The River Styx formed the boundary between Earth and the Underworld. The word 'stygian' came to refer to anything dark, dismal, and murky. Hades the Underworld consisted of different areas where the souls of dead mortals resided. The souls of mortals who had led good lives were sent to Elysium and the Elysian Fields(Paradise). The souls of mortals who had led both good and evil lives on earth were sent to endless toil in the Asphodel Meadows. Those evil mortals that had led sinful lives were confined in the dark depths of Tartarus, in the bowels of the earth where the souls of the wicked suffered endless
