Moreira, Isabel, and Margaret Toscano (eds.). Hell and Its Afterlife: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010.
Rowell, Geoffrey. Hell and the Victorians: A Study of the Nineteenth-Century Theological Controversies Concerning Eternal Punishment and the Future Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974.
Turner, Alice K. The History of Hell. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993.
Walker, D. P. The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal Torment. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1964.
Wheeler, Michael. Death and the Future Life in Victorian Literature and Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Acknowledgments
This book is in many respects a companion volume to The Penguin Book of the Undead (Penguin Classics, 2016). Like that book, it owes its existence to the vision and generosity of my editor, John Siciliano. The support of a Faculty Fellowship from the Center for the Humanities and Arts at the University of Colorado at Boulder freed me from my teaching duties in the fall of 2017, thereby allowing me to devote all of my time to conducting the research and preparing the translations for this book. My thanks to the Fiend Club (Sean Babbs, Tom Bartovics, Sarah Luginbill, and Amanda Racine) for reading the manuscript and saving me from many damning errors. I am especially grateful to Anne E. Lester, who suffered along with me on this journey through the darkest channels of the human imagination.
REALMS FORBIDDEN TO THE LIVING: ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME
Under the pitiless skies of the ancient world, human beings held out hope that their mortal lives were not the sum of their entire existence, but the prospects for the afterlife were usually grim. In the early civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, most people who survived to adulthood toiled as subsistence farmers, whose lives were ended at an early age by injury, illness, and childbirth. The threat of death haunted their every step. In Mesopotamian lore, individual souls were not singled out for punishment in the otherworld; the end of life brought the same bleak fate to everyone, irrespective of their station in life. Upon death, souls entered “the world of no return,” where they resided below the ground as insubstantial shadows in a “house of dust.” It is no surprise that their ancient myths betrayed an interest in the defeat of this loathsome kind of death. In the earliest surviving work of human literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2100 BCE), a Mesopotamian king undertook a perilous voyage to discover the secret of immortality to escape the fate of all mortals, only to learn that it was unattainable. Only the gods lived forever.
For their part, the ancient Egyptians nurtured a less somber view of the afterlife than their Mesopotamian neighbors. By the time of the Middle Kingdom (2055–1650 BCE), they held the firm belief that the realm of the dead was open to all people. Unlike other ancient cultures, however, they believed that a person’s experience in the next life was intimately bound with her conduct in this one. Egyptians who lived in accordance with ma’at (an ethical disposition characterized by kindness and justice) could expect to enter the bountiful halls of Osiris. Those whose consciences betrayed them when the death god Anubis weighed their hearts against a feather (the symbol of ma’at) faced a terrifying second death. Flame-faced spirits waited to “hack them asunder” and cast them into pits of fire.
Ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian traditions about the afterlife did not carry the same weight in Western culture as the stories told by the Greeks and later by the Romans. There was no ethical judgment of ordinary souls in the Greek underworld. The spirits of human beings inhabited the grim abode of Hades as listless shades, stripped of every remnant of their former selves except for their sad memories of the lives they once lived. When the hero Odysseus visited the House of Death, an episode recounted in Homer’s Odyssey, the ghost of the mighty warrior Achilles warned him that the afterlife was a pitiful state of existence: “No winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus! By god, I’d rather slave on earth for another man—some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive—than rule down here over all the breathless dead” (The Odyssey 11.488–91).
As depicted by Homer and other ancient poets, the Greek underworld was a gloomy realm inhabited not only by the shades of the departed, but also by mythological monsters, like the three-headed dog Cerberus, who prevented the dead from escaping the kingdom of Hades. The deepest section of the underworld was called Tartarus. It served as a prison for the rebellious Titans and as a place of torment for mythical figures like Tityos, Tantalus, and Sisyphus, who merited eternal punishments for their affronts against the gods. A few centuries later, however, a democratization of the punitive afterlife had occurred. Around 400 BCE, the philosopher Socrates and his interlocutors could imagine a fate in which the souls of the dead endured pain for the crimes committed while they were alive. Later still, we find the Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BCE) depicting the underworld as a place where ordinary people could expect to suffer tortures for a litany of offenses. He singled out those who sowed discord in their families, perpetrated fraud, hoarded wealth, killed for adultery, committed treason, and broke oaths, “all of them, walled up here, wait to meet their doom” (The Aeneid 6.709–10). The Aeneid of Virgil became the most formative and widely read source of ancient pagan beliefs about the underworld, shaping all subsequent accounts of the punitive afterlife in the Christian era that followed.
