[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.