Abstract
According to Plotinus’ exegesis of Homer’s Odyssey 11.601-2, Heracles’ image or shadow is in Hades, but he himself is among the gods (Ennead I.1[53].12; see also IV.3 [27].32). I shall explore the distinctions between living body, shadow and self as these affect Mediterranean thought about the Afterlife from the seventh century BC to the fifth AD. There was no one universal and coherent account in those years, either of the individual self or of the afterlife: for some, all that survived was memory; others might expect a simple repetition of our lives over infinite time or space; others again, from early until late, supposed that we were spirits, with no essential identity with our living bodies. Schematically, very different Spenglerian cultures develop in those centuries, despite the use of similar terms (like psyche) to describe – in Egyptian terms – both ka and ba.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For further on the distinct roles of hero or heroine and god or goddess see Lyons (1997).
- 2.
Otherwise called the Conflagration – not all Stoics agreed that there was such a different phase of cosmic history, perhaps because it was always already true that there were no really distinct entities, but ‘God’ was already All.
- 3.
As translated by John Conington (1865): ‘And now ‘tis done: more durable than brass/ My monument shall be, and raise its head/ O’er royal pyramids: it shall not dread/ Corroding rain or angry Boreas, / Nor the long lapse of immemorial time. / I shall not wholly die: large residue/ Shall ‘scape the queen of funerals’. See West (2002: 259–68). West (2002: 262–3) points out that the use of ‘Libitina’ as a metonym for death and burial has a sardonic side – it might evoke a memory of victims torn apart in the Roman arena.
- 4.
Think of all possible worlds as numbered from 1 to Forever (infinite number). Now notice that there are just as many even numbers as there are numbers. Indeed there are just as many multiples of a google as there are numbers. So all the infinitely many actual worlds (thinking of them as having n*google as their number) might only be a subset of all the infinitely many possible worlds.
- 5.
The argument, often repeated in modern humanist literature, is not compelling: if I lose my wits I may not – then – much mind. It does not follow that I am foolish to mind now that someday I may lose them. Absolute annihilation is no less fearful because I shall not be there to see it.
- 6.
A term to be preferred to ‘atoms’ to avoid misleading associations with modern atomic theory.
- 7.
I have sought to place Classical thought and feeling in its full Mediterranean context in Clark (2013).
- 8.
See Paul Veyne (1988 [1983]).
- 9.
For further details of the Plotinian or Neo-Platonic way see Clark (2016).
References
Assman, Jan (2014) Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt, tr. David Lorton. Cornell University Press: New York. (2nd ed)
Betegh, Gábor (2004) The Derveni Papyrus: Cosmology, Theology and Interpretation. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Bremmer, Jan N. (1983) The Early Greek Concept of the Soul. Princeton University Press: Princeton.
Bremmer, Jan N. (2002) The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife. Routledge: London.
Burgess, Jonathan S. (2009) The Death and Afterlife of Achilles. Johns Hopkins Press: Baltimore.
Chuang Tzu: “Mystical Way of Chuang Tzu” in Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy, ed. and tr. Wing-tsit Chan (1963). Princeton University Press: Princeton.
Clark Stephen R. L. (2016) Plotinus: Myth, Metaphor and Philosophical Practice. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
Clark, Stephen R.L. (1975) Aristotle’s Man: Speculations Upon Aristotelian Anthropology. Clarendon Press: Oxford.
Clark, Stephen R. L. (2008) ‘Can Animals be our Friends?’: Philosophy Now 67: 13–16.
Clark, Stephen R.L. (2013) Ancient Mediterranean Philosophy. Continuum: London.
Conington, J. (1865) (trans.) Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace. Bell and Daldy: London.
Culianu, Ioan Petru (1983) Psychanodia I: A Survey of the Evidence Concerning the Ascension of the Soul and its Relevance. Brill: Leiden.
Epicurus Letter to Menoeceus: Diogenes Laertius Lives of Eminent Philosophers, tr. R. D. Hicks (1925) Loeb Classical Library, Heinemann: London.
Eusebius Praeparatio Evangelica 15.20, 6, tr. E. H. Gifford (1903). Clarendon Press: Oxford. Eds: A. A. Long & D. N. Sedley (1987) The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol 1. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Finamore, John (1985) Iamblichus and the Theory of the Vehicle of the Soul. American Philological Association, Scholars Press: Chico.
Griffith, R.Drew (2001) “Sailing to Elysium: Menelaus’ Afterlife (Odyssey 4.561–569) and Egyptian Religion”: Phoenix 55: 213–243.
Günter Zuntz (1971) Persephone: Three Essays on Religion and Thought in Magna Graecia. Clarendon Press: Oxford.
Heath, John (2005) ‘Blood for the Dead: Homeric Ghosts Speak Up’: Hermes 133.4: 389–400
Hillman, James (1979) The Dream and the Underworld. Harper: New York.
Lyons, Deborah (1997) Gender and Immortality: Heroines in Ancient Greek Myth and Cult. Princeton University Press: Princeton.
Moore, C.H. (2010 [1931]) Ancient Beliefs in the Immortality of the Soul, with some account of their influence on later views. Kessinger Publishing: Whitefish, Montana.
Morenz, Siegfried (1973 [1960]) Egyptian Religion, tr. Ann E. Keep. Cornell University Press: New York.
Origen Contra Celsum tr. Henry Chadwick (1953). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Proclus, Elements of Theology. Ed: E. R. Dodds (1963). Clarendon Press: Oxford.
Richardson, N. J. (1985) “Early Greek views about life after death”. Eds: P. E. Easterling & J. V. Muir. Greek Religion and Society. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Rist, J. M. (1967) Plotinus: The Road to Reality. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Rohde, Erwin (2010 [1925]) Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks. Routledge: London.
Segal, Alan F. (2004) Life after Death: A History of the Afterlife. Doubleday: New York.
Simplicius On Aristotle Physics 4.1-5, 10–14, tr. J. O. Urmson (1995). Duckworth: London
Simplicius, On Aristotle Physics 5, tr. J. O. Urmson (1997). Duckworth: London.
Sorabji, Richard (2005) Philosophy of the Commentators 200–600 AD: Vol.3 Logic and Metaphysics. Cornell University Press: New York.
Spengler, Oswald (1991 [1918 1923]), The Decline of the West. Eds: Arthur Helps, and Helmut Werner; tr. Charles F. Atkinson. Oxford University Press: New York.
Stamatellos, Giannis (2013) ‘Plotinus on Transmigration: A Reconsideration’ Journal of Ancient Philosophy 7: 49–64.
Sullivan, Francis A., S.J. (1942) ‘Horace and the Afterlife’: Classical Philology 37.3: 275–287.
Veyne, Paul (1988 [1983]) Did the Greeks Believe in their Myths? An Essay on the Constitutive Imagination, tr. Paual Wissing. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
W. D. Ross (1952) Works of Aristotle Vol 12: Select Fragments. Oxford University Press: London.
Waterfield, Robin (2000) (ed.), The First Philosophers: the Presocratics and Sophists. Oxford University Press: New York.
West, David (2002) Horace Odes III Dulce Periculum: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Clark, S.R.L. (2017). Classical Mediterranean Conceptions of the Afterlife. In: Nagasawa, Y., Matheson, B. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the Afterlife. Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48609-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48609-7_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-48608-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-48609-7
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)