Note 7 — Chapter XII · THE LAY AUTHORS

Mimn. ii, 13: ἄλλος δ’ αὗ παίδων ἐπιδεύεται, ὧντε μάλιστα ἱμείρων κατὰ γῆς ἔρχεται εἰς Ἀΐδην. Without children there can be no assurance that the cult of the soul will be carried on. But we may well believe that the attaching of so much importance to offspring was assisted by the natural human belief that the man who left children behind him on earth did not completely perish in death (hence ἀειγενές ἐστι καὶ ἀθάνατον ὡς θνητῷ ἡ γέννησις as in Plato, Smp. 206 E). This alone gives a meaning and a reason for the widespread belief among the Greeks that the wicked man who is punished after his death in his children and children’s children himself feels that punishment.