Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks

by Erwin Rohde

NOTES TO CHAPTER XII

[1] The learned and more particularly the philosophers of later ages paid special attention to utterances of the older poetry that gave expression to belief of a spiritualist tendency. Just as they selected and preserved passages from Pindar (and from Melanippides in the case soon to be [mentioned]), which bore witness to an advanced view of the soul, so they must also have given us similar passages from other melic or from iambic and elegiac poets—if such passages had existed. They must, for example, have been absent from the θρῆνοι of Simonides which were famous as the models of this kind of poetry. And so with all the rest.

[2] Hades puts an end to all pleasure for every man; hence the warning that man should enjoy his youth upon earth: Thgn. 973 ff.; cf. 877 f., 1191 ff., 1009 f.; Sol. 24; Thgn. 719 ff.

[3] θανάτῳ πάντες ὀφειλόμεθα—an ancient saying often repeated; cf. Bergk on Simon. 122, 2; Nauck on Soph., El. 1173 [Blaydes ad loc.].

[4] Hades himself plays the part of Thanatos and carries off the souls to the lower world. Thus as early as Semon. i, 13 f., τοὺς δ’ Ἄρει δεδημένους πέμπει μελαίνης Ἀΐδης ὑπὸ χθονός. In metaphorical language Ἅιδης for θάνατος is quite regular from the time of Pindar onwards. This, in turn, lent support to the use of the name of Ἅιδης instead of the personified Θάνατος. So esp. in Pi., O. ix, 33–5; cf. besides, Epigr. Gr. 89, 3–4. τόνδε . . . μάρψας Ἅιδης οἱ σκοτίας ἀμφέβαλεν πτέρυγας; cf. 201, 2; 252, 1–2. (And therefore in Eur., Alc. 261, we should not alter the πτερωτὸς Ἅιδας who is named instead of Thanatos—not even in favour of the otherwise ingenious βλέπων . . . ᾅδαν.)

[5] δηρὸν ἔνερθεν γῆς ὀλέσας ψυχὴν κείσομαι ὥστε λίθος ἄφθογγος Thgn. 567 f.—the condition of things in Hades is regarded exactly as in the Homeric pictures: Thgn. 704–10.

[6] See esp. Sol. 13, 29 ff.: Thgn. 731–42; 205 ff.

[7] Mimn. ii, 13: ἄλλος δ’ αὗ παίδων ἐπιδεύεται, ὧντε μάλιστα ἱμείρων κατὰ γῆς ἔρχεται εἰς Ἀΐδην. Without children there can be no assurance that the cult of the soul will be carried on. But we may well believe that the attaching of so much importance to offspring was assisted by the natural human belief that the man who left children behind him on earth did not completely perish in death (hence ἀειγενές ἐστι καὶ ἀθάνατον ὡς θνητῷ ἡ γέννησις as in Plato, Smp. 206 E). This alone gives a meaning and a reason for the widespread belief among the Greeks that the wicked man who is punished after his death in his children and children’s children himself feels that punishment.

[8] Semon. 1; 3. Mimn. 2. Sol. 13, 63 ff.; 14. Thgn. 167 f.; 425 ff. We may also add here the expressions of resignation, Hdt. vii, 46; i, 31.

[9] Νυκτὸς θάλαμος [Ion] fr. 8, 2.

[10] On the story of Midas and Silenos see Griech. Roman, p. 204 f. As to the ancient and often repeated maxim ἀρχὴν (or πάντων) μὲν μὴ φῦναι ἐπιχθονίοισιν ἄριστον κτλ., see Bgk., Opusc. ii, 214; PLG⁴. ii, p. 155 f. Nietzsche, Rh. Mus. xxviii, 212 ff. (whose view that the [440] beginning ἀρχὴν . . . is old and original—but not his involved explanation of this—has been fully confirmed by the finding of the primitive form of the ἀγών: Mahaffy, On the Flinders Petrie Papyri, i, p. 70).

[11] Simon, fr. 39; 38.

[12] fr. 137.—Usener, Götternamen, 229, 13, says of Sappho that “she was possessed by the belief that as a poetess she would live again after her death among the gods, and would therefore become a heroine; see frr. 68 and 136”. But from these fragments of Sappho no such belief can be extracted without first reading into them a good deal that they do not say.

[13] Of the man who has fallen in glory on the battlefield Tyrtaios says, 12, 31 f.: οὐδέ ποτε κλέος ἐσθλὸν ἀπόλλυται οὐδ’ ὄνομ’ αὔτοῦ, ἀλλ’ ὑπὸ γῆς περ ἐὼν γίγνεται ἀθάνατος (i.e. in renown upon earth). Thgn. says to his Kyrnos, 243 ff., in your lifetime my songs will make you famous καὶ ὅταν δνοφερῆς ὑπὸ κεύθεσι γαίης βῇς πολυκωκύτους εἰς Ἀίδαο δόμους, οὐδέποτ’ οὐδὲ θανὼν ἀπολεῖς κλέος ἀλλὰ μελήσεις ἄφθιτον ἀνθρώποις αἰὲν ἔχων ὄνομα . . . cf. Aesch., Epigr. iii, 3 (241 Bgk. = 449 Di.), ζωὸν δὲ φθιμένων πέλεται κλέος.

[14] Even in Hades the dead perceive χθονίᾳ φρενί if they themselves or the ἀρεταί of their descendants upon earth are praised: Pi., P. v, 98: cf. O. viii, 81 ff.; xiv, 20 ff.; [Ion] Anth. Pal. vii, 43, 3 (to Eurip.), ἴσθι δ’ ὑπὸ χθονὸς ὤν, ὅτι σοι κλέος ἄφθιτον ἔσται κτλ.—In the expressions collected by Meuss, Jahrb. f. Philol. 1889, p. 812 f., from the fourth century orators there only remains a very faint recollection of such a belief.

[15] Semon. 2, τοῦ μὲν θανόντος οὐκ ἂν ἐνθυμοίμεθα, εἴ τι φρονοῖμεν, πλεῖον ἡμέρης μιῆς.—Stes. 51, ἀτελέστατα γὰρ καὶ ἀμάχανα τοὺς θανόντας κλαίειν. 52, θανόντος ἀνδρὸς πᾶσ’ ἀπόλλυται ποτ’ ἀνθρώπων χάρις.

[16] This emerges at once if we review the material collected by H. Meuss upon “the conceptions appearing in the Attic orators of existence after death”: Jahrb. f. Philol. 1889, pp. 801–15. For the cult of the soul and all that attaches to it the orators are our most authoritative witnesses and as such are frequently examined in the sections of this book that deal with the subject.

[17] εἴ τινες τῶν τετελευτηκότων λάβοιεν τρόπῳ τινὶ τοῦ νῦν γιγνομένου πράγματος αἴσθησιν and frequently in this style: cf. the passages quoted by Westermann on D., Lept. (20), 87; cf. also Lehrs, Pop. Aufs. 329 ff. The question is always whether the dead are capable in any way of apprehending what goes on in this world. The continued life of the dead is never doubtful but rather implied throughout, for without such implication no possibility whatever would be left for that εἰ—.

[18] See Nägelsbach, Nachhom. Theol. 420. Meuss, p. 812.

[19] This is well brought out by Lehrs, Pop. Aufs. 331. But the statement holds good in an even more precise and exclusive sense than he there gives it. The words of Hyper., Epit. xiii, § 39, deal simply with the existence in Hades of those who have died for their country (with some traditional embellishments; see above, chap. vii, [n. 5])—this much can hardly ever have been expressly doubted or denied by any orator. But it is wrong to say (as Lehrs does: p. 331) that Hyp. expresses, though in other words, what was afterwards laid down by [D.H.] Rhet. vi, 5, as proper “for such funeral speeches” (no, only for private funerals—which is quite another matter). It is true that the advice there given is to say that the soul is ἀθάνατος and now dwells [441] “with the gods”. But it never enters into the head of Hyp. to say any such thing (nor in the frag. of the speech preserved by Stob., Fl. 124, 36). In fact, the precept of this sophistic writer (still more the advice given by Men. Rhet., de Encom. 414, 16 ff.; 421, 16 ff. Sp.) rather reveals the enormous contrast between the style of the sophistic funeral oratory of a later period and the real characteristics of the old Attic funeral orations: a difference founded upon the difference of sentiment manifested by the public that listened to such speeches in two different ages. Even the statements of [Dem.] Epit. (60) 34 (πάρεδροι τοῖς κάτω θεοῖς together with the ἀγαθοὶ ἄνδρες of earlier times ἐν μακάρων νήσοις) betray sophistic colouring though falling far short of the excesses of Ps.-D.H. and Men. Rhet.

[20] The only thing ἀγήραντος about those who have fallen in the wars of freedom is their εὐλογίη Simon. 100, 4; cf. 106, 4 (with Bgk.’s note). 99, 3–4 οὐδὲ τεθνᾶσι θανόντες ἐπεί σφ’ ἀρετὴ καθύπερθεν κυδαίνουσ’ ἀνάγει δώματος ἐξ Ἀΐδεω (which is imitated in the epitaph of Thrasymachos the Kretan οὐδὲ θανὼν ἀρετᾶς ὄνυμ’ ὠλέσας, ἀλλὰ σε Φάμα κυδαίνουσ’ ἀνάγει δώματος ἐξ Ἀΐδα, BCH. 1889, p. 60).

[21] κλῦθί μοι ὦ πάτερ, θαῦμα βροτῶν, τᾶς ἀειζώου μεδέων ψυχᾶς, Melanipp. 6. The words θαῦμα βροτῶν (modelled on the θαῦμα βροτοῖσι of Homer) can refer only to Dionysos (of the gods who enter into the question here): Διώνυσος, χάρμα βροτοῖσιν, Ξ 325. Further, it is natural to think of Dionysos in the work of a dithyrambic poet.

[22] The dead man ἀμφ’ Ἀχέροντι ναιετάων, Pi., N. iv, 85. This is the general assumption: e.g. P. xi, 19–22; O. ix, 33–5; I. viii, 59 f.; fr. 207 Bgk.

[23] ἔστι δὲ καί τι θανόντεσσιν μέρος κὰν νόμον ἐρδόμενον· κατακρύπτει δ’ οὐ κόνις συγγόνων κεδνὰν χάριν, O. viii, 77 ff.

[24] Something of the kind is adopted for the moment, e.g. in O. xiv, 20 ff.; viii, 81 ff. A real belief in such a possibility appears perhaps most clearly in P. v, 98 ff.

[25] For him who dies fighting for his country there is in store—not blessedness but only Fame, I. vii, 26 ff. He who comes καλὰ ἔρξαις ἀοιδᾶς ἄτερ εἰς Ἀΐδα σταθμόν has little reward for his pains (his reward would, in fact, have been just the praise given in the ἀοιδά), O. x, 91 ff., cf. N. vii, 30–2.

[26] A strange expression is the δαίμων γενέθλιος of O. xiii, 105 (in the same poem we also have Ξενοφῶντος δαίμων 28, which in this case at least is something more than “destiny”, otherwise the normal meaning of δαίμων in Pindar, cf. P. v, 123, I. vii, 43). It almost seems as if it were intended to describe the ancestor spirit that brings good luck to the house like the genius generis or ἥρως συγγενείας (see above, chap. v, [n. 132]).

[27] Amphiaraos, O. vi, 14; N. ix, 24 ff.; x, 8 f. (Amph. from his underground cavern sees the fighting in the war of the Epigonoi, P. viii, 39–56. There is no suggestion that the Ἐπίγονοι inquire at his oracle—as Dissen supposes; with this the ὧδ’ εἰπε μαρναμένων 43 is inconsistent.)—Ganymedes translated to eternal life, O. i, 44; x, 104 f. Apart from this there are temporary translations to the gods or from one place on earth to another, O. i, 36 ff.; ix, 59; P. ix, 5ff.; I. viii, 20 f.

[28] O. ii, 27 ff.

[29] ἀλλά τι προσφέρομεν ἔμπαν ἢ μέγαν νόον ἤτοι φύσιν ἀθανάτοις, N. vi, 4 f.

[30] σκιᾶς ὄναρ ἄνθρωπος, P. viii, 95. ἓν ἀνδρῶν ἓν θεῶν γένος, ἐκ μιᾶς δὲ πνέομεν ματρὸς ἀμφότεροι· διείργει δὲ πᾶσα κεκριμένα δύναμις, [442] ὡς τὸ μὲν οὐδέν, ὁ δὲ χαλκεος ἀσφαλὲς αἰὲν ἕδος μένει οὐρανός, N. vi, 1 ff.

[31] fr. 131 Bgk.

