LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Hades: Death
built 641 days ago
Hades ruled the dead, assisted by others over whom he had complete authority. He strictly forbade his subjects to leave his domain and would become quite enraged when anyone tried to leave, or if someone tried to steal the souls from his realm. His wrath was equally terrible for anyone who tried to cheat death or otherwise crossed him, as Sisyphus and Pirithous found out to their sorrow.
Source:
Across the river, or as some say, guarding the gates of Hades, is Cerberus 1, the bronze-voiced hound, who eats raw flesh and has fifty heads. Others say that this hound has three heads of dogs, the tail of a dragon, and on his back the heads of all sorts of snakes. Cerberus 1 was once caught by Heracles 1 [see this one]. On another occasion, someone eluded his guarding instinct, throwing him a cake of honey and wheat infused with sedative drugs. Then several categories of souls appear in this neutral zone or Limbo, which could be the same as the Asphodel Fields. Children are by themselves, and so are those who have been condemned to death on a false charge, and those who killed themselves.
Source:
In the other passage, Mt 16:18, Jesus declares that the gates of Hades shall not katischuein the church He intends to build. The verb katischuein may be rendered, "to overpower" or "to surpass." If the former be adopted, the figure implied is that of Hades as a stronghold of the power of evil or death from which warriors stream forth to assail the church as the realm of life. On the other rendering there is no reference to any conflict between Hades and the church, the point of comparison being merely the strength of the church, the gates of Hades, i.e. the realm of death, serving in common parlance as a figure of the greatest conceivable strength, because they never allow to escape what has once entered through them.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Death