[61] Schmekel (Phil. d. mittl. Stoa, 1892) maintains convincingly that Panaitios was led to his view of the nature and fate of the soul chiefly by the polemic of Karneades against the dogmatic philosophers and particularly the Stoics. It is less certain that Poseidonios and his heterodox views are influenced by respect for Karneades. It is certain, however, that Pos. differs from Chrysipp., and still more from Panaitios. There is thus an indirect connexion between him and Karneades, to whose criticisms Panaitios had in the most essential points given way.
[62] That Pos. is being used in the first book of Tusc. Disp. is admitted on all hands (as to the extent of that use conjecture may indeed be various). It is at least very possible in the case of Somn. Scip. (see Corssen, Pos. 40 ff.).—The attraction of such theories of immortality [520] remained an aesthetic one with Cicero (and probably among all the cultured of his age and social circle). Where he is not speaking rhetorically or in pursuance of a literary pose—in his letters esp.—he shows no trace of the conviction that he defends at other times with so much ardour (see Boissier, Rel. rom. d’Aug. aux Ant. i, 58 f.).
[63] οὐ κατὰ ψιλὴν παράταξιν, ἀλλὰ λελογισμένως καὶ σεμνῶς though not always quite ἀτραγῴδως (M. Ant. xi, 3).
[64] Julius Kanus when condemned to death by Gaius only attempts to enquire whether there is any truth in the belief in immortality: Sen., Tr. An. 14, 8–9. De natura animae et dissociatione spiritus corporisque inquirebat Thrasea Paetus, before his execution, with his instructor Demetrius the Cynic: Tac., A. xvi, 34. They have no firm conviction in these matters that might serve to explain or account for their heroism (Cato reads the Phaedo before his suicide: Plu., Cat. min. 68, 70).
[65] nos quoque felices animae et aeterna sortitae says the soul of her father to Marcia: Sen., C. ad Marc. 26, 7, in antiqua elementa vertemur at the ἐκπύρωσις.
[66] Sen., Ep. 88, 34.
[67] bellum somnium, Sen., Ep. 102, 2.
[68] Where Seneca admits more positive conceptions of a life after death he never goes beyond a fortasse, si modo vera sapientium fama est (Ep. 63, 16); a deliberate concession to the consensus hominum (Ep. 117, 6) or the opiniones magnorum virorum rem gratissimam promittentium magis quam probantium (Ep. 102, 3). Following the conventional style of consolatory discourses he gives such expressions a more vivid turn in the Consolationes: e.g. Marc. 25, 1 ff.; Helv. 11, 7; Polyb. 9, 8. But even there the idea of personal immortality hardly seems to be taken seriously. In the same pieces death is commended simply as putting an end to all pain, and, in fact, to all sensation: Marc. 19, 4–5. In death we become again as we were before being born, Marc. 19, 5; cf. Ep. 54, 4, mors est non esse, id quale sit iam scio. hoc erit post me quod ante me fuit; and Ep. 77, 11, non eris: nec fuisti. So that whether death is a finis or a transitus, (Prov. 6, 6; Ep. 65, 24), it is equally welcome to the wise man who has made the most of his life, however short it may have been. Whether he goes then to the gods or whether on the other hand nothing is left of the mortal creature after death aeque magnum animum habebit (Ep. 93, 10); cf. nunquam magis divinum est (pectus humanum) quam ubi mortalitatem suam cogitat, et scit in hoc natum hominem ut vita defungeretur cet., (Ep. 120, 14); ipsum perire non est magnum, anima in expedito est habenda (QN. 6, 32, 5); to be ready is everything.—Of the old Stoic dogmas the only one that seems to remain certain for Seneca is that of παλιγγενεσία at the new creation of the world, Ep. 36, 10–11: mors intermittit vitam, non eripit: venit iterum qui nos in lucem reponat dies; but that is not in any way a consolation: multi recusarent nisi oblitos reduceret. Consciousness ceases with the coming of death in this world-period.