[32] Pindar in these lines speaks only of the αἰῶνος εἴδωλον; but that by this he means the ψυχή is obvious in itself and is stated by Plutarch, who preserves the lines, Cons. ad Apoll. 35, p. 120 D (περὶ ψυχῆς λέγων; cf. Rom. 28).—ψυχή in Pindar sometimes stands for what is otherwise called καρδία or φρήν, “heart” or “disposition” e.g. P. i, 48; iv, 122; N. ix, 39; I. iv, 53b, and O. ii, 77, and prob. also P. iii, 41; “disposition,” N. ix, 32. The word is sometimes (as in Homer) equivalent to ζωή, P. iii, 101, ψυχὰν λιπών. It simultaneously = “life” and the alter ego dwelling within the living man, O. viii, ψυχὰς βάλον; cf. N. i, 47. But the poet knows also the full meaning of ψυχά in the older idiom and belief. Entirely in the manner of Homeric usage ψυχά denotes the spiritual double of mankind, which survives the man himself, in those instances where the ψυχή of the dead is said to be still in existence: ψυχὰν κομίξαι, P. iv, 159; N. viii, 44 f.; σὺν Ἀγαμεμνονίᾳ ψυχᾷ (is Kassandra sent into Hades), P. xi, 20 f. Persephone ἀναδιδοῖ ψυχὰς πάλιν (out of Hades), fr. 133, 3 (Bgk.); I. i, 68, ψυχὰν Ἀΐδᾳ τελέων (in death).—ψυχαί is also used in the old idiomatic sense in fr. 132, 1: which is, however, spurious.—ψυχά in Pindar never denotes the psychical powers of the living man inclusive of the intellect, much less the intellect, νοῦς, alone.

[33] καὶ σῶμα μὲν πάντων ἕπεται θανάτῳ περισθενεῖ, ζῶον δ’ ἔτι λείπεται αἰῶνος εἴδωλον· τὸ γὰρ ἐστι μόνον ἐκ θεῶν, fr. 131 (96 Boeckh).

[34] οἶσι δὲ Φερσεφόνα ποινὰν παλαιοῦ πένθεος δέξεται—fr. 133. What is meant is undoubtedly the ancient “guilt” of the soul for which Perseph. receives satisfaction. This guilt can only be called a πένθος if she who accepts the satisfaction is regarded as herself grief-stricken by the guilty dead; if, in fact, the deed has been the occasion of mourning for Persephone. That this can apply to the goddess of the underworld is startling, but it cannot be got rid of by artificial interpretation (as Dissen would like to get rid of it). Pindar follows throughout the analogy of the ancient procedure of expiation in the case of blood-guiltiness. But this procedure seems to be familiar with the idea that, apart from the ἀγχιστεία of the murdered man, the underworld gods themselves (as guardians of the Souls) are immediately injured by the deed and stricken by grief and must receive satisfaction on their own account. Hence in certain legends (typificatory of ritual) the murderer not only has to fly from the land but to undergo servitude to the χθόνιοι: Apollo, especially after the slaying of Python, has to serve Ἄδμητος, i.e. Hades for an ennaëteris (more on this subject below, [n. 40]). Thus, the guilty soul banished from its proper home serves a “great year” under Persephone, and this is the ποινά that it pays.

[35] O. ii, 63–5. Everything here refers to judgment and compensation in Hades. In the words θανόντων μὲν ἐνθάδ’ αὐτίκ’ ἀπάλαμνοι φρένες ποινὰς ἔτισαν the ἐνθάδε cannot possibly belong to the ποινὰς ἔτισαν, as Aristarchos supposed, so that the words should refer to the punishment in the course of a new birth upon earth of crimes committed in Hades (in itself a remarkable conception). θανόντες alone would not be put for θανόντες καὶ ἀναβεβιωκότες, and we can only understand by the word those who after a life-time upon earth have died and are now spending their time below in the underworld. Moreover, it is hardly likely (as Ty. Mommsen reminds us adnot. crit. ad Olymp. 24) that the exposition of the “knowledge of the future” (62) on the part of [443] a man still living upon earth would begin with what may happen to man, not after his death, but in a second appearance upon earth that is to fall to his lot later on. We must first of all be told what happens after the conclusion of the present condition of life, viz. that upon earth. Finally, the use of αὐτίκα is quite satisfactory if it refers to the judgment in Hades that follows immediately after death; while it is meaningless in Aristarchos’ interpretation (hence Rauchenstein writes αὖτις—a mere conjecture and a superfluous one). The view that the μὲν—δέ of 63–4 necessitates Aristarchos’ explanation is not convincing (as Lübbert thinks, Ind. Schol. Bonn. hib. 1887, p. xviii—incidentally he quite unjustifiably introduces specifically Platonic fancies into Pindar, p. xix). The θανόντων μέν of 63 is not answered till ὅσοι δ’ ἐτόλμασαν . . . 75, just as the αὐτίκα of 63 does not receive its contrast till we come to what happens much later—after the life on earth has been thrice repeated—described in 75 ff. The δέ of 64 and 67 are subordinate (not adversative) to what is introduced by the μέν of 63 and they continue the thought. The ἐνθάδε of 63 might indeed, in accordance with an otherwise correct usage, be connected with ἀπάλαμνοι φρένες, as it is by one of the Scholiasts: “the φρένες which have committed crimes here upon earth.” But ἀπάλαμνος does not mean sceleratus, impius (nor does it in the passages adduced for this meaning by Zacher, Diss. Halens. iii, 237: Thgn. 281; Sim. v, 3). The ἀπάλαμνοι φρένες are simply equivalent to the ἀμενηνὰ κάρηνα of Homer, and are a very suitable expression for the ψυχαί of the dead (though not indeed for the ψυχαί of the reborn as Aristarchos would have it). No alternative remains save to connect θανόντων and ἐνθάδε: simulac mortui sunt hic, s. decedunt hinc (Dissen). The sentence τὰ δ’ ἐν τᾷδε . . . must then either be a more exact description of what has been stated generally just before in ποινὰς ἔτισαν (and this is Mommsen’s view supported by one Schol.), or else be subordinated—together with its contrasted ἴσαις δὲ . . . 67 ff.—to ποινὰς ἔτισαν. ποινά in Pindar means regularly compensation, whether expiation for evil deeds or reward for good (cf. P. i, 59; N. i, 70b). If we might suppose that by a brachylogy not beyond possibility in Pindar ποινὰς ἔτισαν is put for ποινὰς ἔτισαν καὶ ἐδέξαντο, then the sense might be: after death the souls receive at once recompense for their actions—and then follows the division of the bad 64 ff., and the good 67 ff. But we may perhaps rest content with Mommsen’s explanation.

[36] O. ii, 74.

[37] Plu., de Lat. Viv. 7, p. 1130 C after citing the lines of Pindar fr. 130 (95) adds: (the rivers of Erebos) δεχόμενοι καὶ ἀποκρύπτοντες ἀγνοίᾳ καὶ λήθῃ τοὺς κοαζομένους. This might possibly be an addition made by Plu. on his own account—he had frequently spoken of εἰς ἄγνοιαν αὐτὸν ἐμβαλεῖν, etc., in his war against the Epicurean λάθε βιώσας and here the same thing appears again from Erebos. But the words are more probably a paraphrase from Pindar. At any rate, what is said in Plu. about the μνῆμαι καὶ λόγοι of the εὐσεβεῖς in clear contrast with the λήθη of the ἀσεβεῖς, comes from Pindar: this is shown by the allusions of Aristid. i, p. 146, 1 Dind. From this parallel it is also clearly proved that the λήθη does not refer (as Lehrs, Pop. Aufs. 313 thinks) to the forgetfulness of the κολαζόμενοι in the minds of the living, but forgetfulness of their previous life by the κολαζόμενοι themselves. Accordingly we are to suppose that Pindar assigns retention of memory and complete consciousness only to the good in Hades, as their special privilege (cf. the position of Teiresias in κ 494), while the punishment [444] of the wicked is enhanced by λήθη (cf. above, chap. vii, [n. 21]). Not to have fallen a victim to λήθη in Hades—not to have drunk the waters of Lethe—is occasionally alluded to in poetico-religious utterances of later times as a special privilege of the good, e.g. Epigr. Gr. 204, 11 (first century B.C.); 414, 10. Λήθης and Μνημοσύνης πήγη in Hades (as in the sanctuary of Trophonios at Lebadea, Paus. 9, 39, 8); Epigr. 1037 (cf. above, chap. vii, [n. 21]; chap. xi, [n. 96]; and see also [below]).

[38] τοῖσι λάμπει μέν μένος ἀελίου τὰν ἐνθάδε νύκτα κάτω fr. 129. In this naive conception, what Helios only threatens to do in Homer, δύσομαι εἰς Ἀΐδαο καὶ ἐν νεκύεσσι φαείνω, he does in reality and regularly during the earthly night. The same idea must be referred to in O. ii, 61 ff., ἴσον δὲ νύκτεσσιν αἰεὶ ἴσον ἐν ἁμέραις ἅλιον ἔχοντες (so Boeckh)—the ἐσθλοί live in the χῶρος εὐσεβῶν in Hades: they have by night and day the same sun (as we: the ἀπονέστερον of 62 also implies this), that is to say, just as much of the sun as we have on earth only in reverse order of time. The sun only shines upon the εὐσεβεῖς below; μόνοις γὰρ ἡμῖν ἥλιος καὶ φέγγος ἱλαρόν ἐστι sing the initiated in Hades in Ar., Ran. 454 f. (but it is the same sun which shines upon them as shines on us, φῶς κάλλιστον ὥσπερ ἐνθάδε 155. solemque suum sua sidera norunt is a subtlety of later excogitation). Helios shining by night in Hades occurs again in the late Greek Hymn εἰς Ἥλιον (Orph., p. 291 Ab.), v, 11, ἢν γαίης κευθμῶνα μόλῃς νεκύων τ’ ἐπὶ χῶρον. Epigr. Gr. 228b, 7–8, Λητογενές, σὺ δὲ παῖδας ἐν ἡρώεσσι φυλάσσοις, εὐσεβέων ἀεὶ χῶρον ἐπερχόμενος.

[39] O. ii, 75 ff.

[40] fr. 133 ἐνάτῳ ἔτεϊ. What is meant is beyond all question “after the expiration of an ennaëteris” (period of 99 months, i.e. 8 years and 3 intercalary months), a period which besides being familiar as a cycle of religious festivals (Apolline specially but not exclusively) also occurs in the ancient procedure of atonement for murder as the period of self-banishment and servitude in a foreign land undergone by the murderer. Apollo after slaying Python serves μέγαν εἰς ἐνιαυτόν (i.e. an ennaëteris) in the house of Admetos (i.e. the god of the lower world) and then returns purified (Müller, Dorians, i, 338); in the same way Herakles serves Eurystheus (at least a trace of this is found in [Apollod.] 2, 5, 11, 1; see Müller, Dorians, i, 445).—After the murder of Iphitos Herakles has to serve as bondsman to Omphale (peculiar in this case is the combination of this species of atonement for murder with the buying-off of the relatives of the murdered man [Apollod.] 2, 6, 2, 5; D.S. 4, 31, 5). At the end of this period of service he is once more “pure” (ἁγνὸς ἦν S., Trach. 258).—Kadmos after slaying the dragon and the Σπαρτοί serves Ares (the chthonic?) for an ἐνιαυτός of eight years [Apollod.] 3, 4, 2, 1; Müller, Orchomen. 213.—Hippotes after the murder of Mantis has to fly the country δέκα ἔτη [Apollod.] 2, 8, 3, 3.—On the analogy of this custom the gods, too, who have broken an oath sworn by the Styx are banished nine years from the rest of the Olympians (and confined to Hades, since menial service of the χθόνιοι is the essential idea of all such ἀπενιαυτισμός), Hes., Th. 793 ff.: Orph. fr. 157. With a reminiscence of this expiatory banishment Pindar makes the souls at the conclusion of their earthly pilgrimage (which is itself a banishment) undergo a final period of penance in Hades for an ennaëteris, at the end of which the ποινή for the ancient crime is regarded as completely paid off.—The life on earth and the period in Hades which follows is regarded as an exile of the souls (on account of serious crime).—Such an idea was most natural if the real home of the soul was thought of as being [445] a divine (not earthly) country; the idea occurs quite clearly in Empedokles (certainly uninfluenced by the brief allusions of Pindar); see above, chap. xi, [n. 75.]

