Pluto presides over Elysium as part of his underworld domain, the blessed fields where the virtuous dead enjoy eternal spring beneath a private sun within the god's vast subterranean kingdom.
The Roman Underworld encompasses Avernus as its volcanic gateway near Cumae and Elysium as the sunlit fields where the blessed dead dwell in eternal spring.
Elysium in Greek tradition, where Menelaus was promised eternal rest, and Elysium in Roman tradition, where Anchises awaited Aeneas in Virgil's luminous meadow, are the same blessed afterlife transmitted directly from Greek eschatology into Roman religion.
Anchises dwells among the blessed in Elysium after his death, reviewing the parade of souls destined to be reborn as Rome's future heroes and revealing their fates to his son Aeneas.
The purified Manes who had completed their atonement ascended to Elysium's blessed fields, while those awaiting further purification endured cleansing by wind, water, and fire in other regions of the underworld.
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