[69] It is very rarely that the utterances of the Emperor on the subject of what happens after death resemble those of a convinced Stoic of the old school. The souls are all parts of the one νοερὰ ψυχή of the world which though extended over so many individual souls yet remains a unity (ix, 8; xii, 30). After death the individual soul will survive for a period in the air until it is merged into the universal soul εἰς τὸν τῶν ὅλων σπερματικὸν λόγον (iv, 21). This implies the survival of the personal self for an undefined period, but it is [521] not a fixed conviction of M. Ant. As a rule he allows the choice between σβέσις ἢ μετάστασις, i.e. immediate extinction and merging of the individual soul (Panait.) or its removal into a temporary abode of the souls in the air (αἱ εἰς τὸν ἀέρα μεθιστάμεναι ψυχαί, iv, 21; cf. v, 53). Or else the choice is between σβέσις, μετάστασις (both in agreement with the Stoic doctrine of the ἕνωσις of the soul) or σκεδασμός of the soul-elements, in case the atomists are right (vii, 32; viii, 25; vi, 24)—a dilemma which really comes down to σκεδασμός or σβέσις (= ληφθῆναι εἰς τοὺς κόσμου σπερματικοὺς λόγους); and μετάστασις falls out. This is probably the meaning also of x, 7: ἤτοι σκεδασμὸς στοιχείων ἢ τροπή (in which τὸ πνευματικόν disappears εἰς τὸ ἀερῶδες) and τροπή only of the last πνευματικόν that man preserves in himself: for here (at the end of the chapter) the identity of the individual soul with itself is given up in the Herakleitean manner (see above, [p. 370]). Sometimes the choice is presented between ἀναισθησία or ἕτερος βίος after death (iii, 3) or αἴσθησις ἑτεροία in an ἀλλοῖον ζῷον (viii, 58). This is no allusion to metempsychosis (in which the envelope into which the soul goes is another but its αἴσθησις does not become ἑτεροία): it means the turning of the soul-pneuma, exhaled in death, to new forms of life united to the previous forms by no identity of soul-personality. In this case we can indeed say τοῦ ζῆν οὐ παύσῃ: but there can be no idea of the survival of the personal ego. ἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις exchanges and redistributes its elements; all things are changing (viii, 6; ix, 28). The Emperor never seriously thinks of the survival of personality; he seeks rather to inquire why things are as they are; but he never doubts that as a matter of fact even the noblest of mankind must also “go out” completely with death (xii, 5). Everything changes and one thing perishes to make way for another (xii, 21); and so each man must say to himself μετ’ οὐ πολὺ οὐδεὶς οὐδαμοῦ ἔσῃ (xii, 21; viii, 5). The wise man will say it with calmness: his soul is ἕτοιμος ἐὰν ἤδη ἀπολυθῆναι δέῃ τοῦ σώματος . . . xi, 3. Living among men to whom his way of thought is strange (ἐν τῇ διαφωνίᾳ τῆς συμβιώσεως) he sighs at times θᾶττον ἔλθοις, ὦ θάνατε . . . ix, 3; cf. Bonhöffer, Epikt. u. d. Stoa, 59 ff.
[70] I shall die without resisting God εἰδὼς ὅτι τὸ γενόμενον καὶ φθαρῆναι δεῖ. οὐ γάρ εἰμι αἰὼν ἀλλ’ ἄνθρωπος, μέρος τῶν πάντων ὡς ὥρα ἡμέρας· ἐνστῆναί με δεῖ ὡς τὴν ὥραν καὶ παρελθεῖν ὡς ὥραν, Epictet. ii, 5, 13. The present must make way for the future ἵν’ ἡ περίοδος ἀνύηται τοῦ κόσμου, ii, 17–18; iv, 1, 106. Death brings with it not complete destruction, οὐκ ἀπώλειαν, but τῶν προτέρων εἰς ἕτερα μεταβολάς, iii, 24, 91–4. But the personality of the now living individual does indeed perish completely in death.—Cf. Bonhöffer, Epiktet, 65 f.; cf. also the same author’s Ethik des Epiktet, p. 26 ff., 52 (1894).