[41] fr. 133. The similarity to the promises made by Emped. fr. 146 (457 f.) is immediately apparent, but is not to be explained by imitation of Pindar by Emped., but simply by the similarity of imaginative outlook which led to similar results in the two cases.—Elevation to the rank of Hero is the reward which next awaits the man who is born a king, according to this view. Very remarkable is the manner in which Pindar, O. ii, 58–62, effects the transition to his eschatological statement: the man who possesses πλοῦτος ἀρεταῖς δεδαιδαλμένος knows the future, viz, what we are then told about the fate of the soul hereafter. This assertion, which seems to attribute to the virtuous Great Man at once a higher and a profounder knowledge, is perhaps best explained by the allusions of fr. 133. He who has reached this highest stage of earthly happiness must deduce from that very circumstance that for him now it is fated after another death to become a Hero. He therefore knows that everything, indeed, happens that is related in ll. 63–74, but that before him in particular lies that which follows in ll. 75 ff.; and this is to be regarded as the real import of what the man in question “knows”, 62, while the rest, 63–74, is only added for the sake of completeness. Theron, therefore—for it is he who is alluded to throughout—may be assured beforehand that after death he will be gathered to the Heroes. This is what Pindar means to say here, or at least to give the συνετοί to understand 91 ff. As a matter of historical fact Theron was worshipped with ἡρωϊκαὶ τιμαί after his death, D.S. xi, 53, 2.

[42] fr. 133. There is according to Dissen a contradiction between fr. 133 and O. ii, 75 ff.: in the latter three periods of life on earth are necessary before the final departure, in fr. 133 only two. This variation would be got rid of if we could adopt the interpretation given by Ty. Mommsen, adnot. crit. Olymp. 30, and assert that in O. ii also Pindar only speaks of two earthly lives with a single residence in Hades intervening. But the words ἐς τρὶς ἑκατέρωθι μείναντες, 75–6, can hardly bear any other interpretation than “three times on each of the two sides” (not: “on both sides—once on that side, twice on this side: total three times”). At the same time there is nothing in fr. 133 to prevent us taking the same number of lives (three as a minimum) to be implied there too. We are not there told that the birth as kings, etc., must always be the one to follow the first birth: in this case also two earlier lives may have gone before.

[43] See above, chap. iv, [§ 8].

[44] ἔτειλαν Διὸς ὁδὸν παρὰ Κρόνου τύρσιν, O. ii, 77. What exactly is to be understood by the “way of Zeus” was presumably clearer to the συνετοί versed in the mythology of mysticism for whom Pindar is here writing, than it is to us. It must mean (as Boeckh supposes) the way which Zeus treads in order to reach that Island, far to the West in Okeanos, inaccessible as the Land of the Hyperboreans to ship or traveller on foot; it is a special ἀθανάτων ὁδός like that which leads to Homer’s grotto of the Nymphs, ν 112. Acc. to Bergk, Opusc. ii, 708, it is “certain” that Pindar means the Milky Way. Along this the gods travel to the house of Zeus, Ovid, M. i, 168; and Orpheus in the same way fr. 123, 17 Ab., speaks of the θεῶν ὁδοὶ οὐρανιώνων in the heavens. But the souls could only be made to travel along the Milky Way if their habitation was placed in the sky as it often was later. So, as Bergk points out, following Lob., Agl. 935, [446] the Empedotimos of Herakld. Pont. calls the Milky Way ὁδὸς ψυχῶν τῶν ᾇδην τὸν ἐν οὐράνῳ διαπορευομένων ap. Philop. in Arist., Mete., p. 117, 10 Hayd.; see above, chap. ix, [n. 111]. But Pindar situates his μακάρων νῆσος in the Ocean (78): it is difficult to see how the souls could arrive there on the Milky Way from the place where they find themselves after death. (We may surely acquit Pindar of the later fancies about an Okeanos in the heavens.) Q.S. iii, 761 ff. (cited by Tafel) knows of a special way belonging to the gods which leads from heaven down to the Ἠλύσιον πεδίον. But the way by which the souls reach the μακάρων νῆσος does not, like that way, begin in heaven. We should rather think of some way only passable for gods and spirits leading from the inhabited world over the pathless Ocean to the latter’s “sources” far in the West.

[45] In O. ii, 84–5, it is certainly Kronos who is meant (as Didymos took it, though he gave an absurd interpretation of the passage) and not Zeus as Aristarchos imagined. The exceedingly corrupt and (owing to the intrusion of glosses) unmetrical lines are beyond certain restoration: the emendations of the Byzantine scholars give the required sense.—What happened to the incorrigibly wicked? In accordance with the theory of the soul’s Transmigration two alternative views as to their fate were possible: they might be regarded as passing from body to body unceasingly (Empedokl.) or as doing penance by suffering eternal punishment in Hell (as with Plato and others). The circumstances in which he alludes to these matters do not give Pindar any special occasion to declare himself for either view. He has only to speak of the final condition of the just; the fate of the ἀσεβεῖς is left in semi-obscurity. Something about the matter is, however, said in fr. 132; ψυχαὶ ἀσεβέων hover under the vault of heaven that covers the earth (γαίᾳ either corrupt or grammatically bad Greek), while the pious above the vault of heaven (ἐπουράνιοι) sing to the “Great Blessed One”. Everything in this is un-Pindaric, the inadequacy and even incorrectness of the language (μολπαῖς ἐν ὕμνοις), the unconcealed monotheism of the phrase μάκαρα μέγαν, the conception of the souls as having nothing else to do than sing to the One God, the whole idea that these blessed ones dwell “in heaven”. This last is an idea familiar to Greeks of a later period, nor is the division of souls into ὑπουράνιοι and ἐπουράνιοι unknown to them; cf. Epigr. Gr. 650, 9 ff. But Pindar cannot have written anything of the kind. It is even doubtful whether Clem. Al. who, Str. iv, 640 P., names as the author of the lines τὸν μελοποιόν, meant Pindar by the words: Theodoret. (Gr. Aff. C. viii, 599 C), who attributes the second half of the frag. to Pindar, had no other source but the same Clem. Al. But it may be doubted whether the whole is to be attributed to any Greek of the older faith. It has quite the appearance, as Zeller, Socr. and Socratics, p. 24, n. 3, strikingly suggests, of one of those Jewish forgeries in which Jewish monotheism and the ideas connected with it were to be fathered upon Greek antiquity. Welcker, Kl. Schr. v, 252 ff.; Götterl. i, 741 f., defends the fr. (and most unconvincingly connects the ψυχαὶ ὑπουράνιοι and ἐπουράνιοι of the fr. with the quite different δαίμονες ἐπιχθόνιοι and ὑποχθόνιοι of Hes., Op. 123 and 141). He thinks he can defend the genuineness of the lines (which had already been declared spurious by Dissen) by pointing to the words of Horace about Pindar’s θρῆνοι (O. iv, 2, 21): flebili sponsae iuvenem raptum plorat, et vires animumque moresque aureos educit in astra nigroque invidet Orco. Even supposing that this referred to the transport of the souls to the stars the witness of Horace thus given would only [447] remove a single difficulty from a passage that has other overwhelming difficulties in profusion. But Horace says nothing of the transport of the “Soul” to the heavenly regions, vires, animus, mores, all these together refer not at all to the ψυχή but to the ἦθος and the ἀρεταί of the dead. Pindar, Horace means, rescues the memory of the nature and merits of the youth from decay: only the fame which the poet secures for him is under discussion. educit in astra and invidet Orco mean nothing more than: he rescues the memory of the dead from oblivion, exactly as in the epitaph quoted above, [n. 20]: οὑδὲ θανὼν ἀρετᾶς ὄνυμ’ ὤλεσας ἀλλά σε Φάμα κυδαίνουσ’ ἀνάγει δώματος ἐξ Ἀΐδα. Thus, it is least of all to be concluded from Horace’s words that Pindar transported the souls of the εὐσεβεῖς into the heavens (rather that in the θρῆνοι—as much as anywhere else: see above, [n. 25]—Pindar sometimes only recognizes the immortality of fame: of that alone does Horace speak).

[46] O. ii celebrates the victory which Theron had won at Olympia in Ol. 76, but was probably written some time after that victory. Theron died Ol. 77, 1, or 76, 4.

[47] Sicily was rich in cults of χθόνιοι, in which Gelon, Hieron and their ancestors were hierophants, Hdt. vii, 153; Pi., O. vi, 95. So, too, Akragas the city of Theron (and the home of Empedoldes which also is not without its importance) was Φερσεφόνας ἕδος, Pi., P. xii, 2, having been given by Zeus to Persephone on her marriage, Sch. Pi., O. ii, 16 (as also had, in addition to other cities, Pindar’s native city Thebes, Euphorion, fr. 48; cf. Eur., Phoen. 684 ff. Theron’s family traced its descent from Eteokles the son of Oedipus). It is very possible that the hopes of a blessed immortality of the soul such as were fostered in many ways in the cult of the χθόνιοι and particularly in that of Persephone, should have been familiar to Theron from such a cult and attractive to him.

[48] The theological character of much of Pindar’s work makes knowledge of mystic doctrine not surprising in him. In fr. 137 he speaks of the Eleusinia (to which he otherwise owes nothing). In fr. 131, though the words are unfortunately most corrupt and probably contain lacunae as they have been transmitted, he speaks of the “releasing Initiations”, ὀλβία δ’ ἅπαντες αἶσα λυσίπονον τελετάν—this is the form of the words required by the metre (dactylo-epitritic), and thus (not τελευτάν) they appear in Plu., Cons. Apoll. 35, p. 120 D, and also in cod. Vatic. 139 (which I have collated).

[49] IG. xiv = IG. Sic. et It., 641, 1–2–3. [Harrison-Murray, Prolegom. 661 ff.; Vors. 66 B, 18, 19.]—The inscription of the oldest of these poems belongs to the fourth century B.C. The verses can, however, be cited here because the original or rather the two originals upon which the poems are modelled were older than the oldest of the three surviving inscr. (which itself shows serious corruption of the primitive text); and nothing prevents us from supposing that the original forms of these verses go to the fifth century.—The common ancestor of versions 2 and 3 is not derived from version 1, even in the parts in which it agrees with that version, but from a still older original.—Acc. to Dieterich, Nekyia 128 f., 135 f., the lines are taken from a poem of Orpheus’ descent to Hades; but of this they themselves offer not the slightest suggestion.

[50] The feminine ἔρχομαι ἐκ καθαρῶν καθαρά—and also νῦν δ’ ἱκέτις ἡκω (though this indeed is metrically impossible) IG. xiv, 641, 2, l. 6—refers probably to the ψυχή and not to the sex of the dead person as though a woman were speaking in all three cases. Moreover, in [448] No. 1, 9, Persephone speaks as though to a man ὄλβιε καὶ μακαριστέ, θεὸς δ’ ἔσῃ ἀντὶ βροτοῖο.

[51] l. 1, ἔρχομαι ἐκ καθαρῶν καθαρά, χθονίων βασίλεια. This is certainly the right punctuation (and is given by the editors), and not Hofmann’s ἐκ καθαρῶν, καθαρὰ χθ. β. “Pure and born of the pure” (referring to the immediate parents of the dead: more distant ancestry would be expressed by ἀπό); cf. κάκιστος κἀκ κακῶν, etc. (Nauck on Soph., OT. 1397; Ph. 874); ἀγαθοὶ ἐξ ἀγαθῶν ὄντες, Andoc., M. 109.

[52] The parents are καθαροί, the soul of the dead καθαρά, simply as being “purified”, “sanctified”, in τελεταί of the χθόνιοι. In the same way, elsewhere, the Mystai are ὅσιοι “the pure”: see above, chap. vi, [n. 18].

[53] καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼν ὑμῶν γένος ὄλβιον εὔχομαι εἶμεν—so in all three versions.

[54] ἀλλά με μοῖρ’ ἐδάμασσε καὶ ἀστεροπῆτα κεραυνῶν (particip.): so in the original to which the readings of three versions point, as restored by O. Hofmann in GDI. 1654. ἀστεροβλῆτα is in No. 1—this might simply = ἀστεροποβλῆτα, but it may only have been substituted by mistake for ἀστεροπῆτα (= ἀστεροπητής of Homer). The line in this form occurs in No. 1, 4. Versions 2 and 3 have εἴτε με μοῖρ’ ἐδάμασσ’ εἴτ’ ἀστροπῆτα κεραυνῶν. But the dead had no choice between natural death (for this is what μοῖρα must mean as contrasted with death by the thunderbolt) and death by being struck by lightning; one or other of the two (or more) forms of death must in actual fact have occurred. In this embarrassment—for death by lightning is not a very frequent occurrence—the ancient verse was altered in such a way that it might refer also to one who had died a natural death. The attempt was indeed not a great success. Originally death by lightning can alone have been mentioned (as in No. 1) and the original form of the lines must have referred to someone who had actually perished in this way. The dead person was then immediately regarded as sanctified simply on account of the method of his death; he became a ἱερὸς νεκρός translated to a higher and continued life: see above, chap. ix, [n. 127], and [Appendix i]. This is the only interpretation of the lines which gives any point to the introduction here of this peculiar manner of death—one who has been thus translated out of life will certainly now be θεὸς ἀντὶ βροτοῖο.

