allusive term for the coin placed in or on the mouth of a dead person before burial. Greek and Latin literary sources specify the coin as an obol, and explain it as a payment or bribe for Charon, the ferryman who conveyed souls across the river that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. Archaeological examples of these coins, of various denominations in practice, have been called "the most famous grave goods from antiquity." The custom is primarily associated with the ancient Greeks and Romans, though it is also found in the ancient Near East.

Quick Facts

Character: Charon

Lore & Background

Greek and Roman literary sources from the 5th century BC through the 2nd century AD are consistent in attributing four characteristics to Charon's obol: it is a single, low-denomination coin; it is placed in the mouth; the placement occurs at the time of death; it represents a boat fare. The coin for Charon is conventionally referred to in Greek literature as an obolós (ὀβολός), one of the basic denominations of ancient Greek coinage, worth one-sixth of a drachma.

Among the Greeks, coins in actual burials are sometimes also a danakē (δανάκη) or other relatively small-denomination gold, silver, bronze or copper coin in local use. In Roman literary sources the coin is usually bronze or copper. The payment is sometimes specified with a term for "boat fare" (in Greek naulon ναῦλον, Latin naulum); "fee for ferrying" (porthmeion πορθμήϊον or πορθμεῖον); or "waterway toll" (Latin portorium). The satirist Lucian has Charon himself, in a dialogue of the same name, declare that he collects "an obol from everyone who makes the downward journey."

Reader's Guide

Archaeology shows that the myth reflects an actual custom, but the placement of coins with the dead was neither pervasive nor confined to a single coin in the deceased's mouth. Among the ancient Greeks, only about 5 to 10 percent of known burials contain any coins at all; in some Roman cremation cemeteries, however, as many as half the graves yield coins. Many if not most of these occurrences conform to the myth of Charon's obol in neither the number of coins nor their positioning.

Variety of placement and number, including but not limited to a single coin in the mouth, is characteristic of all periods and places. Coins are found in Greek burials by the 5th century BC, as soon as Greece was monetized, and appear throughout the Roman Empire into the 5th century AD, with examples conforming to the Charon's obol type as far west as the Iberian Peninsula, north into Britain, and east to the Vistula river in Poland. The jawbones of skulls found in certain burials in Roman Britain are stained greenish from contact with a copper coin.

In many burials, inscribed metal-leaf tablets or exonumia take the place of the coin, or gold-foil crosses during the early Christian period. The presence of coins or a coin-hoard in Germanic ship-burials suggests an analogous concept. In Latin, Charon's obol sometimes is called a viaticum, or "sustenance for the journey"; the placement of the coin on the mouth has been explained also as a seal to protect the deceased's soul or to prevent it from returning.

What players say: Player verdict on Hades — Rotten Tweets