Note 53 — Chapter XIV · THE LATER AGE OF THE GREEK WORLD PART I PHILOSOPHY

Abode of the souls in the air: S. E., M. ix, 73; Cic., TD. i, 42–3, both probably after Poseid. Cf. sapientum animas in supernis mansionibus collocant (Stoici), Tert., An., 54. Generally: εἰς τὸν ἀέρα μεθίστασθαι said of the departed souls, M. Ant. iv, 21. ἐν τῷ περιέχοντι . . . διαμένειν τὰς τῶν ἀποθανόντων ψυχάς, Ar. Did. ap. Eus., PE. xv, 822 A [ii, 225 Arn.]. (Gradual ascent to ever higher regions, Sen., C. ad Marc. 25, 1—hardly orthodox Stoic doctrine).—The conception may possibly belong to the older Stoicism, and may underlie the opinion of Chrysipp.: σφαιροειδεῖς—as fiery μετέωρα—τὰς ψυχὰς μετὰ θάνατον γίνεσθαι, ap. Eust., Il. 1288, 10 f. [224 Arn.]. Poseid. seems to have worked it out further, probably making use also of Pythagorean and Platonic fancies to which he was distinctly inclined. The Pythagoreans had fancies about the souls hovering in the air (see above, chap. xi, n. 35), of the sun and moon as places where the souls lived (chap. x, n. 76). Acc. to Poseid. the souls inhabit τὸν ὑπὸ σελήνην τόπον (S.E., M. ix, 73) as suitable for divine but not perfect creatures. It is the souls who are meant when people speak of δαίμονες (S.E. § 74), or ἥρωες (Stoic in this use D.L. vi, 151 [ii, 320 Arn.]); cf. heroes et lares et genii, Varro using Stoic language (ap. Aug., CD. vii, 6, p. 282, 14 Domb.). The whole air is full of them: Pos. ap. Cic., Div. i, 64. Something very similar given as Pythag. doctrine by Alex. Polyh. ap. D.L. viii, 32; see above, chap. xi, n. 35. But Poseidonios (esp. if he is really the source of the Ciceronian Somn. Scip.) seems to have emulated more particularly the imaginative efforts of Herakleides Pont. and his story of Empedotimos’ vision (see above, chap. ix, n. 111). Herakl. contributed largely to popularizing the idea that the souls inhabit the air and giving it shape; the interest with which his fancies were studied is shown by the quotations from his book so common from Varro down to Proclus and Damascius. He must have been led to make the souls, on being freed from the body, float upwards (and occupy the stars or the moon—which are inhabitable heavenly bodies: Dox. 343, 7 ff.; 356a, 10) by the view—just as the Stoics after him were—that the soul is an αἰθέριον σῶμα (Philop.)—φωτοειδής, a lumen, Tert., An. 9. In this he is following an idea that had been common in the fifth century (held by Xenophanes, Epicharmos, Eurip.: see above, p. 436 ff.), and had even attained popular vogue. This idea from the very first led to the conclusion that the soul, when ready for it, enters εἰς τὸν ὅμοιον αἰθέρα and ascends to the upper regions (of the aether). Herakleides carried this idea further and embellished it with philosophical and astronomical fancies. (On another occasion he seems to have denied substance and consistency to individual “souls”: Plu., Mor. v, p. 699 Wytt.—a view to which his doctrine of the ὄγκοι might easily have led him.) Poseidonios then took up this idea of Herakl. In this way, or at least not uninfluenced by this semi-philosophical literature, the belief in the abode of the “souls” in the aether attained the popularity that grave inscriptions witness for it (see below, ch. xiv, 2, n. 135).