[55] κύκλος τῆς γενέσεως, rota fati, etc. Lob., Agl. 798 ff.

[56] ἱμερτοῦ δ’ ἐπέβαν στεφάνου ποσὶ καρπαλίμοισι, Δεσποίνας δ’ ὑπὸ κόλπον ἔδυν χθονίας βασιλείας, No. 1, 6–7. The στέφανος will probably be the sacred precinct, the enclosure that surrounds the realm of Persephone, as Dieterich, De hymn. Orph. 35, very plausibly suggests.

[57] See [Appendix xi].

[58] ὥς με πρόφρων πέμψῃ ἕδρας ἐς εὐαγέων. The ἕδραι εὐαγέων correspond to the χῶρος εὐσεβῶν of other poets and mythologists. But the strange phrase does also contain an allusion to the fact that this paradise of the “pure” is specially reserved for the initiates of the mysteries. The εὐαγής, the man untouched by any ἄγος, is ὅσιος (ὅσιος ἔστω καὶ εὐαγής law ap. And., M. 96): εὐαγεῖν = ὁσιοῦν in an ins. from Ialysos in Rhodes, IGM. Aeg. i, 677. Ordinary non-religious language also preserves the original meaning of the word: it frequently means (in contrast to σκοτώδης and the like) “bright, pure, clean” (and in places, too, where it is customary to insert without good reason εὐαυγής, following the ex. of Hemsterh. on Eur., Suppl. 662).

[59] The similarity with the stages of the reward given to the good in Pindar is obvious: χῶρος εὐσεβῶν in Hades; then and not till then [449] escape from the underworld and from human life as well. The only difference is that in Pi. the soul’s final end is to become a ἥρως while here it becomes θεός.

[60] IG. xiv, 642.

[61] id. 641, 1, v, 10, ἔριφος ἐς γάλ’ ἔπετον. 642, 4, θεὸς ἐγένου ἐξ ἀνθρώπου. ἔριφος ἐς γάλα ἔπετες. The conjunction of the two phrases in 642 shows that “As a kid I fell into the milk” is a condition of “I became a God”. We may certainly recognize in the phrase a σύνθημα or σύμβολον of the Mystai like those usual in other secret initiatory rites—ἐκ τυμπάνου ἐφαγον κτλ., Lob. 23 ff.—which refer to performance of symbolical actions in the initiation ceremonies. The precise sense of this σύνθημα cannot be made out (Dieterich’s efforts, H. Orph., p. 35, have not succeeded in clearing up the matter).

[62] Worth remarking is the instruction ἀλλ’ ὁπόταμ’ ψυχὴ προλίπῃ φάος ἀελίοιο, δεξιὸν εἰσιέναι πεφυλγμένος εὖ μάλα πάντα (this or something like it may have been the original form of the lines which have been thrown into confusion by the intrusion of the explanatory words δεῖ τινα). Then at the conclusion (ὦ) χαῖρε χαῖρε, δεξιὰν ὁδοιπορῶν λειμῶνάς τε ἱεροὺς καὶ ἄλσεα Φερσεφονείας. (καί: this and nothing else is probably concealed by the KAT of the inscription—καί long before a vowel in 3rd thesis is even in Homer not unheard of.) Here at a comparatively early date we meet with the legend of the Two Ways at the entrance to the underworld, of which that to the right leads to the χῶρος εὐσεβῶν, the left to the place of punishment of the ἄδικοι. It may derive from the fancies of South Italian mystic sects. δεξιόν and ἀριστερόν in the Pythagorean table of Opposites—and in oionistike for a long time before that—mean the same as ἀγαθόν and κακόν (Arist., Metaph. 1, 5, p. 986a, 24; cf. Iamb., VP. 156).—The Υ Pythagoreum denoted the parting of the ways of life to the right (to virtue) and to the left (vice): Serv., A. vi, 136; cf. O. Jahn, Pers., p. 155 f. Plato transferred the Two Ways to the underworld probably following Pythagorean example, Rp. 614 C; cf. τὼ ὁδώ, Gorg. 524 A; divorso itinere, Cato ap. Sall., C. 52, 13, in a Platonist passage. To the right the fountain of Mnemosyne, to the left that of Lethe—grave-tablet from Petelia: Epigr. Gr. 1037 = IG. xiv, 638. The Two Ways in the underworld (of which that to the right hand regularly leads to salvation) are also spoken of by the ποητής whose lines are quoted by Hippol., RH. 5, 8, p. 164, 80 D.-S. (perhaps “Orpheus” as Dieterich, Nek. 193 thinks); cf. also Verg., A. vi, 540 ff., Hegesipp., AP. vii, 545, and the Jewish forgery under the name of Philem., Mein. 4, 67, 6 f. (ii, p. 539 K.).—Three Ways in the world of the spirits, which he takes as being in the sky, are seen by the Empedotimos of Herakld. Pont. (see above, chap. ix, [n. 111]): Serv., G. i, 34. Plutarch also alludes to three Ways in the underworld, Lat. Viv. vii, p. 1130, for in giving his quotation from Pindar’s θρῆνος fr. 129–30 he suddenly, without having previously said anything about the other two Ways, speaks of the τρίτη τῶν ἀνοσίως βεβιωκότων καὶ παράνομων ὁδός which leads into Erebos. We should suppose that he found these three Ways in Pindar whom he is making use of throughout the passage. Three Ways would seem natural to one who knew of three classes of souls; the εὐσεβεῖς and the ἀσεβεῖς having in between them those who have not strayed seriously from either side of the middle way of ordinary morality and deserve neither reward nor severe punishment. To these then was probably allotted, instead of the bliss or sorrow of the two other classes, the indifferent state of the Homeric εἴδωλα καμόντων. So at least it appears from Lucian, Luct. 7–9. A similar triple [450] division occurs in a popular form ap. D.H. viii, 52 ad fin.: (1) a place of punishment, a kind of Tartaros: (2) τὸ λήθης πεδίον (which is here the indifferent state); (3) the αἰθήρ which is the dwelling-place of the Blessed. Verg., too, has three classes, but he places the middling characters in the limbus infantium, beyond which the road first divides towards Elysium and Tartarus. Did Pindar then anticipate these and incidentally—he need not have been logically consistent about it—introduce such a triple division of the souls?

[63] Plato’s violent attacks on poets and poetry—in which nevertheless acc. to his own account οὐδὲν σπουδῆς χαρίν, ἀλλὰ παιδιᾶς ἕνεκα πάντα δρᾶται—show once more clearly enough that in his time the old Greek view of the poets as the true teachers of their age was by no means a thing of the past. It was precisely as teachers, whether rightly or wrongly so regarded, that they seemed to him dangerous and worth opposing.

[64] Aristophanes is only formulating popular opinion—and in unusually naive language—when he says Ran. 1030 ταῦτα γὰρ ἄνδρας χρὴ ποιητὰς ἀσκεῖν· σκέψαι γὰρ ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς ὡς ὠφέλιμοι τῶν ποιητῶν οἱ γενναῖοι γεγένηνται κτλ. And again 1053 ff. where he is referring particularly to tragic dramatists, ἀποκρύπτειν χρὴ τὸ πονηρὸν τόν γε ποιητήν, καὶ μὴ παράγειν μηδὲ διδάσκειν. τοῖς μὲν γὰρ παιδαρίοισιν ἔστι διδάσκαλος ὅστις φράζει, τοῖς ἡβῶσιν δὲ ποιηταί.

[65] This idea is alluded to as early as Δ 160 ff. Then Hes., Op. 282 ff. It is established for Hdt.; cf. i, 91, vi, 86. Further examples collected by Nägelsbach, Nachhom. Theol. 34 f. Thgn. 205 ff., 731 ff., is particularly definite. Among Attic authors; cf. Sol., fr. 13, 29 (ἀναίτιοι ἔργα τίνουσιν); E., Hipp. 831 ff., 1378 ff. (where note τὸν οὐδὲν ὄντ’ ἐπαίτιον), fr. 980; [Lys.] 6, 20; Lycurg. 79. It is briefly alluded to as a commonly held opinion by Isoc. 11, 25; cf. Lys., fr. 53 Th. The case of Diagoras of Melos the ἄθεος may also be remembered; cf. above, chap. vii, [n. 16].—This idea of the punishment of the son for the deeds of the father receives its justification acc. to Plu., Ser. Nu. Vi. 16, 559 D (quite in accordance with primitive ideas) in the unity that belongs to all the members of the same γένος—so that in the person of the son it is the father himself, though he may be dead, who is also punished. The idea arises from the deeply ingrained feeling of the unity, solidarity, and continuity of the ancient family cult-circle pre-supposed by the cult of souls. (This is primitive and meets us, e.g. in India as well: “release us from the wrongs that our fathers have done; take away the sins of that we ourselves have committed” is the prayer to Varuna in the Rigveda, 7, 86, 5. τὰ ἐκ προτέρων ἀπλακήματα are transferred also to the next generation “like a pestilence-breeding substance”, Oldenberg, Rel. d. V. 289. Elsewhere the conception emerges that the guilty ancestor lives again in the descendant and is punished in his person: Robinsohn, Psychol. d. Naturv. 47.)

[66] It is precisely on this point, namely, that evil does not befall men without their own fault, that the Chorus, i.e. the poet, of the Agamemnon (757), acknowledges δίχα δ’ ἄλλων μονόφρων εἰμί.

[67] In this way, too, the Stoics saved the responsibility of men for their own deeds in spite of the unavoidable εἰμαρμένη. The deeds would not have come to fruition if the personal συγκατάθεσις of the man had not been added to the original necessary cause conditioning the acts. The συγκ., though not itself “free”, yet always remains ἐφ’ ἡμῖν and makes us responsible: Cic., Fat. 18; Nemes. Nat. Hom., p. 291 Matth. [451]

[68] Clearly so from l. 689 onwards.

[69] τὰ γὰρ ἐκ προτέρων ἀπλακήματά νιν πρὸς τάσδ’ (τὰς Ἐρινύας) ἀπάγει, Eum. 934.

[70] Only when Eteokles and Polyneikes have fallen in single combat ἔληξε δαίμων, Sept. 956.

[71] This idea is quite common in Homer (Nägelsbach, Hom. Theol. 70 f., 320 f.), and in later times reappears frequently in the case of such authors as always, or on occasion, express popular ideas: Thgn. Hdt. esp. Eur. (cf. Fr. Trag. Adesp. 4, 55 N.), and the orators: see Nägelsbach, Nachhom. Th. 54 ff., 332 f., 378.

[72] ἀπάτης δικαίας οὐκ ἀποστατεῖ θεός, fr. 301 S. This, too, must be the meaning of other expressions in which the poet refers less plainly to the righteous purpose of divine deception: Pers. 93 ff., 742; frr. 156, 302 (cf. also Suppl. 403 f.).—Aristoph. makes his Clouds speak quite in accordance with the Aeschylean ideas, Nub. 1458 ff. This grim idea must, in fact, have had considerable success and spread beyond the stage. Falsehood and deception for a good end presented no difficulty to the mind of the Greeks (even as applied to their gods). Hence Sokrates (in Xen.), Plato, and certain Stoics could quite openly approve of and recommend such falsehoods (and the author of the Διαλέξεις, c. 3 in defending the same theory also appeals to the lines of Aesch.).

[73] Ag. 1497–1508. Here there is a clear opposition between the popular view which attributed all guilt to an ἀλάστωρ tempting to crime (a reminiscence of which appears in Soph., El. 197 ff.), and the more elevated conception of the poet who holds fast to the view that though the ἀλάστωρ may contribute to the result the agent of the evil deed is not ἀναίτιος.

[74] The dead man stands in need of the cult paid by his surviving kinsfolk, Cho. 484 (his grave a βωμός, Cho. 106; χοαὶ γαμήλιοι for him, 486 f.). As an appeasement of his easily aroused wrath χοαὶ νερτέρων μειλίγματα, Cho. 15. The dead man is still conscious of events both past and present upon earth: φρόνημα τοῦ θανόντος οὐ δαμάζει πυρὸς μαλερὰ γνάθος, Cho. 324 f. In the song of awakening addressed to the departed and the invocations sung by Electra and the Chorus in Cho. the soul of Agamem. is similarly regarded as fully alive and accessible to the callers (though, indeed, ἐξ ἀμαυρᾶς φρενός 157) and addressed accordingly (cf. 139, 147 f., 156 f., 479 ff.; Pers. 636). It is even expected that his soul, invisibly present in the upper world, will take an active share in the work of vengeance: ἄκουσον ἐς φάος μολών, ξὺν δὲ γενοῦ πρὸς ἐχθρούς, Cho. 459; cf. 489. So, too, Orestes, Eum. 598, hopes in his extremity of need that ἀρωγὰς ἐκ τάφου πέμψει πατήρ. More especially the murdered man has a right to be avenged by his ἀγχιστεῖς (οὐδ’ ἀπ’ ἄλλων, Cho. 472) and Apollo himself has commanded Orestes to take such vengeance, Cho. 269 ff., etc. Dread results of neglecting this duty, Cho. 278–96 (possibly an interpolated passage, but still an extension of the words of A. himself 271 ff. in a sense thoroughly in consonance with popular belief).

