There is one more possible trace of the idea that the dead might affect the living to be found in the Homeric poems. We get a glimpse of what looks like hero cult at Iliad 2.547-51, where it is said that the Athenians worship their deceased king Erechtheus alongside Athena in her rich temple, offering yearly sacrifices of bulls and lambs. It is generally agreed among current scholars, on the basis of archaeological evidence, that hero cult began in the eighth century or so-just before or at approximately the same time as most scholars think that the bulk of the Homeric poems were assuming their final forms. If a hero was essentially a dead person who had retained more of his "vitality" after death, or indeed had even become more powerful than he was while alive, then hero cult represents the belief that some very special dead were capable of more than we see them doing in the nekuia of Odyssey 11.17 Granted that they are the exceptions, this passage nonetheless suggests that the notion that some dead might directly affect the living was developing at this time.
Before leaving Homer, we must pause at the issue of how souls were treated in the afterlife. Although this has little direct bearing on the question of whether the dead can interact with the living, there is some connection between the two topics, as discussed in chapter 3; thus it is important to be aware of how such ideas changed. In the nekuia of Odyssey ii, we hear about how Tantalus, Tityus, and Sisyphus suffer great punishments after death. In Odyssey 4, we learn that at least one individual-Menelaus-will escape death altogether and be allowed to dwell forever in the Elysian Fields, an idyllic paradise. Other Homeric passages, such as Iliad 2o.231-35, where Zeus's abduction of Ganymede is narrated, similarly describe individuals being carried off alive to enjoy eternal bliss in lovely places.18 The epic Aethiopis tells of Achilles' conveyance to Leuke, the marvelous "White Island," where he is to spend a very pleasurable eternity.19
Some scholars have argued that these passages prove that at the time they were composed, people already believed that a broad span of possible afterlives were available and that one's behavior or station while alive affected one's postmortem treatment.20 This is incorrect for a number of reasons, however. First, these passages concern extraordinary individuals. The crimes of the great sinners were against the gods, and like others who had offended the gods-Niobe, for example-they had to be punished to an extraordinary degree; most especially, they had to be punished for eternity and in unusual ways. It is notable that their punishments take place in the Underworld, but this may be nothing more than a way of making the punishment more odious by situating it in the most unpleasant realm imaginable. Additionally, situating the punishments in the Underworld may be a way of moving them outside of the normal world into the marginal sort of location where fantastic things occur. Niobe's punishment similarly takes place on Mt. Sipylus in Asia Minor, "somewhere among the rocks, in the lonely mountains, near the resting place of the goddess-nymphs," and Prometheus's in the distant Caucasus mountains.21 Those who won paradisical existences were extraordinary as well. Menelaus was rewarded because he was Zeus's sonin-law; Ganymede because he was Zeus's beloved.22 Neither of these groups of people-the sinners or the favored-are anything like ordinary people, and neither group, therefore, are meant to serve as models for what might happen to those listening to the poems. It is not until the fifth century, in Pindar, that we find clear evidence for punishment after death, and not until the fourth century, in the context of the gold tablets from southern Italy, that we find ordinary mortals claiming to become anything like a god after death.23
We also have to wonder whether these extraordinary people were really imagined to be dead, at least in the same sense as ordinary people would be one day. To be snatched away by the gods before life was over is not at all the same thing as dying. Proteus explicitly tells Menelaus that he will be carried away by the immortals instead of dying.24 That is part of the boon that these individuals were granted: they avoid the pain and distress that accompany the passage from life into death. The great sinners probably were not imagined as having died in any traditional sense either. Tityus was the son of Gala, and Tantalus was the son of Zeus and a minor Titan; neither of them, in other words, were necessarily mortal in the normal sense to begin with.25 Each of these stories makes a point (do not offend the gods; the gods' favor is valuable), but none of them can be used to delineate beliefs about what would happen to real people in the afterlife. The most we can say is that the stories would have helped to pave the way for later beliefs in a system of universal postmortem rewards and punishments, although it must be noted that the punishments expected by ordinary mortals even in those later times-an eternity in muck or dung, for example-bear no resemblance to the spectacular ones suffered by the Homeric sinners.26
Achilles' afterlife requires a bit more comment before we leave this topic. Anthony Edwards has shown that the end described for Achilles in the Aethiopis-miraculous translation to the paradisical island of Leuke-was the standard version of what happened to Achilles after death at the time that the Odyssey was reaching its final form. What we hear about in the Odyssey-Achilles' glum existence in a gloomy Hades-is the poet's innovation, a contradiction of the established story. Edwards suggests that the Odyssean fate, which also is intimated in the Iliad, moves Achilles out of the class of heroes and into the class of mortals; this serves certain thematic purposes in the two poems. This is surely correct, but I would emphasize that for the twist to work, the glum existence in Hades must have been understood by the audience as being normal for mortals; this is the dominant paradigm from which the extraordinary, heroic Achilles escapes in the standard version of his story that we find in the Aethiopis. Indeed, if we were to assume, with Anthony Edwards, Ian Morris, and others, that the average listener had some hope of achieving an idyllic afterlife, then Achilles' fate in the Odyssey would have to be read as an exceptionally harsh end for the son of Thetis and a favorite of the all of the gods.27 Surely this could not have been the poet's intention.21
ODYSSEY 24
Because I agree with many scholars that the final book of the Odyssey was composed later than the rest of the two poems'29 I shall discuss it separately. It presents one significant contrast with what I have just described. Although their bodies still lie unburied, the souls of the suitors are able to meet with and talk to the souls of Achilles, Ajax, Agamemnon, and others who have received proper burial.30 This should be impossible, given the rule that the unburied could not enter Hades. It is not enough just to say that the poet ignored the rule because he wanted to introduce the great heroes of the Trojan War into his scene. In order to get away with this, he needed an audience that would not be bothered by the contradiction. In other words, we must assume that the rule that lack of burial led to exclusion from the Underworld was no longer hard and fast by the time that book z.4 was composed. This does not mean that it could not still be invoked as a reason for a soul's anger and subsequent persecution of the living, as we shall see from later evidence, but rather that the causal connection between lack of burial and exclusion had slackened. This is a good example of how seemingly contradictory eschatological beliefs can coexist; the individual or society calls now on one belief, now on the other, as a situation requires.
