Note 52 — Chapter XIV · THE LATER AGE OF THE GREEK WORLD PART I PHILOSOPHY

—καὶ γὰρ οὐδὲ τὰς ψυχὰς ἔνεστιν ὑπονοῆσαι κάτω φερομένας. λεπτομερεῖς γὰρ οὖσαι εἰς τοὺς ἄνω μᾶλλον τόπους κουφοφοροῦσιν, S.E., M. ix, 71. This physical reason was in itself enough to make it impossible for the Stoics to believe in a subterranean region of the souls: οὐδεὶς Ἅιδης, οὐδ’ Ἀχέρων, οὐδὲ Κωκυτός κτλ., Epict. iii, 13, 15. It is the regular Stoic doctrine: see Bonhöffer, Epikt. 56 f.; cf. Cic., TD. i, 36 f.; Sen., C. ad Marc. 19, 4. When Stoics speak occasionally of inferi or ᾅδης as the abode of the souls, they are only using metaphorical language. When the word is not a mere conventionalism, they mean the regions nearer the earth, the cloud regions and lower levels of the air, ὁ παχυμερέστατος καὶ προσγειότατος ἀήρ (Corn., ND. 5, p. 4, 17 L; other exx. in Heinze, Xenokr. 147, 2). Here the “unwise” souls (the moister, less buoyant ones) are supposed to remain after death (circa terram as Tert., An. 54 says, alluding to Stoic doctrine—and this is obviously where the inferi mentioned at the end of the same chapter are situated). This ἀήρ (distinguished from the higher regions of the air) = ᾅδης, must have been what Zeno referred to when he spoke of the loca tenebrosa where the souls of the unwise have to expiate their folly (quoted and varied by Lact., Inst. 7, 7, 13, in a Platonic sense [i, 40 Arn.]).