[75] The Erinyes only avenge the murder of a blood-relation and not therefore when one of a married pair is murdered by the other, Eum. 210–12, 604 ff. But the opinion emerges that they are particularly charged with the vengeance of a mother who has been murdered by her son (rather than a father who has suffered the same fate), 658 ff., 736 ff. (Reminiscences of such a view in S., El. 341 ff., 352 ff.; E., Orest. 552 ff., fr. 1064.) This may possibly be an old popular belief (not fully understood by A. himself) which need not, however (as is often [452] supposed), depend upon an ancient system of “matriarchy” for which there is no other evidence in Greece. It is simply explained by the fact that the father has plenty of men still living among his kinsfolk who will avenge him (even against his own son), whereas the mother who is separated from her own family can expect no avenger from that side, while in the family of her husband there will be nobody yet old enough to take vengeance on her own son. For this reason it is for her most particularly and necessarily that the daimonic avengers of murder must intervene, and they are the Erinyes, who are always thought of as only active where no earthly avenger is available.—Of course, it could never be denied that there exists also πατρὸς εὐκταίαν Ἐρινύν, Sep. 783.

[76] δαίμων, θεός, δῖος ἀνάκτωρ, ἰσοδαίμων βασιλεύς are titles given only to the dead Persian king, Pers. 620, 633, 644, 651. They are, however, probably intended to characterize Persian and not Greek beliefs (the Greek king, too, is still a king in Hades, but not a δαίμων, Cho. 355–62).

[77] κἀκεῖ δικάζει τἀμπλακήμαθ’, ὡς λόγος, Ζεὺς ἄλλος (cf. Ζῆνα τῶν κεκμηκότων 158) ἐν καμοῦσιν ὑστάτας δίκας, Suppl. 230 f.; cf. 414 ff.—μέγας γὰρ Ἅιδης ἐστὶν εὔθυνος βροτῶν ἔνερθε χθόνος, δελτογράφῳ δὲ πάντ’ ἐπωπᾷ φρενί, Eum. 273 ff. Not even in Hades do the Erinyes let the murderer go, Eum. 340. The punishment in Hades seems to be regarded as merely supplementary to the (perhaps delayed) punishment of crime on earth ῥοπὴ δ’ ἐπισκοπεῖ δίκας ταχεῖα τοὺς μὲν ἐν φάει, τὰ δ’ ἐν μεταιχμίῳ σκότου μένει χρονίζοντας ἄχη, τοὺς δ’ ἄκρατος ἔχει νύξ, Cho. 61 ff.

[78] τοὺς θανόντας εἰ θέλεις εὐεργετεῖν εἴτ’ οὖν κακουργεῖν, ἀμφιδεξίως ἔχει τῷ μήτε χαίρειν μήτε λυπεῖσθαι νεκρούς, fr 266. This does, not, however, agree with Cho. 324 f., or with the frequently occurring expressions which presuppose consciousness and feeling (and so also χαίρειν and λυπεῖσθαι) in the dead. Consistency in such matters must not, in fact, be looked for in a non-theological poet. The ψυχή of the dead man a shadow without the sap of life, fr. 229. Death a refuge from earthly suffering, fr. 255. The speedy death which the Chorus wish for themselves, Ag. 1449 ff., brings with it τὸν ἀεὶ ἀτέλευτον ὕπνον and therefore a condition of unconsciousness if not of complete nothingness.—The shadow of Dareios takes his leave of the Persian nobles in the foll. words: ὑμεῖς δέ, πρέσβεις, χαίρετ’, ἐν κακοῖς ὅμως ψυχὴν διδόντες ἡδονῇ καθ’ ἡμέραν, ὡς τοῖς θανοῦσι πλοῦτος οὐδὲν ὠφελεῖ, Pers. 840 ff. This view of life is perhaps intended to have an Oriental colouring (like the epitaph of Sardanapalus which is rightly quoted in illustration of this passage); the reason given ὡς τοῖς θανοῦσι κτλ. is perhaps to be similarly explained.

[79] ἔνδικοι σφαγαί, 37. Orestes is to his father’s house δίκῃ καθαρτὴς πρὸς θεῶν ὡρμημένος 70.

[80] One reason why no Erinys pursues Orestes after he has murdered his mother is, indeed, the fact that Sophokles is treating the “Elektra” in isolation as an independent drama and could not therefore introduce a fresh thread of interest at the end, if he was to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. But the mere fact that he could so arrange matters shows that for him, in contrast with Aeschylus, the belief in the veritable reality of the Erinys and the necessary perpetuation of the idea of vengeance in the family was already obscured and almost obsolete. The ancient family blood-feud is less important to him than the rights of the separate and independent individual.

[81] Casual allusions, El. 504 ff.; OC. 965; Ant. 856; and cf. 584 ff., 594 ff. [453]

[82] οὐ γὰρ ἴδοις ἂν ἀθρῶν βροτὸν ὅστις ἂν, εἰ θεὸς ἄγοι, ἐκφυγεῖν δύναιτο, O.C. 252. ὅταν δέ τις θεῶν βλάπτῃ, δύναιτ’ ἂν οὐδ’ ἂν ὁ σθένων φυγεῖν, El. 696 f. αἴσχη μέν, ὦ γυναῖκες, οὐδ’ ἂν εἷς φύγοι βροτῶν ποθ’ ᾧ καὶ Ζεὺς (as the one who rules and ordains everything, cf. El. 175; O.C. 1085) ἐφορμήσῃ κακά· νόσους δ’ ἀνάγκη τὰς θεηλάτους φέρειν, fr. 619 N.

[83] Phil. 191–200.

[84] It is fixed long before by an oracle: 821 ff.; 1159 ff. It is not exactly overpowering violence or heaven-sent madness that drives Deianeira to carry out the prophecy; it is rather an obscure force that transforms her purest intentions to an evil result. She herself is completely innocent: ἥμαρτε χρηστὰ μωμένη.

[85] The reason for this will of the gods is not revealed to us, either in OT. or in the subsequent treatment given in OC. The only thing that is made quite clear there is the complete innocence of Oedipus; as to the meaning of the divine purpose that has plunged him into such deeds of horror the sufferer can only say θεοῖς γὰρ ἦν οὕτω φίλον, τάχ’ ἄν τι μηνίουσιν εἰς γένος πάλαι (964 f.). This is a passage in which modern interpretation of the ancients finds the “upholding of the moral order in the world” clearly expressed as a motive of divine will.

[86] καὶ γὰρ ἦν τῶν θεοσεβεστάτων, Sch., El. 831.

[87] fr. 226 N., σοφὸς γὰρ οὐδεὶς πλὴν ὃν ἂν τιμᾷ θεός. ἀλλ’ εἰς θεόν σ’ ὁρῶτα, κἂν ἔξω δίκης χωρεῖν κελεύῃ, κεῖσ’ ὁδοιπορεῖν χρεών. αἰσχρὸν γὰρ οὐδὲν ὧν ὑφηγοῦνται θεοί.

[88] Aias has angered the goddess because he has boasted that he could do without her help. Thus he has drawn upon himself ἀστεργῆ θεᾶς ὀργήν, 776. The goddess makes him insane that he may recognize τὴν θεῶν ἰσχὺν ὅση, 118. Thus, her superior power is shown and the folly of men who despise that power. But as for showing that the revengeful act of the goddess has any sort of moral purpose or meaning behind it, the pious poet makes no such attempt.—The interpolation of ideas more familiar in modern times does not make it any easier to understand the peculiar character of such antique εὐσέβεια and δεισιδαιμονία. The same kind of fearful awe of the gods which we find here, runs through the whole of Herodotos’ historical writing (Hdt. was not without reason a friend of Sophokles) and meets us again in the character of Nikias and to a large extent in Xenophon, too. Thuc. and, on the whole, Eurip. (for he varies) calmly ignore it or else violently reject it. Its nature is shown (better than in the more usual εὐσέβεια) by the phrase ἡ πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς εὐλάβεια which also occurs: [D.] 59 (Neaer.) 74.

[89] Trach. 1266 f.; 1272 (where, however, there remains a suspicion that the traditional text may be unsound); fr. 103 N. Parallels occur also in Phil.

[90] There exists a region of divine mystery that is not to be fathomed: οὐ γὰρ ἂν τὰ θεῖα κρυπτόντων θεῶν μάθοις ἄν, οὐδ’ εἰ πάντ’ ἐπεξέλθοις σκοπῶν, fr. 833; cf. OT. 280 f. and πολλὰ καὶ λαθεῖν καλόν, fr. 80 N.

[91] The behaviour of Athene in the prologue of the Aias is an exception.

[92] Odysseus beholding the insane Aias: ἐποικτίρω δέ νιν δύστηνον ὄντα καίπερ ὄντα δυσμενῆ, ὁθούνεκ’ ἄτῃ συγκατέζευκται κακῇ, οὐδὲν τὸ τούτου μᾶλλον ἢ τοὐμὸν σκοπῶν· ὁρῶ γὰρ ἡμᾶς οὐδὲν ὄντας ἄλλο πλὴν εἴδωλ’ ὅσοιπερ ζῶμεν, ἢ κούφην σκιάν, Ai. 121 ff.

[93] ἰὼ γενεαὶ βροτῶν κτλ. OT. 1186 ff.; ὅστις τοῦ πλέονος μέρους χρῄζει . . . OC. 1211–38; cf. frr. 12, 535, 536, 588, 859, 860.

[94] Nor is Antigone affected by such motives as might appear from a casual or isolated study of such lines as Ant. 73 ff. The whole play [454] shows that Antig. throughout follows the ἄγραπτα κἀσφαλῆ θεῶν νόμιμα and the instincts of her own nature, without paying any attention to what may happen to her on earth and without a side glance at what may be the result in the world below of her “pious crime”.

[95] We often have ἐν Ἅιδου κεκευθότων (Ant. 911) μυχοὺς κιχεῖν τοῦ κάτω θεοῦ (Ai. 571) and other phrases = “be dead” (cf. to be an οἰκήτωρ of Erebos, Ai. 395 ff. Hades seems to be called πανδόκος ξενόστασις fr. 252). The confusion of the idea of a kingdom of Hades with that of the grave is shown in the not infrequent expression ἐν Ἅιδου, παρ’ Ἅιδῃ κεῖσθαι, El. 463; OT. 972; Ph. 861; φίλη μετ’ αὐτοῦ κείσομαι φίλου μέτα, Ant. 73; cf. fr. 518.

[96] τὸν ἀπότροπον Ἅιδαν, Ai. 608; fr. 518.

[97] The dead man is a σκιά, Ai. 1231. σποδὸς καὶ σκιὰ ἀνωφελής, El. 1159a. μηδέν, El. 1166; Ai. 1231.—In spite of this, in the Homeric manner, a definite shape and a measure of semi-conscious existence is presumed in the shades in Hades: OT. 1371 ff.—Doubt: εἴ τις ἔστ’ ἐκεῖ χάρις, El. 356.

[98] θανόντων οὐδὲν ἄλγος ἄπτεται, OC. 955. τοῖς γὰρ θανοῦσι μόχθος οὐ προσγίγνεται, Tr. 1173. τοὺς γὰρ θανόντας οὐχ ὁρῶ λυπουμένους, El. 1170. (All three lines are denied to Soph. by the latest criticism.)

[99] Ph. 797 f.; Ai. 854; OC. 1220 ff.; fr. 631 (cf. A., fr. 255; Fr. Tr. Adesp. 360. λιμὴν κακῶν ὁ θάνατος, a commonplace of later moralists: see Wyttenb. Plu., Mor. vi, p. 720, was taken over from tragedy).—The converse fr. 64, 275.

[100] Collectively οἱ νέρτεροι, οἱ νέρτεροι θεοί, OC. 1661; Ant. 602. Hades in particular is often mentioned, and also Πλούτων: Ἅιδης στεναγμοῖς καὶ γόοις πλουτίζεται, OT. 30; fr. 251. ὁ παρὰ τὸν Ἀχέροντα (τὰν Ἀχέροντος ἀκτάν, Ant. 812. ἀκτὰν ἑσπέρου θεοῦ, OT. 177) θεὸς ἀνάσσων, El. 184. Persephone and Aidoneus, OC. 1556 ff. Erinyes, Thanatos, Kerberos: OC. 1568 ff. πομπαῖος Ἑρμῆς χθόνιος, Ai. 832; and see El. 110 B., etc.—Ἅιδης (here as often = Θάνατος) desires to devour men: δαίσασθαι, El. 542, f.—a popular conception or at least popular language: see above, chap. vii, [n. 25].

