The Afterlife

1
The Afterlife

• Hades, Elysium, Mysteries, and Reincarnation

2
Sources Homer
Greek Epic Poet, c. 700 BCE
The Iliad, focusing on warriors 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.
3
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.
4
Sources Homer
Finally, Odysseus sees Achilles. No one,
Achilles, of all men past or yet to be born is
more blessed than you . . .
Achilles Dont you attempt to instruct me on
death, O learned Odysseus! Better to be a
sharecropper on some poor landholders farm, a
man who is landless and hungry himself, than here
to be ruler of all these shriveled-up dead.
5
Sources Homer

• Homers 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 Homers underworld represent the average
Greeks idea of the afterlife, or is it partly a
literary creation, or a one-sided view of the
possibile fates of the soul?
6
Sources Plato
Greek Philosopher, c. 370 BCE
Like his views of Eros, Platos 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.
7
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
8
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.
9
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

• 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.

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.
10
Elements of the Afterlife Styx
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
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.
11
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
ferrymans 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
12
Elements of the Afterlife Cerberus
Cerberus was the three-headed 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.
13
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.
14
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.
15
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 . . .
16
Elements of the Afterlife Tartarus
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
Tantalus, who fed his own son to the gods in a
stew.
17
Elements of the Afterlife Tartarus
And Ixion, who tried to rape Hera, now bound
foerver to a flaming wheel.
18
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.
19
Elements of the Afterlife The Elysian Fields
It is not your fate, Menelaus, friend of the
gods, to meet mans 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.
20
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?
21
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.
22
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.
23
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

24
finis