Note 257 — Chapter III · (continued 3)

This weighing of the actions of the deceased was represented in the illustrated specimens of the Ritual of the Dead and upon the walls of the tombs, and perhaps upon those monuments decorated with Egyptian motives which were sprinkled by the Phœnicians over the whole basin of the Mediterranean. Coming under the eyes of the Greeks, it was modified by their lively imaginations into that ψυχοστασία, or weighing of souls, which we find in the Iliad (xxii. 208-212), where success in a combat between two heroes depends upon the result of that operation. (See Alfred Maury, Revue archéologique, 1844, pp. 235-249, 291-307; 1845, pp. 707-717, and De Witte, ibidem, 1844, pp. 647-656.)