[101] Hades ὃς οὔτε τοὺπιεικὲς οὔτε τὴν χάριν οἶδεν, μονὴν δ’ ἔστερξε τὴν ἁπλως δίκην, fr. 703, i.e. the justice of absolute equality (for all earthly distinctions have passed away): ὅ γ’ Ἅιδης τοὺς νόμους ἴσους ποθεῖ, Ant. 519.

[102] ἡ γὰρ εὐσέβεια συνθνῄσκει βροτοῖς (it dies when the man dies to whom it belonged: i.e. it follows him, or his ψυχή, into the lower-world. No textual corruption need be assumed here), κἂν ζῶσι κἂν θάνωσιν οὐκ ἀπόλλυται, Ph. 1443 f.

[103] Without ritual burial the dead man is τῶν κάτωθε θεῶν ἄμοιρος ἀκτέριστος ἀνόσιος νέκυς, Ant. 1070 f.

[104] ἐντάφια οἷα τοῖς κάτω νομίζεται, El. 326. κτερίσματα, 434, 931. λουτρά, 84, 434 (cf. above, chap. v, nn. [106], [107]), ἔμπυρα, 405. χοαί, 440.—El. 452, prayer is made to the dead that he “shall help us and Orestes” ὅπως τὸ λοιπὸν αὐτὸν ἀφνεωτέραις χερσὶν στέφωμεν ἢ τὰ νῦν δωρούμεθα (at present only a lock of hair and a girdle, 448 ff.).—Offerings to the dead made by foes and even the approach of such persons to the neighbourhood of the grave is displeasing and hateful to the departed who lies therein: El. 431 ff., 442 ff.; Ai. 1394 f. (cf. above, chap. v, [n. 109]). In this case as in the cult of the soul generally the presence of the dead man in the grave, or else in its immediate neighbourhood, is presupposed—not his departure into an inaccessible land of the dead. The latter view, retained from Homeric [455] poetry, is generally allowed to remain incongruously side by side with the former.

[105] El. 1066 ff.

[106] The god of the underworld is οὐκ ἀπερίτροπος of the murdered man: El. 182 f. Hence all the gods and spirits of the lower world are summoned to take vengeance for the murder of Agamemnon: El. 110–16. We hear of Δίκη ἡ ξύνοικος τῶν κάτω θεῶν as the patron of the dead in their claim to justice: Ant. 451.

[107] Herakles in giving his last commands to Hyllos finally threatens the latter: εἰ δὲ μή, μενῶ σ’ ἐγὼ καὶ νέρθεν ὤν, ἀραῖος εἰς ἀεὶ βαρύς, Tr. 1201 f.; cf. fr. 367; see above, chap. v, [n. 148].

[108] Elektra thinks that Agamemnon himself may have sent the δυσπρόσοπτ’ ὀνείρατα to Klytaimnestra: El. 459 f. (There is no reason for altering the traditional text here—with Nauck—to make the gods the senders of the dreams instead of the dead man. ἥρωες, too, can send nocturnal visions of terror: see above, chap. ix, [n. 102].) Here Elektra supposes that by sending such harbingers of his wrath the unavenged victim of murder has signified his readiness to assist in the taking of vengeance. This makes perfectly good sense and is the only interpretation that suits the context of Elektra’s admonitions to her sister.

[109] ἀρωγός, El. 454. ῶσιν οἱ γᾶς κάτω κείμενοι. παλίρρυτον γὰρ αἷμα ὑπεξαιροῦσι τῶν κτανόντων οἱ πάλαι θανόντες, El. 1419 f. “The dead man brings death to the living,” Nauck on Tr. 1163.

[110] frr. 753, 805.

[111] OC. 1049 ff., 680; fr. 736.

[112] Oedipus does not die but vanishes (is seen no more, 1649); the depths of the earth open and receive him: 1661 f., 1681. What is meant is translation without death as in the case of Amphiaraos, etc. The poet only hints at the miracle in intentionally vague words—but they cannot refer to anything but translation. ὤλετο 1656, and ἔθανε are therefore only inaccurate expressions to describe his departure (see also above, chap. iii, [n. 2]). The Messenger of 1583 f. refuses, however, to give a distinct answer to the question of the Chorus ὄλωλε γὰρ δύστηνος; he will only hint that Oedipus has indeed ὄλωλε (1580), but has not simply died—he has instead been translated out of earthly life. The corrupt ὡς λελοιπότα κεῖνον τὸν ἀεὶ (this was already what the Alexandrians read) βίοτον ἐξεπίστασο may not therefore be altered simply into τὸν αἰνόν, τὸν ἄβιον βίοτον. It may perhaps have originally been something like τὸν ἔνθα, τὸν ἐν γῇ, τὸν ἀνδρῶν βίοτον (cf. Medea to her children ἐς ἄλλο σχῆμ’ ἀποστάντες βίου, E., Med. 1039. A dead woman ὑποκεχώρηκε αἰφνίδιον τοῦ καθ’ ἡμᾶς βίου. Ins. from Amorgos, BCH. 1891, p. 576, ll. 9–10).

[113] A distinct act of precaution against disbelief in such a miracle: OC. 1665 f. (cf. ἔρρει δὲ τὰ θεῖα, OT. 906 ff.; which refers esp. to the belief in the Oracle of Loxias, a matter of great importance to Soph.).

[114] The innocence of Oedipus and the fact that the awful crimes committed by him have been done in ignorance and against his will θεῶν ἀγόντων, is stressed in order that his elevation to the position of Heros may not seem to be an honour done to a guilt-stained criminal. But the poet does not attribute positive virtues to him even in OC.—far less in fact than in OT.

[115] One has only to read the play without preconceived ideas to see that this passionate and savage old man, pitilessly heaping dreadful curses on his sons, gloating vindictively over the coming misfortunes [456] of his own country, is quite ignorant of the “deep peace from the gods” or the “illumination of the pious sufferer” which conventional literary interpretation has been anxious to ascribe to him. The poet is not one to gloss over the harsh realities of life with trite phrases of vapid consolation, and he has clearly perceived that the usual effect of unhappiness and misery upon men is not to “illuminate” but to enfeeble and vulgarize them. His Oedipus is pious (he was that from the beginning in OT. as well), but he is made savage, ἠγρίωται, exactly like Philoktetes in his misery (Ph. 1321).

[116] Humanitarianism of Athens and her king: 562 ff., 1125 ff.

[117] It is emphasized over and over again that the settlement of Oedipus on Attic soil is meant to bring about the salvation of the Athenians and the discomfiture of the Thebans (Apollo’s oracle has thus decreed it): 92 f., 287 f., 402, 409 ff., 576 ff., 621 ff. The whereabouts of the valuable possession must therefore be kept secret (as frequently with the graves of Heroes: see above, chap. iv, [n. 38]); 1520 ff. This elevation of Oedipus to be the σωτήρ of Attica (459 f.) is evidently what makes the interest and importance for the poet of the whole mystery which he relates.

[118] νῦν γὰρ θεοί σ’ ὀρθοῦσι, πρόσθε δ’ ὤλλυσαν, 394. The gods now feel ὤραν τινά for Oedipus, 386. After many πήματα πάλιν σφε δαίμων δίκαιος αὔξοι (ἄν), 1565 f. It is, in fact, an act of kindness after a long period of ill-usage; there is a reversal of fortune, but there is no reward or indemnification given in recognition of a just claim. It is all grace.

[119] In this, too, ὡς ἄν τις εἶς τῶν χρηστῶν Ἀθηναίων (Ion ap. Ath. 13, 604 D).

[120] Prodikos is, acc. to Welcker, Kl. Schr. ii, 497 ff., responsible for most of the theories propounded in the Ps.-Platonic Axiochus on the subject of the ἀθανασία τῆς ψυχῆς, Ax. 370 B ff., the tendency of the soul to the heavenly αἰθήρ (366 A), and even of the Platonizing fantasy at the end about the fate of the departed (371-2). Prodikos, if we adopted this attribution, would become less the “forerunner of Sokrates” (as Welcker calls him) than the forerunner of Plato. There is, however, no real reason to attribute to him any more share in that document than is asserted distinctly in it. The brief and carelessly composed pamphlet consists of a medley of the conventional ingredients of the usual λόγοι παραμυθητικοί loosely strung together. To Prod. is assigned: the disquisition on the troubles of life in all its stages 336 D-367 E; and the saying ὅτι ὁ θάνατος οὔτε περὶ τοὺς ζῶντάς ἐστιν οὔτε περὶ τοὺς μετηλλαχότας κτλ., 369 B (cf. Buresch, Leip. Stud. ix, 8–9). These two passages put together would establish as the opinion of Prodikos just the opposite of what Welcker wishes to ascribe to him. He would show himself as a true πεισιθάνατος (—ἐξ ἐκείνου θανατᾷ μου ἡ ψυχή, 366 C), who would make death a mere exit into a state of unconsciousness after the troubles of life, and thus seem an absolute nonentity. But the piece is in reality quite without authority: it apparently puts forward the name of Prodikos, who is so often stated in Plato to have been the “teacher” of Sokrates, merely in order to have a definite authority (like the fabulous Gobryes later on) for what the author does not wish to represent Sokrates as saying on his own account. One of the sayings attributed to the imaginary Prodikos, ὅτι ὁ θάνατος . . . is, however, only too clearly a simple appropriation of Epicurus’ aphorism, ὁ θάνατος οὐδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς κτλ. (p. 61, 6 Usen.; cf. p. 227, 30; 391. Heinze also points this out, Ber. sächs. Ges. d. Wiss. 1884, p. 332). The other passage (366 D ff.) agrees suspiciously [457] with what Teles (p. 38 Hens.) has to say on the same subject apparently in entire dependence on Krates the Cynic. It seems extremely probable that the author of the Axiochus also had Krates before him or even Teles (as Wyttenbach already suggested, Plu., Mor. vi, p. 41); and that he attributes what he has thus borrowed from extraneous sources to “Prodikos” by a fiction that never came amiss to the composers of such dialogues.—It follows then that what Prodikos really said about the soul and its destiny is unknown to us; cf. on this recently much-discussed subject: Brinkmann, Rh. Mus. 51, 444 ff.

[121] In the Prologue Thanatos at once describes his claims and his office. He has to receive the departed and cut off the lock of hair from the forehead (75 f. probably as a sign that the dead enter into the possession of the underworld deities: in Verg., A. iv, 698 f. Proserpina in the same way dedicates the dead to Orcus). He then leads them to Hades, 871. He comes in person to the grave and enjoys the offerings laid there, 844 ff., 851 f. (like the dead man himself on other occasions, see above, chap. v, [n. 108]). Properly speaking he is only the servant of Hades; but just as the word ᾅδης was already common as = θάνατος, so Thanatos himself is also actually called Ἅιδης (268, see above, [n. 4]); only as identical with Hades can he be called ἄναξ νεκρῶν, 843; cf. δαιμόνων κοίρανος, 1140.—In the underworld are Charon ὁ ψυχοπομπός, 361, 254 ff., 458 f., and Kerberos, 360. Hades and Hermes χθόνιος receive the dead. εἰ δέ τι κἀκεῖ πλέον ἔστ’ ἀγαθοῖς Alkestis will have the seat of honour next to Persephone: 744 ff. By the living who survive she is regarded on account of her incomparable virtue as μάκαιρα δαίμων and her grave is not the abode of a dead woman but a place of worship, 995–1005. Such facile elevation to the rank of “Heroine” was supposed to be characteristic of Thessaly and Eurip. may in this also have intended to give his poem a touch of Thessalian local colour. (δαίμων as an intermediate stage between θεοί and ἄνθρωποι; so frequently in Eur., e.g. Tro. 55–6; Med. 1391; is this the meaning of the μέσον in Hel. 1137?)—Thoroughly in keeping with popular belief is χαῖρε κἀν Ἅιδου δόμοις εὖ σοι γένοιτο, 626 f. (such a χαῖρε is the last word with which ὡς νομίζεται one addresses the dead ἐξιοῦσαν ὑστάτην ὅδον, 609 f.). Similar also (but really implying the conception of the dead as resting in the grave and not in Hades) is: κοῦφά σοι χθὼν ἐπάνωθε πέσοι, 463.

