[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.