It is also notable that book 24 is our earliest portrayal of Hermes as a psychopompos (lines i-io). This is our first indication that the gods have any control over the movement of souls between the two worlds. Although it would be risky to conclude from the absence of Hermes as psychopompos in other parts of the poems that the role developed only after their composition, the absence is nonetheless striking. Other Homeric descriptions of passages to the Underworld portray souls as simply flying away from their bodies, suggesting that in the view of this poet, transition to death was swift and simple, requiring no divine aid.31 As we shall see, the need for psychopompos not only persisted but apparently grew as time went on: by the time of the epic Minyas, Charon had joined Hermes in this role.32
The geography of the passage to the Underworld is given in some detai
l in book 24. The poet mentions dank pathways, the Ocean's stream, the White Rock, the Gates of Helios, the Country of Dreams, and a Meadow of Asphodel where the souls congregate.33 Sourvinou-Inwood has hypothesized that this geographical detail, as well as the introduction of Hermes as a psychompompic god, reflects a growing concern at the time of book 24's composition with the physical boundaries between life and death.34 The passage from book a4, however, is not the only place in which Underworld geography is given in detail. The Ocean's stream and the Meadow of Asphodel are mentioned in books io and i during descriptions of the Underworld, as is a rock that lies at the entrance to the Underworld (although it is not specifically called a white rock).35 When Circe tells Odysseus how to get to the border between the upper and lower worlds, she also mentions woods, groves of Persephone, tall black poplars, sterile willows, and four separate, named rivers of the Underworld. We hear about the Cimmerians, a race of people who live close to the border, in eternal darkness, too.36 Such geographic and ethnographic details would be at home in tales of heroic descents to the Underworld, which predate the Odyssey as we know it and which do not, I would add, necessarily have any connection with beliefs concerning the average person's travels back and forth.37 The interest is analogous to that shown in the details of the Phaeacians' island or Aeolus's palace: descriptions of exotic, distant lands are always fascinating. The interest in Underworld geography persists even as other eschatological beliefs change, as we shall see. Alone, therefore, it is not a good barometer by which to measure those changes.
OTHER MATERIAL FROM THE EPIC CYCLE; HESIOD; THE HYMNS
Fragments of the epic cycle38 have little to say about our topic. The only substantial mention of interaction between the dead and the living comes from the Nostoi, where the ghost (eidolon) of Achilles appears to the Greeks leaving Troy and tries to prevent their departure by foretelling the doom that awaits them.39 This might be taken to indicate that even the ghosts of the properly buried could return to the upper world, although as a hero, Achilles could also be understood as an exception to the rules that govern the ordinary dead-we have already seen that different epic traditions had different ideas about the fate of Achilles' soul. The passage is also our first indication that the dead might give advice to the living, a role they continue to play throughout antiquity either of their own volition or, later, when asked to do so through ritual S.40
Hesiod,41 in lines rzr-z3 and 1z6 of his Works and Days, tells about how the privileged dead of the Golden Race return to earth to protect the living and bestow wealth upon them. Some scholars have interpreted a later passage (z5z-55) as indicating that these souls of the Golden Race also play a role in punishing the misbehavior of the living. It describes the 30,000 deathless guardians of mortals who "keep a watch over lawsuits and wicked acts, wandering over all the earth, clothed in mist." The latter two lines of this passage are also inserted by some manuscripts after line 11z3, in the middle of Hesiod's description of the Golden Race, which would serve to equate the souls of the Golden Race with the 30,000 deathless guardians.42 Martin West objects to including these lines in the earlier passage because in his view it is inappropriate for those who bestow gifts on mortals to serve as a "secret police" as well, but the objection does not hold water: the preservation of justice is just as great a boon as wealth or any other benefit that the Golden Race souls might bring.43 Indeed, the importance of justice for preserving any other good that might befall mortals is one of the pervasive themes of the Works and Days.