TARTARUS, PRISON OF THE TITANS1
One of the most ancient Greek poets was Hesiod, who flourished in the decades around 700 BCE. Among his many surviving poems is the Theogony (“The Birth of the Gods”), which describes the origins of the cosmos and the genealogies of the ancient Greek deities. Central to the poem is the story of the Titanomachy, the struggle waged by Zeus and the Olympian gods against an older generation of divine beings—Zeus’s father, Kronos, and the Titans—for control of the universe. After their defeat in a decade-long battle, the Titans were banished to a subterranean realm, “to misty Tartarus, as far beneath / the earth, as earth is far beneath the heavens.” Zeus stationed his allies, the hundred-handed giants Gyes, Kottos, and Briareus, at the gates of Tartarus to ensure that the Titans would never escape. Hesiod envisioned this dark realm primarily as a place of perpetual imprisonment, but he singled out at least one of the Titans for everlasting punishment: Atlas, the “son of Iapetos,” who was condemned for all eternity to hold up “broad heaven with his head and hands.”
According to the Theogony, the vanquished Titans were not the only inhabitants of Tartarus. The deep recesses of the earth were also the abode of several Olympian gods, who by their very nature felt most at home beyond the reach of the sun’s rays. Nyx, the personification of the night, dwelled there, along with her children, the “dread gods” Sleep and his brother Death, whom the other Olympians feared. Zeus’s older sibling Hades was the monarch of this lower world, where he ruled with his fearsome bride Persephone. A monstrous dog, Cerberus, guarded their “echoing mansion,” welcoming visitors with his wagging tail but devouring anyone who tried to leave. Earlier in the poem, Hesiod recounted that Cerberus was one of the fierce progeny of the serpentine Echidna and the giant Typhon, who together spawned many of the monsters of Greek antiquity. Unlike most ancient authors, however, the poet described Cerberus as an unspeakable, flesh-eating, “bronze-voiced” hound with no fewer than fifty heads.
The boundless sea roared terribly around,
The great earth rumbled, and broad heaven groaned,
Shaken; and tall Olympus was disturbed
Down to its roots, when the immortals charged.
The heavy quaking from their footsteps reached
Down to dark Tartarus, and piercing sounds
Of awful battle, and their mighty shafts.
They hurled their wounding missiles, and the voice
Of both sides, shouting, reached the starry sky,
And when they met, their ALALE! was great.2
Then Zeus no long
er checked his rage, for now
His heart was filled with fury, and he showed
The full range of his strength. He came from heaven
And from Olympus, growing brighter as he came,
Continuously; from his mighty hand
The bolts kept flying, bringing thunder-claps
And lightning-flashes, while the holy flame
Rolled thickly all around. The fertile earth
Being burned, roared out, the voiceless forest cried
And crackled with the fire; the whole earth boiled
And ocean’s streams, and the unfruitful sea.
The hot blast reached the earthborn Titans; flame
Unspeakable rose to the upper air;
The flashing brightness of the thunderbolt
And lightning blinded all, however strong;
The awful heat reached Chaos. To the ear
It sounded, to the eye it looked as though
Broad Heaven were coming down upon the Earth:
For such a noise of crashing might arise
If she were falling, hurled down by his fall.
Just such a mighty crash rose from the gods
Meeting in strife. The howling winds brought on
Dust storm and earthquake, and the shafts of Zeus,
Lightning and thunder and the blazing bolt,
And carried shouting and the battle-cry
Into the armies, and a dreadful noise
Of hideous battle sounded, and their deeds
Were mighty, but the tide of war was turned:
Until that moment, they had kept it up
Continually, in the long, hard fight.
