The Afterlife
Hades, Elysium, Mysteries,
and Reincarnation
Sources:
Homer
Greek Epic Poet, c. 700 BCE
The Iliad, focusing on warrior’s lives and experiences, gives a
grim picture of the Afterlife.
In the Odyssey, Odysseus journeys to (or has a vision of) the
Underworld. He sacrifices a black ram and the spirits come
forward to drink the blood. Only after they have drunk the
blood do they recognize him.
Tiresias the prophet is the only one who still has his intellect
intact. All of the other spirits wander as lost souls, “strengthless
ghosts” who “gather around the pit, with indescribable
screaming.”
Sources:
Homer
Odysseus sees his friend Elpenor, who has just died, and begs
for burial. Burial is vital to the soul, which cannot enter the
Underworld if unburied.
He sees his mother, and tries to embrace her three times, but
three times she flutters away like a dream or a shadow.
This is no deceit of the goddess Persephone, but the fate of all
who perish. No more do the sinews hold their flesh and
bones in their places, but the burning heat of the pyre
overwhelms and crumples our flesh. Once the soul has
abandoned the body, the poor homeless spirit must flutter
about like a dream, then vanish forever.
Sources:
Homer
Finally, Odysseus sees Achilles. “No one, Achilles, of all men
past or yet to be born is more blessed than you . . .”
Achilles: “Don’t you
attempt to instruct me on
death, O learned Odysseus!
Better to be a sharecropper
on some poor landholder’s
farm, a man who is landless
and hungry himself, than
here to be ruler of all these
shriveled-up dead.”
Sources:
Homer
Homer’s Underworld:
•grim, depressing place, focusing attention on the value of life
in the here and now
•spirits are sad, lost, mere shades of their former selves.
•a place where the visitor can encounter history, the great
people of the past, and see them as if on display
•a place of punishment for particularly nasty evildoers
But does Homer’s underworld represent the average Greek’s idea
of the afterlife, or is it partly a literary creation, or a one-sided
view of the possibile fates of the soul?
Sources:
Plato
Greek Philosopher, c. 370 BCE
Like his views of Eros, Plato’s views on the fate of the soul are
not in alignment with the mainstream of Greek literary myth.
•Er dies in battle but returns to life to
tell his tale: a near-death experience.
•Souls are sent either into heaven or
below the earth to be punished or
rewarded x10 for their deeds on earth.
•Souls pick the lot in life they want:
some make good choices, some bad.
•They drink the water of Lethe and are
sent back to earth.
Let one who has
drawn the first lot
choose a life. Virtue
is without a master . .
. The blame belongs
to the one who makes
the choice; the god is
blameless.
Sources:
Plato
Socrates: We shall believe that
the soul is immortal and able
to endure every extreme of
good and evil. Thus shall we
always hold to the upward
path and always pursue justice
with wisdom, so we may be
friends to ourselves and to the
gods both during our time
here and afterward, like victors
in the games who go to collect
their prizes.
Socrates
Sources:
Vergil
Roman poet, BCE/CE
Virgil wrote his Aeneid in the years before his death in 19 BCE.
In this poem he treats the origins of the Roman Empire in
mythological form.
An underlying theme is the sorrow and compromise a good man
must make in order to live in a changed, difficult world – like the
one the Romans now found themselves in.
The underworld scene in his Aeneid echoes
Homer, but has its own focus:
A glorious future, built on the tragedies and
losses of the past.
Sources:
Vergil
Aeneas wants to meet his father in the afterlife. To find out
how, he journeys to Cumae and consults the Sibyl.
With the golden bough in his hand, he goes into the cave
that leads to the underworld. Notable encounters:
There are twin gates of Sleep;
one is of horn, through which
easy exit is given to the true
shades. The other is wrought in
shining ivory, but through it the
spirits send false dreams up into
the sky . . . Aeneas left by the
gate of ivory.
•spirits of suicides and murder
victims, still lost in their
sorrows;
•mythic criminals in Tartarus
•souls ready to be launched
into the world for future
generations of Romans.
Elements of the
Afterlife: Styx
Souls must cross the river Styx to
get into the Underworld.