But however that issue might be settled, we must take note of the fact that the souls of the Golden Race are an extraordinary type of dead, elevated by Zeus to something very near the status of gods. Like the Phaea- cians of the Odyssey, they are described as "dear to the gods" and as daimones, a term that in Hesiod's day still served primarily as a synonym for theoi. Neither the honored dead of the Silver Race-second only to the Golden in perfection-nor those of the Heroic Race are said to interact with the living. The former are blessed after death but dwell under the ground; the latter dwell in bliss at the ends of the Earth, as Proteus says that Menelaus will, and as Achilles is said to do in the Aethiopis.44 Nothing at all is said about what happens to souls of our own age. Hesiod, then, makes no reference to the possibility that the ordinary dead might return to interact with the living. This silence is particularly striking given that the poem ends with a list of warnings about unlucky acts and dangerous situations that the listener must avoid. Surely, if fear of the returning dead were rampant, we would find it reflected here.45
One other work composed at about this time must be considered: the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.46 It makes no mention of the dead returning to interact with the living, but it does demonstrate that the boundary between the upper world and the Underworld was permeable; if Persephone could pass back and forth, perhaps others could as well. Hecate's role as her propolos and opaon, her companion and guide, during this journey is especially interesting in this respect because it seems to reflect Hecate's role as the mistress of the dead and the goddess who could lead them forth into the upper world or restrain them in the Underworld as she wished. As we shall see in chapter 6, Hecate's association with Persephone, a paradigmatic virgin, seems also to articulate the reason that Hecate took on the role of mistress of ghosts in the first place.47 Thus in this, one of Hecate's earliest appearances in Greek literature, we find her already fulfilling the duties for which she was most highly valued in later times.
The Hymn is also important because it introduces the idea that all individuals will be punished or rewarded after death for their behavior during life. We also find this idea in Pindar, for example, and it becomes quite common during the classical period. According to some ancient texts, including the myth that concluded Plato's Republic, the choice between reward and punishment depended on the individual's conduct during life; other texts, including the Hymn and a fragment of Pindar, promised that by undertaking special rites while alive, anyone might win postmortem rewards-perhaps even an afterlife that included sunlight, feasting, and beautiful surroundings, similar to the paradisical existence promised to heroes in earlier works.48 Thus were introduced not only the possibility of a better afterlife but the necessity of worrying about one's afterlife while still alive and of wondering about the condi tion of other people who had died. Death and the dead became objects of greater concern precisely because variation had been introduced.
One more important idea introduced during the later archaic age was that of metempsychosis. Our earliest extant references to it are from the first half of the fifth century, in Pindar and Empedocles, but ancient sources insist on crediting it to Pherecydes and Pythagoras, who lived about a century earlier, as well.49 Pindar's mention of it is particularly important because his poetry circulated widely throughout Greece during the fifth century. By the turn of that century, the idea of metempsychosis was familiar enough to well-educated Athenians to be used in Plato's dialogues without further explanation. Judging from comments made by Plato and Aristotle, metempsychosis was taught in association with the Orphic mysteries, which might imply that an even wider segment of the population knew the concept (although we cannot be sure that all rituals or beliefs called "Orphic" by ancient authors were necessarily part of all "Orphic" initiations).50 Metempsychosis, like belief in a system of postmortem rewards and punishments, assumes an expectation that souls will be treated as individuals after death, and it therefore also indicates, again, that we have moved quite a bit away from the Homeric picture of an afterlife in which all are treated equally. Of similar import is the belief that the souls of the living can temporarily separate themselves from their bodies to wander abroad for periods of time, which also shows up first in the late archaic age.51
One more important idea can be found in Empedocles' poetry. In fragment ioi, he boasts that he will teach his students to lead souls back out of Hades. This claim is confirmed by comments made by his pupil Gorgias and by the remarks of later authors such as Diogenes Laertiu
s.52 This art, properly called either psychagogia or goeteia, is analyzed in depth in chapter 3, but I should note here that Empedocles' poem is one of the earliest mentions we have of the very important idea that the dead not only were capable of returning on their own but could be made to return by actions performed by the living.
LYRIC POETRY, EPINICIAN POETRY
It is not surprising that we derive little information about the status and activity of the dead from this body of literature, for most of it is concerned with the immediacies of life-love, war, athletic glory, and the pleasures of the symposium. When death is mentioned, it usually is by way of contrast. Thus, for example, Stesichorus, fragment 244:
Restless Dead Page 3