Among those gods who made the fighting harsh
Foremost were Kottos and Briareus
And Gyes, who loved war insatiably.
With their strong hands, they hurled three hundred rocks
In quick succession; with their missiles, they
Overshadowed the Titans, put them down
In everlasting shade. Under the earth
Broad-pathed, they sent them, and they bound them up
In painful chains. Proud though the Titans were,
They were defeated by those hands, and sent
To misty Tartarus, as far beneath
The earth, as earth is far beneath the heavens.
An anvil made of bronze, falling from heaven,
Would fall nine nights and days, and on the tenth
Would reach the earth: and if the anvil fell
From earth, would fall again nine nights and days
And come to Tartarus upon the tenth.
A wall of bronze runs around Tartarus,
And round this runs a necklace, triple-thick,
Of purest Night, while up above there grow
The roots of earth and of the barren sea.
There, in the misty dark, the Titan gods
Are hidden, in a moldering place, lowest
And last of giant Earth, by the will of Zeus
Who drives the clouds, and they may never leave.
Poseidon set bronze gates upon the place,
And all around it runs a wall; there live
Gyes, Kottos, and Briareus
As faithful guards, for aegis-bearing Zeus.
And there, in order, are the ends and springs
Of gloomy earth and misty Tartarus,
And of the barren sea and starry heaven,
Murky and awful, loathed by the very gods.
There is the yawning mouth of hell, and if
A man should find himself inside the gates
He would not reach the bottom for a year;
Gust after savage gust would carry him
Now here, now there. Even the deathless gods
Find this an awesome mystery. Here, too,
Is found the fearsome home of dismal Night
Hidden in dark blue clouds. Before her house
The son of Iapetos, unshakeable,
Holds up broad heaven with his head and hands
Untiring, in the place where Night and Day
Approach and greet each other, as they cross
The great bronze threshold. When the one goes in
The other leaves; never are both at home,
But always one, outside, crosses the earth,
The other waits at home until her hour
For journeying arrives. The one brings light
All-seeing, to the earth, but deadly Night,
The other, hidden in dark clouds, brings Sleep,
Brother of Death, and carries him in her arms.
There live the children of dark Night, dread gods,
Sleep and his brother Death. The shining Sun
Has never looked upon them with his rays
Not going up to heaven, nor coming back.
The one of them is kind to men and goes
Peacefully over the earth and the sea’s broad back;
The other’s heart is iron; in his breast
Is pitiless bronze; if he should touch a man,
That man is his. And even to the gods
Who are immortal, Death is an enemy.
There, further on, the echoing mansion stands
Of mighty Hades, god of the lower world,
And feared Persephone. A monstrous dog
Stands pitiless guard in front, with evil ways:
He wags his tail and both his ears for all
Who enter, but he will not let them go.
Lying in wait he eats up anyone
He catches leaving by the gates of strong
Hades and greatly feared Persephone.
NETHERWORLD MEGAFAUNA1
In the ancient imagination, the monstrous dog Cerberus guarded the gateway to the kingdom of the dead, the dominion of his masters Hades and Persephone. He was a warden of the shades rather than a tormentor, his presence a firm reminder of the perpetual boundary that separated the living from the deceased. Although he was frightful to behold, Cerberus was not particularly effective at keeping Greek heroes from entering the underworld. When Eurydice died from a snakebite, her heartbroken husband, the mythical singer Orpheus, descended to Hades to retrieve her. At the gates, he easily lulled Cerberus to sleep with his song and snuck past. Likewise, in a famous cycle of myths, the hero Heracles subdued the hound of Hades with the help of Theseus as the last of the twelve tasks imposed on him by King Eurystheus of Argos. Ancient authors and artists depicted the labors of Heracles in plays and on pottery for centuries, but the most detailed rendering of his struggle with Cerberus appeared in the first century CE in a Latin tragedy composed by Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BCE–65 CE) called The Madness of Heracles (Hercules furens). Narrated by Theseus, Seneca’s play depicted the hero fighting the monstrous dog with nothing more than a club and no protection except for the pelt of the invulnerable Nemean Lion, a trophy from his first labor. The submission of Cerberus, depicted here in his traditional three-headed form, proved once and for all the unearthly strength of the unassailable Heracles.