It is the river the gods swear by
when they make and oath.
It was actually a real river in central
Greece. As at Cumae, real and
mythic landscapes mixed.
Another underworld river was the
Acheron.
Lethe was the fountain of
forgetfulness.
“Great crowds of the
dead swarmed out and
rushed on down to the
water, to the slimy banks
of the Styx in an endless
torrent of humans, a
crowd like swirling leaves
that fall from the
branches in autumn . . .
Just so the dead came
stretching their hands in
longing to cross to the
opposite shore.” Vergil
Elements of the
Afterlife: Charon
Charon, the ferryman,
transports the newly dead across
the river Styx.
Bodies were buried with an obol
(small coin) in their mouths, to
pay the ferryman’s fee.
“Charon, whose flaming red eyes
peered over a greasy grey beard . . .
loads the dead to the gunwales of
his rusty, leaky old hull.” Vergil
Elements of the
Afterlife: Cerberus
Cerberus was the threeheaded dog that guarded the
underworld.
The dead would throw him a
honeycake as they entered;
he would let them pass.
Everyone else – keep out!
Cerberus was descended from
Poseidon and Medusa.
Elements of the Afterlife:
Hades & Persephone
Hades is also known as Pluto (“the
enricher”) or by the Romans, as
Dis (“Wealthy”). Why?
Persphone rules at his side.
Other judges of the Underworld
are sometimes shown, such as
Minos or Rhadymanthos.
Coming up before an authority
figure seems to be a common
afterworld image.
Elements of the
Afterlife: Tartarus
Tartarus, the deepest
level of Hades, was
reserved for mythically
outrageous evildoers,
not ordinary “sinners.”
Among them:
The Titans, thrown there
by Zeus.
Tityus, who tried to rape
Leto, now having his
liver eternally eaten out.
Elements of the
Afterlife: Tartarus
Sisyphus, who
told on Zeus for
an affair, and
then tricked
Death. Now he
is condemned to
roll a rock uphill
forever:
And clouds of
dust rose around
his head as he
strained . . .
Elements of the
Afterlife: Tartarus
Tantalus, who fed his
own son to the gods
in a stew.
Tantalus I saw, who was suffering
terrible torments. He stood in a
swampy lake, whose water reached up
to his chin. Strain as he might in his
thirst, he could never drink the water,
which soaked down into the mud at
his feet. From the trees that arched
above his head drooped the richest,
ripest fruit: but whenever he tried to
reach them, a gust of wind blew
them away to the shadowing clouds.
Homer, Odyssey
Elements of the
Afterlife: Tartarus
And Ixion, who tried to
rape Hera, now bound
foerver to a flaming wheel.
Elements of the Afterlife:
The Elysian Fields
AKA Elysium,
the Elysian Fields
are paradise: but
not for ordinary
people, but for
the great heroes
of myth.
Elements of the Afterlife:
The Elysian Fields
It is not your fate,
Menelaus, friend of the
gods, to meet man’s usual
fate. No, the immortals will
send you off to the field of
Elysium, to the very ends of
the earth. Snow never falls,
nor destructive storms or
violent cloudbursts, for the
ocean constantly sends fresh
breezes to brace and refresh
the sprits.
Elements of the Afterlife:
The Soul
The soul was
associated with the
breath – the invisible,
intangible natural
element that
animates the living
body (Powell).
When the breath is
gone, the body is
dead, but where is the
breath?
Elements of the Afterlife:
Burial
Burial is necessary for the dead to
cross over into the Afterlife.
However unpleasant the afterlife
is, being tied to this earth by
unfinished business is worse.
Bodies could be buried or
cremated.
Offerings were commonly left on
important occasions by female
members of the family.
Elements of the Afterlife:
Burial
Even when the deceased is
thought of as gone on to the
next life, artistic representations
show closeness at the tomb.
Here the deceased stands by his
tomb while a female relative
leaves offerings on the other
side.
Democritus: Atomic Soul
•The soul is made of
atoms, spherical and
light, like fire
•When you die, the
absence of breath
triggers the release of
the soul, which return
to the universe as
atoms
finis