[122] The funeral dirge, 86 ff.; κόσμος buried with the dead, 618 ff.; mourning ceremonies: the manes of the horses are cut short; no sound of flute or lyre is to be heard in the town for twelve months, 428 ff. (πένθος ἐτήσιον is usual, 336). These extreme observances are probably taken from the mourning customs of the Thessalian dynastic families.

[123] Burial of the dead in accordance with νόμος παλαιὸς δαιμόνων, Suppl. 563; νόμιμα θεῶν, 19; a general Hellenic custom, 526 f.—Burial of Polyneikes in spite of Kreon’s prohibition: Phoen. and probably Ἀντιγόνη.

[124] τοῖς γὰρ θανοῦσι χρὴ τὸν οὐ τεθνηκότα τιμὰς διδόντα χθόνιον εὐσεβεῖν θεόν, Ph. 1320 f. ἐν εὐσεβεῖ γοῦν νόμιμα μὴ κλέπτειν νεκρῶν, Hel. 1277. The honour of the grave more important even than good fortune upon earth, Hec. 317 f. Lament over the dishonouring of the grave of Agamem., El. 323 ff. Request for the burial of Astyanax, Tro. 1133 ff., of Orestes, IT. 702 ff., of Makaria, Hcld. 588 ff. The shade of the murdered Polydoros prays especially for burial, Hec. 47 ff. (31 f., 796 f.). He is an example of the wandering of the ἄταφοι upon the upper earth; he ἄθαπτος ἀλαίνει, Tro. 1084 (see above, [p. 163], and [Append. vii]).—Funeral ceremony for those who have [458] been drowned at sea, Hel. 1057 ff., 1253 ff.; though there the idea is only used as an excuse for the intrigue.

[125] χοαί for the dead, e.g. Or. 112 ff., El. 511 ff.; IT. 159 ff.

[126] χοαί make the dead εὐμενῆ towards the givers of the offering, Or. 119. The children call upon the soul of the murdered father to help them, El. 676 ff., in the belief that πάντ’ ἀκούει τάδε πατήρ, 684. The soul of the dead man hovers above the living observing everything, Or. 674 ff. Invocation of the dead (striking both hands on the ground: see above, chap. iii, [n. 10]), Tro. 1305 f. Expectation that the dead thus called on will σῶσαι his friends, Or. 797, or help them, El. 679. Calling upon the departed in Hades ἄρηξον, ἐλθὲ καὶ σκιὰ φάνηθί μοι, HF. 494 (though with the qualification εἴ τις φθόγγος εἰσακούσεται θνητῶν παρ’ Ἅιδῃ, 490).

[127] Translation miracles are touched upon by the poet with obvious pleasure; cf. transl. of Kadmos and Harmonia, Bac. 1330 ff., 1338 ff.: of Peleus, Andr. 1257 ff.; of Helen, Or. 1629 ff.: of Herakles, Hcld. 910; of Menelaos (in unmistakable sarcasm), Hel. 1676 ff. So, too, in the spurious conclusion to the IA. there is a translation of Iphigeneia, 1583 ff. (πρὸς θεοὺς ἀφίπτατο, 1608).

[128] Eurystheus buried in the temple of Athene Pallenis will bring safety to Athens and evil to her enemies: Hcld. 1026 ff. Eurysth. says σοὶ μὲν εὔνους καὶ πόλει σωτήριος μέτοικος ἀεὶ κείσομαι κατὰ χθονός, 1032 f.; i.e. he will become a ἥρως σωτήρ of the land (just as Oedip. was to become σωτήρ for Attica. S., OC. 460, and Brasidas Heros σωτήρ of the Amphipolitans, Thuc. 5, 11, 1). Heroic cult of Hippolytos, Hip. 1423 ff., fr. 446.

[129] The Erinyes are spoken of (apparently with real belief) in IT. 79 ff. and elsewhere.

[130] Or. 258 f., not very different, IT. 288–94.

[131] τὸ θηριῶδες τοῦτο καὶ μιαιφόνον, Or. 524. Orestes instead of committing murder himself should have brought his father to justice, Or. 500 f. Agamemnon himself if he could have been asked would not have desired this bloody vengeance, Or. 288 ff. It is only Apollo’s unwise counsel that has led Orestes to the murder of his mother, El. 971 ff., 1296 f.; Or. 276 ff., 416, 591. After the deed Orestes does indeed feel remorse but no religious terrors, El. 1177 (in spite of which there is much about the pursuing Erinyes of his mother). How completely this whole series of ideas, the duty of vengeance, etc., has lost its meaning for the poet, is to be felt more especially in the sophistical frigidity with which the subject is treated in an ἀγών between Tyndareos and Orestes, Or. 491–604, and in the hair-splitting of the speech of Orestes himself, 932 ff.

[132] δοκῶ δὲ τοῖς θανοῦσι διαφέρειν βραχύ, εἰ πλουσίων τις τεύξεται κτερισμάτων· κενὸν δὲ γαύρωμ’ ἐστὶ τῶν ζώντων τόδε, Tro. 1248 ff.

[133] fr. 176.

[134] οὐδὲν ἔσθ’ ὁ κατθανών, Alc. 381. The dead are οἱ οὐκέτ’ ὄντες 322. τοῖς (the dead) μὲν γὰρ οὐδὲν ἄλγος ἄψεταί ποτε, πολλῶν δὲ μόχθων εὐκλεὴς ἐπαύσατο, 937 f. But even fame is nothing to the dead. Admetos says to his father in the scurrilous dialogue θανεῖ γε μέντοι δυσκλεής, ὅταν θάνῃς. To which the old man unconcernedly replies κακῶς ἀκούειν οὐ μέλει θανόντι μοι (725 f.).

[135] It might seem simpler to regard all the utterances of persons in the plays which correspond to conventional beliefs as being merely dramatic expressions of the character’s own (orthodox) view, and in no sense put forward by the poet as his own opinion. And certainly the separate and independently acting persons of the drama can only [459] speak and act in accordance with their own proper conceptions and springs of action—not in accordance with the poet’s. But in the antique drama this complete detachment of the creatures of the dramatic imagination from their creator, the poet of the drama, only holds good in a limited sense. The ancient dramatists exercised their office of judge much more vigorously than the greatest of the moderns. The course of his play showed clearly what acts and characters the poet disapproved of, but also which opinions he sanctioned and which he did not. We have only to remember the attacks of Oedipus and Iokaste upon the judgments of the gods in OT. (or the story of Sen., Ep. 115, 14: Eur. fr. 324). Accordingly we may take it that such utterances of dramatic characters as are not supplied with practical or spoken corrective are among those of which the poet did not disapprove. Euripides so very frequently puts words into the mouth of his characters which can only express his own moods or opinions that we may also assume that when their language harmonizes with traditional belief then, too, the most subjective of the tragedians is for the moment expressing his own view. Thus, for example, we cannot doubt that the strain of piety running through the whole of the Hiketides (subjection of φρόνησις to God’s wisdom, 216 ff., submission to the guidance of the gods, 592 ff., and to Zeus’ government of the world, 734 ff.), and especially the whole-hearted elaboration of the picture of Theseus as a model of εὐσέβεια represent the actual opinion of the poet at that particular period (he clearly speaks of himself, 180–3). At other times, too (apart from the Bacchae), though generally for a short time only, he shows vague aspirations towards orthodoxy.

[136] Alc. 968 ff.; Hipp. 952 ff.—Asceticism of the mystai of Zeus and Zagreus of the Mountain Mother and the Kouretes: Κρῆτες, fr. 472.

[137] Polyid. fr. 638; Phrixos, fr. 833. It is usual (cf. Bergk, Gr. Litt. 3, 475, 33) to see here a reminiscence of Herakleitos. But the latter’s ἀθάνατοι θνητοί, θνητοὶ ἀθάνατοι, ζῶντες τὸν ἐκείνων θάνατον, τὸν δὲ ἐκείνων βίον τεθνεῶτες (fr. 67 Byw. 62 D.) is clearly intended to express the view that “death” and “life” are purely relative concepts; that death (of the one, i.e. Fire) and life (of the other, i.e, Water or Earth) are simultaneously present in the same object (see also frr. 68, 78 = 36, 88). According to this view it would be strictly true that life on earth is not more life than it is death; but that is certainly not what Eurip. means to say. Philo and Sext. Emp. are mistaken in attributing to Herakl. the Orphic doctrine of the “death” of the soul which takes place when it is enclosed in the σῶμα, as its σῆμα (see above, chap. xi, [n. 19]). But it is precisely this Orphic doctrine that is present to the mind of Eurip. (and Plato, Gorg. 492 E, 493 A, brings it into immediate connexion with the verses of E.). He is speaking of the true “death” of the soul in the life of the body and of its release to a real (and not a merely relative) life after death; and thinks that “life” has no claim to the distinguishing name (cf. ὃ δὴ βίοτον καλέουσι Emped. 117 Mull. = fr. 15 D.).

[138] Palingenesia is alluded to once only and in jest as a desirable reward for the virtuous, HF. 655–68; cf. M. Ant. xii, 5.

[139] ὁ νοῦς γὰρ ἡμῶν ἐστιν ἐν ἑκάστῳ θεός, fr. 1018.

[140] fr. 839 (Chrysipp.) fully physical in fr. 898, 7 ff.—fr. 1023 Αἰθέρα καὶ Γαῖαν πάντων γενέτειραν ἀείδω. Cf. fr. 1004.

[141] fr. 484 (Μελαν. ἡ σοφή)—ὡς οὐρανός τε γαῖά τ’ ἦν μορφὴ μία κτλ. Here, too, the poet is speaking of a mere initial association of the elements afterwards to be parted, but thought of as always from the [460] beginning independent—there is no derivation of both from a single common original element, or of one out of the other. Eurip. may really have been thinking here of the ὅμου πάντα χρήματα ἦν of Anaxagoras (as the ancient authorities supposed), esp. as, with Anax. also, out of the general conglomeration two masses, ἀήρ and αἰθήρ, first emerge (though in this case νοῦς is not included in the αἰθήρ as it is with Eurip.). Here, too, then the usual dualism of the Euripidean cosmogony is preserved. For the rest this fr. 484 allows us to perceive that in spite of all his physiological tendencies Eurip. can never quite get rid of the mythical element in his cosmogonical events. The reason why Ouranos and Gaia in particular recommend themselves to him as elemental forces (and κοινοὶ ἁπάντων γονεῖς, fr. 1004) was that these figures had long been set at the beginning of the world and of the gods by cosmogonical poetry (αἰθήρ is simply the more physiological term for what is half-personified as Οὐρανός). This probably explains why matter (or at least the more solid forms of matter as distinguished from the αἰθήρ the λεπτότατον πάντων χρημάτων) is for him included in the description “earth”. In this he is not following the old physiologists, none of whom had called “earth” the original matter—at least not earth alone (see Ilberg, Quaest. Pseudohippocrat., p. 16 ff., 1883). “Earth” as describing the merely material, matter deserted by spirit, may have come to him from popular usage. As early as Ω 54 the body deserted by soul and life is called κωφὴ γαῖα (cf. Eur. frr. 532; 757, 5). Thus for the poet the contrast between γῆ and αἰθήρ almost amounts to that between “matter” and “mind”, except that he either could not or would not think of a “mind” without any material substratum and that for this reason his αἰθήρ still preserves a remnant of matter.

[142] This is esp. clear in fr. 839, 8 ff. In the disruption of the elements out of which πάντα are composed each of the two, γῆ and αἰθήρ, preserves itself undiminished and unmixed. θνῄσκει δ’ οὐδὲν τῶν γιγνομένων διακρινόμενον δ’ ἄλλο πρὸς ἄλλου μορφὴν ἰδίαν ἀπέδειξεν (restores itself in its independent being). Whereupon we feel ourselves irresistibly reminded of the saying of Anaxagoras—οὐδὲν γὰρ χρῆμα γίνεται οὐδὲ ἀπόλλυται, ἀλλ’ ἀπ’ ἐόντων χρημάτων συμμίσγεταί τε καὶ διακρίνεται, καὶ οὕτως ἂν ὀρθῶς καλοῖεν τό τε γίνεσθαι συμμίσγεσθαι καὶ τὸ ἀπόλλυσθαι διακρίνεσθαι, fr. 17 Mull. [and D.].

[143] That it was not Anaxagoras, or at least not he alone, who gave the decided direction to the philosophic ideas of Eurip. has rightly come to be held of late. We do not find a trace in Eurip. of the separation of νοῦς from matter, at least not in the form in which Anaxagoras understood it. For E. the mind is bound to one of the two primal elements and quite foreign to the other, the earth. Thus he arrives at a dualism indeed, but in quite a different sense from that of Anaxag. Dümmler, Proleg. zu Platons Staat (Progr. Basel, 1891), p. 48, points out reminiscences in Eurip. of Diogenes of Apollonia—but it is not true to say that the poet’s views show the “closest kinship” with the monistic system of Diog., or with any Monism.