After this, the palace of grasping Dis [Hades] comes into view. Here a savage Stygian dog [Cerberus] guards the kingdom and terrorizes the shades of the dead, shaking his three heads with a devastating bark. Serpents lick his gore-stained head, his mane bristles with vipers, and his twisted tail hisses like a long dragon. His wrath matches his form. When he senses footfalls, he raises his hairy mane with its writhing snakes and with a cocked ear he catches any sound made, for he is accustomed to perceive even the shades of the dead. When the son of Jupiter [Heracles] stood nearby, the dog sat hesitant in his cave and felt a touch of fear—then behold, he terrified those silent places with a great barking. The menacing serpents hissed from both of his shoulders. The boo
ming of his horrifying bark from his three mouths terrified even the blessed shades [in Elysium]. Then Heracles released the grinning pelt [of the Nemean Lion] from his left arm and positioned the Cleonaean head to protect himself beneath its ample covering. Wielding a massive club in his conquering right hand, he swung now here, now there with an unrelenting assault, repeating his attacks. Subdued, the dog gave up his threats, lowered all his heads in exhaustion, and departed from his cave. Sitting on their thrones, each of its masters [Hades and Persephone] shuddered in fear and ordered Cerberus to be taken away. They also released me [Theseus] as a favor at Heracles’ request.
Then, stroking the monster’s heavy necks with his hand, Heracles bound him with a collar of adamant. Once the sleepless guardian of that kingdom of the shades, the dog forgot himself, lowered his ears as though tame, and suffered himself to be led, acknowledging his master, following with his muzzles restrained, while his snake-bearing tail beat both of his sides. Afterward, when they came to the shores of Taenarum and the strange brightness of an unknown light struck his eyes, though subdued, Cerberus recovered his spirit and shook his great chains in anger. The dog almost carried away his captor, dragging him back bent forward and forcing him to yield a step. Then Heracles looked even for my help and with our combined strength we both dragged the dog, mad with wrath and waging a futile war, and brought the beast to the surface. When Cerberus saw the brightness of the day and looked upon the clear expanse of the shining sky, night fell upon the dog as he cast his gaze to the ground, closed his eyes, and expelled the day unseen. He turned back his face and with each of his necks he sought the earth, then hid his heads beneath Heracles’ shadow. But then, with joyous cries a great crowd arrived, bearing laurel wreathes on their brows and singing worthy praises of great Heracles.
ODYSSEUS AT DEATH’S DOOR1
Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey (c. 700 BCE) offers one of the earliest and most vivid glimpses of the punitive afterlife in the ancient imagination. It tells the story of the decade-long voyage of Odysseus, a Greek veteran of the Trojan War, back to his home on the island of Ithaca. Hindered on his return voyage by the sea god Poseidon, Odysseus takes the advice of the enchantress Circe to venture to the threshold of the underworld to consult with the ghost of Tiresias of Thebes, a famous seer, about how best to return to Ithaca. In Homer’s story, the land of the dead is not deep beneath the earth but on a dark and distant shore: “the Ocean River’s bounds, where Cimmerian people have their homes—their realm and city shrouded in mist and cloud.” There Odysseus performs a necromantic ritual and speaks to the souls of the dead who answer his summons, including the shade of his own mother. The last to approach him is the ghost of Ajax, a hero of the Trojan War who fought alongside Odysseus but took his own life after the two quarreled over the possession of the god-forged armor of their fallen ally Achilles. As Ajax’s shade recedes in resentful silence, Odysseus peers deeper into the darkness of Erebus to glimpse “men who died in the old days.” Much to his horror, he beholds the endless torments of the Titans before fear forces his retreat back to his waiting ship.
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