We are, however, not without evidence that there were doubters among the common people. Flippant epigrams and epitaphs show that men could at least assume a cynicism toward life and a light-heartedness toward death which equal Lucian’s. More than once we can read funerary inscriptions to this effect: “I was nothing, I am nothing. Do thou who art still alive, eat, drink, be merry, come.”[17] Or sentiments like this: “Once I had no existence; now I have none. I am not aware of it. It does not concern me.”[18] Again we find the denial: “In Hades there is no boat, no Charon, no Aeacus who holds the keys, no Cerberus. All of us, whom death has taken away are rotten bones and ashes; nothing more.”[19] The sentiments are perhaps as old as thinking man. They have at times touches of humor which call forth a smile, as in the anxious inquiries of Callimachus’ epigram: “Charidas, what is below?” “Deep darkness.” “But what of the paths upward?” “All a lie.” “And Pluto?” “Mere talk.” “Then we’re lost.”[20]
Such expressions, of course, must not be given too much weight in our reckoning. The longing for annihilation, which appeals at times to most weary mortals, also led to dedications “to eternal rest” or “to eternal sleep.”[21] But after all the number of such epitaphs is comparatively small. In the nature of the case many funerary inscriptions give no testimony for or against a belief in immortality; but large numbers show confidence, or a hope, in a future life.
II
The time has now come for us to return from our rather long historical survey to Virgil’s Apocalypse, and to listen to the words with which Anchises’ shade taught his eager son:
“Know first that heaven and earth and ocean’s plain,
The moon’s bright orb, and stars of Titan birth
Are nourished by one Life; one primal Mind,
Immingled with the vast and general frame,
Fills every part and stirs the mighty whole.
Thence man and beast, thence creatures of the air,
And all the swarming monsters that be found
Beneath the level of the marbled sea;
A fiery virtue, a celestial power,
Their native seeds retain; but bodies vile,
With limbs of clay and members born to die,
Encumber and o’ercloud; whence also spring
Terrors and passions, suffering and joy;
For from deep darkness and captivity
All gaze but blindly on the radiant world.
Nor when to life’s last beam they bid farewell
May sufferers cease from pain, nor quite be freed
From all their fleshly plagues; but by fixed law,
The strange, inveterate taint works deeply in.
For this, the chastisement of evils past
Is suffered here, and full requital paid.
Some hang on high, outstretched to viewless winds;
For some their sin’s contagion must be purged
In vast ablution of deep-rolling seas,
Or burned away in fire. Each man receives
His ghostly portion in the world of dark;
But thence to realms Elysian we go free,
Where for a few these seats of bliss abide,
Till time’s long lapse a perfect orb fulfills,
And takes all taint away, restoring so
The pure, ethereal soul’s first virgin fire.
At last, when the millennial aeon strikes,
God calls them forth to yon Lethaean stream,
In numerous host, that thence, oblivious all,
They may behold once more the vaulted sky,
And willingly to shapes of flesh return.”[22]
These words express the commingled beliefs of Orphic, Pythagorean, Platonist, and Stoic. How extensively such beliefs were held by Virgil’s contemporaries we cannot say with accuracy, but certain it is that this book and this passage would never have made the religious appeal which they made in antiquity, if they had not corresponded to widespread convictions.
But Virgil’s sixth book contains much more than the eschatological views of philosophic schools; it reflects to an extraordinary degree popular ideas and practices. I have already referred to the fact that it represents a mystic initiation of Virgil’s hero as preparation for his holy task. Now we know that at all times the convictions of the majority of men are founded not on the arguments which thinkers can supply, but on hopes, intuitions, and emotional experiences. Such were the grounds on which the Orphic built his hope of the purified soul’s ultimate happiness. More popular than Orphism were the Greek mysteries, of which the most important were those celebrated annually at Eleusis in Attica. There the story of the rape of Proserpina, of Demeter’s search for her daughter, and of the daughter’s recovery, formed the center of a mystic ceremonial. Originally these mysteries were no doubt agricultural rites intended to call to life the dead grain in the spring. But before the seventh century, B.C., the festival had been transformed; the miracle of the reviving vegetation, of the grain which dies and lives again, here, as so many times elsewhere, had become the symbol and assurance of human immortality.[23]
Before admission to the annual celebration the would-be initiate was duly purified. During the celebration the initiated, by their own acts, recalled Demeter’s hunt for her daughter, roaming the shore with lighted torches; like the goddess, they fasted and then broke their fast by drinking a holy potion of meal and water; in the great hall of initiation they witnessed a mystic drama, perhaps saw holy objects exhibited and explained. In any case they underwent an emotional experience which so confirmed their intuitional belief in immortality, that they were confident of peace and happiness in this life and of blessedness in the life to come, where they would join in the sacred dance, while the uninitiated would be wretched. Many are the expressions of this ecclesiastical confidence. The Homeric hymn of Demeter promised: “Blessed is he among mortal men who has seen these rites.”[24] Pindar, early in the fifth century, wrote: “Happy he who has seen these things and then goes beneath the earth, for he knows the end of life and its Zeus-given beginning.”[25] Sophocles said: “Thrice blessed are they who have seen these rites, and then go to the house of Hades, for they alone have life there, but all others have only woe.”[26] At the close of the fifth century Aristophanes made his chorus of mystae sing: “For we alone have a sun and a holy light, we who have been initiated, and who live honorably toward friends and strangers, reverencing the gods.”[27] In the third century of the Christian era, an official of the mysteries set up an inscription which declares: “Verily glorious is that mystery vouchsafed by the blessed gods, for death is no ill for mortals, but rather a good.”[28]
It is difficult for us now to appreciate the widespread influence of these Eleusinian mysteries. They had many branches; at Eleusis they continued to be celebrated until 396 A.D., when Alaric the Goth destroyed Demeter’s ancient shrine. Other Greek mysteries also flourished in the Mediterranean world: those of Samothrace; the mysteries of Bacchus, whose excesses brought down the displeasure of the Roman Senate in 186 B.C.; and in later times the mysteries of Hecate or Diana. All had this in common, that they gave the initiate assurance of a happy immortality.