[144] Tro. 884 ff. The air, called by the name of Zeus, and identical with the νοῦς βροτῶν, can only be taken from the doctrine of Diog.: Diels, Rh. Mus. 42, 12.

[145] Diog. Apoll., frr. 3, 4, 5 Mull. (= 8, 3, 4 D.). The soul is ἀὴρ θερμότερος τοῦ ἔξω, ἐν ᾧ ἐσμεν, though it is colder than the air which is παρὰ τῷ ἡλίῳ, fr. 6 [5]. The soul is therefore more akin to the αἰθήρ than to the ἀήρ (αἰθήρ and ἀήρ were at that time often confused: e.g. in E., fr. 944, αἰθήρ instead of ἀήρ). [461]

[146] Suppl. 1140 αἰθὴρ ἔχει νιν ἤδη κτλ. Elektra expects to find her dead father in the Aither, El. 59. Of a dying man, πνεῦμ’ ἀφεὶς εἰς αἰθέρα, fr 971 (differently, Or. 1086 f.); cf. also Suppl. 531–6 (imitated from Epicharm.), where again the αἰθήρ is only spoken of as the abode, and not as the original and consubstantial element of the soul.

[147] αἰθὴρ οἴκησις Διός, Eur., fr. 487 (Melanip.).

[148] Epich., fr. 7, p. 257 Lor. [= fr. 265 Kaibel].

[149] CIA. i, 442, αἰθὴρ μὲν ψυχὰς ὑπεδέξατο, σώ[ματα δὲ χθὼν] τῶνδε. . . .

[150] συνεκρίθη καὶ διεκρίθη, κἀπῆλθεν ὅθεν ἦλθεν πάλιν, γᾶ μὲν ἐς γᾶν, πνεῦμ’ ἄνω· τί τῶνδε χάλεπόν; οὒδὲ ἕν, Epich. ap. Plu., Cons. ad Apoll. 15, 110 A; Epich., fr. 8 [245 Kaib.]. πνεῦμα as a general name for the ψυχή occurs also in Epich., fr. 7 [265]. No earlier authority is to be found for this usage that became so common later (under Stoic influence) than Xenophanes who πρῶτος ἀπεφήνατο ὅτι ἡ ψυχὴ πνεῦμα (D.L. ix, 19). Epicharm. may have been actually following Xenophanes (whose writings he knew: Arist., Meta. iii, 5, 1010a, 6) in this use of the word. Eurip. then did the same, Suppl. 533. πνεῦμα is the name given to the ἀήρ in so far as it is in motion. (ὑποληπτέον, εἶναι σῶμα τὸν ἀέρα) γίνεται δὲ πνεῦμα κινηθείς. οὐθὲν γὰρ ἕτερόν ἐστι πνεῦμα ἢ κινούμενος ἀήρ: Hero, μηχαν. σύστ., p. 121 (ed. Diels = i, p. 6. ed. Schmidt) after Straton. The soul is called a πνεῦμα just because the soul is that which has continual movement from its very nature (and is the principle of movement); as such it had already been regarded by Alkmaion (and later by Plato), and even before that by Pythagoras (see above, chap. xi, [n. 40]); in a different way by Herakleitos and Demokritos also. The universal ἀήρ and the Soul-πνεῦμα, if we give the terms their proper meaning, are to be thought of as being of the same nature, so that the ἀήρ, too (still more the αἰθήρ as a higher ἀήρ), is psychical and animated by soul. That at least was how Diogenes of Apollonia regarded it. (ἀήρ = the outer air, πνεῦμα the air which is inside men’s bodies: [Hp.] de Flatib. 3 [vi, 94 L.], a section taken from Diog. Ap.)

[151] Numerous references in Eurip. to verses of Epicharm. are pointed out by Wilamowitz, Eurip. Herakles, i, 29. The fact that Eurip. knew the poems of Epich. and valued them for their philosophic contents is clearly made out by Wilamowitz’ study. But he goes on to assert that all the allusions of Eurip. refer only to the (or one of the) forgeries in the name of Epicharm., of which many were known in antiquity. The reason alleged for this statement—“Euripides never quotes comedies”—is merely a petitio principii. It may be that Eurip. does not “quote” contemporary Attic comedy, but whether he maintained the same attitude to the brilliantly original comic poet of Sicily, whom Aristotle and even Plato (Gorg. 505 E and esp. Tht. 152 E) were not ashamed to notice, is the very point at issue; nothing is gained by unproved denial of this main premiss.—Moreover, it would be a most unusual species of forger that preferred to publish gems like νᾶφε καὶ . . . (imitated by Eurip.) or νόος ὁρῇ—under another man’s name. The fragments of the Πολιτεία, which is really a forgery fathered on Epicharmos (ap. Clem. Al., Str. v, p. 719 P. = Lor., p. 297), are of a very different character.

[152] Archelaos makes a less satisfactory model for Eurip. here. Arch. in his reconciliation of the doctrines of Anaxagoras and Diogenes did not separate νοῦς from the mixture of the material elements (or from the ἀήρ), but he distinguished between them, while for the poet αἰθήρ and mind are the same. [462]

[153] αἰθήρ = Zeus, fr. 941. αἰθήρ. . . .Ζεὺς ὃς ἀνθρώποις ὀνομάζεται, fr. 877. Hence the αἰθήρ is κορυφὴ θεῶν, fr. 919.—In the same way for Diog. Ap. the air is god (Cic., ND. i, 29) and Zeus (Philod., Piet. c. 6b, p. 70 Gomp.; Dox. 536).—In E., fr. 941: τὸν ὑψοῦ τόνδ’ ἄπειρον αἰθέρα καὶ γῆν πέριξ ἔχονθ’ ὑγραῖς ἐν ἀγκάλαις the αἰθήρ is not put instead of ἀήρ (for τὸν ὑψοῦ only suits αἰθήρ in its proper sense), but the two are combined under the one word (ὑγραῖς ἐν ἀγκάλαις could not be said of the αἰθήρ in the strict sense), just as the ἀήρ of Diogenes includes the αἰθήρ (for the hot ἀὴρ παρὰ τῷ ἡλίῳ, fr. 6 [5 Diels] is, in fact, the αἰθήρ, and so, too, essentially, is the warm ἀήρ in our bodies).

[154] —εἰς ἀθάνατον αἰθέρ’ ἐμπεσών, Hel. 1016.

[155] ὁ ἐντὸς ἀὴρ (which alone αἰσθάνεται—not the senses) μικρὸν μόριον ὢν τοῦ θεοῦ, Diog. ap. Thphr., Sens. 42.

[156] The living air, or Zeus, is νοῦς βροτῶν, Tro. 886. And vice versa, the νοῦς in each one of us is no other than God, fr. 1018.

[157] ὁ νοῦς τῶν κατθανόντων ζῇ μὲν οὔ, γνώμην δ’ ἔχει ἀθάνατον, εἰς ἀθάνατον αἰθέρ’ ἐμπεσών, Hel. 1013 ff.—Ambiguity attaches to the passages in which a dying person is said to depart εἰς ἄλλο σχῆμα βίου (Med. 1039), ἐς ἄλλας βιότου μορφάς (Ion, 1068), to ἕτερον αἰῶνα καὶ μοῖραν (IA. 1508). It is possible that in each case a personal existence continued in a land of the dead is understood—but if they mean no more than that they are remarkably pregnant in form. In reading them (esp. Med. 1039) one is reminded of the remarkable lines of Philiskos (pupil of Isocr.) ap. [Plu.] Vit. X Or., p. 243, 60 West. τῷ γὰρ ἐς ἄλλο σχῆμα μεθαρμοσθέντι καὶ ἄλλοις ἐν κόσμοισι βίου σῶμα λαβόνθ’ ἕτερον—said of the dead Lysias. But here the idea of metempsychosis seems really to be involved, which it can hardly be in the case of Eurip.

[158] Eur. adopts it for himself, fr. 189 (Antiope), and confirms it by so many λόγων ἅμιλλαι in which he allows the most contradictory opinions about a single subject to be given equally plausible expression.

[159] ἀπειροσύνη ἄλλου βιότου, etc. Hip. 191–7. τὸ ζῆν γὰρ ἴσμεν, τοῦ θανεῖν δ’ ἀπειρίᾳ πᾶς τις φοβεῖται φῶς λιπεῖν τόδ’ ἡλίου, fr. 816, 10 f. (Phoinix).

[160] The dead man is γῆ καὶ σκιά—τὸ μηδὲν εἰς οὐδὲν ῥέπει, fr. 532; cf. 533, 534. τὸ μὴ γενέσθαι τῷ θανεῖν ἴσον· ὥσπερ οὐκ ἰδοῦσα φῶς the dead woman knows nothing of herself or her sufferings, Tro. 636–44 (a locus often initiated in “consolations”: Axioch. 365 D, Plu., Cons. ad Apoll. 15, p. 110 A).

[161] φήμη τὸν ἐσθλὸν κἀν μυχοῖς δείκνυσι γῆς, fr. 865. ἀρετὴ δὲ κἂν θάνῃ τις οὐκ ἀπόλλυται, ζῇ δ’ οὐκετ’ ὄντος σώματοςs, fr. 734; cf. Andr. 772. At the sacrifice of Makaria the chorus in Hcld. 621 ff. can only offer as consolation the fame which awaits her—οὐδ’ ἀκλεής νιν δόξα πρὸς ἀνθρώπων ὑποδέξεται.

[162] Makaria voluntarily going to meet her death—εἴ τι δὴ κατὰ χθονός· εἴη γε μέντοι μηδέν. εἰ γὰρ ἕξομεν κἀκεῖ μερίμνας οἱ θανούμενοι βροτῶν οὐκ οἶδ’ ὅποι τις τρέψεται· τὸ γὰρ θανεῖν μέγιστον φάρμακον νομίζεται, Hcld. 592 ff.; cf. fr. 916.

[163] fr, 757 (the metaphor of ll. 5 ff. is employed for homiletic purposes by Epictet. ii, 6, 11–14); Andr. 1270 ff.

CHAPTER XIII
PLATO

The belief in human immortality, construed in a theological or philosophical sense, had at this time hardly penetrated to circles of ordinary lay folk. Socrates himself, when it came to such inquiries into the unknowable, never claimed to provide an answer that differed from that which would be given by the majority of his fellow citizens out of the accumulated wisdom of their ancestors. Where in the pages of Plato he is allowed to give undisguised expression to his natural and homely vigour—in the Apology—he shows little anticipation of an immortal life of the soul. Death, he thinks, either brings complete unconsciousness to men, like a dreamless sleep, or else it means the transition of the soul to another life in the realm of the Souls—a realm which, to judge by his allusions, has much more resemblance to the Homeric Hades than to any of the visionary countries imagined by theologians or theologically minded poets.[1] Both possibilities he accepts with complete equanimity, trusting in the righteousness of the controlling gods,[2] and he looks no further. How should he know with certainty where everyone was ignorant?[3]

With a like absence of concern it is possible that the majority of the cultured (who were just beginning to separate themselves from the rest of the community) left unsettled the problem of the Unknown.[4] Plato assures us that it was in his time a widespread belief of the populace that the outgoing soul-breath of the dying was caught up by the winds—especially if its exit took place in stormy weather—and was dispersed, blown away, into nothing.[5] In other ways, too, we may suppose that the orthodox Greek, when death approached, allowed his fancy to picture what might await his soul on the other side of death’s threshold.[6] But it is certain that the belief in an unending life of the soul—a life with no end because it had no beginning—was not among these thoughts. Plato himself lets us see how strange such a conception was even to those who were capable of following and understanding a philosophical discussion. Towards the end of the long dialogue upon the best kind of State his Sokrates asks Glaukon with apparent irrelevance “are you not aware that [464] our soul is immortal and never perishes?” Whereupon, we are told, Glaukon looked at him in astonishment and said, “No, in truth, of that I was not aware: can you then assert any such thing?”[7]

The idea that the soul of man may be everlasting and imperishable seemed thus a paradoxical freak to one who was no adept in the theological doctrine of the soul. If in later times the case was altered, no one contributed more effectually or more permanently to bring that change about than the great thinker and poet who established the theological conception of personal immortality in the very heart of philosophy and then gave back the idea strengthened and made more profound to its parent theology, while he himself extended the influence of that idea far beyond the bounds of school or sect by the far-reaching power of his own unaging writings which belong, not to the schoolroom, but to the greatest achievements of literature whether of Greece or of mankind. It is beyond calculation what power has been wielded since their first appearance by the Platonic dialogues in the confirmation, dissemination, and precise definition of the belief in immortality—a power that with all its alteration in the passage of the centuries has maintained itself unbroken into our own times.