Pluto << PLOO toh >> , a god in Roman mythology, was a ruler of the underworld and the dead that dwelled there. The Romans sometimes called him Dis Pater or Orcus. Pluto was almost identical to Hades, the Greek god of the dead. The Romans borrowed and preserved without change almost all the myths about Hades and his underworld kingdom. Some scholars believe the Romans had no god of the dead before they came into contact with Greek culture in the 700’s B.C. The name Pluto comes from Pluton, an alternate Greek name for Hades.
