Charon Charon In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon (; Greek Χάρων) is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on the mouth of a dead person. Some authors say that those who could not pay the fee, or those whose bodies were left unburied, had to wander the shores for one hundred years. In the catabasis mytheme, heroes – such as
Charon the Acheron. Roman poets, including Propertius, Ovid, and Statius, name the river as the Styx, perhaps following the geography of Virgil's underworld in the "Aeneid," where Charon is associated with both rivers. Charon, the largest moon of the dwarf planet Pluto, is named after him. The hadrosaurid "Charonosaurus" is named in Charon's honor because it was found along the banks of the Amur River in the Far East. "Haros" is the modern Greek equivalent of Charon, and usage includes the curse "you will be eaten (i.e., taken) by Haros", or "I was in the teeth of Haros" (i.e., "I was