SPHIX, THE RIVER OF THE DEAD.  

1600 years before the Christian era, Greek civilization gave rise to great figures in history: from Alexander the Great to Pericles, passing through Aristotle; Archimedes; Homer; Socrates; Leonidas and Hippocrates.

At that time, the Greeks worshipped the phenomenon of “mythos” considering it to be part of the existing reality. This belief was composed of a series of legends that were accepted as part of human existence. The philosophical tradition of the Hellenic people used “mythos” to identify the Athenians.

One of these legends, perhaps the most unique, was that of Sphix, described as the river of the dead. Sphix had the power to take people to a second life. It should be noted that all religions, without exception, affirm that life does not end on earth, because a second existence awaits us, without this having anything to do with parallel worlds.

The Styx is one of the rivers of the Underworld that separated the terrestrial world from this one. The Styx, tributary of hatred, the Phlegethon, river of flames, the Acheron, river of sorrow, the Cocytus, torrent of lamentations, and the Lethe, stream of oblivion, converged in the center of the underworld towards a vast marsh

The death of a human being on earth is not absolute zero, but the end of a life that will continue in another universe. How and in what way are questions that can only be answered in the afterlife.

The Athenians, when life on earth was slipping away from them, would put a coin in their mouths to pay for passage from one bank to the other of the Sphix. Then, the dying person was taken to one of the banks where there was a large boat full of dead people. The newcomer was placed among them.

Charon (also known as Caronte) was the boatman in charge of transporting the dead from one bank to the other, where they would be reborn again. Charon was the son of two Gods: Nyx ​​(the night) and Erebus (the darkness). Zeus recognized him and took him in his youth to Mount Olympus.

Charon was the ferryman appointed to drive the boat across the Sfix. If the dead person did not carry a Persian coin, the obolus, in his mouth, he would not be allowed on the barge. Those who would cross to the other shore were taken to a “judge of the dead” who would allow them a second existence in eternity.

It is often said that Charon was the ferryman across the River Styx, although this was a later alteration of the Charon myth, for of course the Styx was the most famous of the rivers found in the Greek underworld.

Perhaps the most curious thing is that in modern times, people considered infidels and heretics to their original religions have repudiated them to recover the myth of Charon, which is reborn in their minds, convinced of the existence of Sfix (Acheron). The Romans took the legend as a reality. A myth that, ultimately, never disappeared.

(Picture: Charon and his boat)