Psyche

The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks

By

ERWIN ROHDE

LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD. NEW YORK: HARCOURT, BRACE & COMPANY, INC. 1925

Translated from the eighth edition by

W. B. HILLIS. M.A.

Printed in Great Britain by Stephen Austin & Sons, Ltd., Hertford.

CONTENTS

PAGE.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION VII

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION XI

PRELIMINARY NOTE TO THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH EDITION XIII

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE XV

PART I

CHAP.

I. BELIEFS ABOUT THE SOUL AND CULT OF SOULS IN THE HOMERIC POEMS 3

II. ISLANDS OF THE BLEST. Translation 55

III. CAVE DEITIES. SUBTERRANEAN Translation 88

IV. HEROES 115

V. THE CULT OF SOULS 156

I. Cult of Chthonic Deities 158

II. Funeral ceremonies and worship of the dead 162

III. Traces of the Cult of Souls in the Blood Feud and Satisfaction for murder 174

VI. THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES 217

VII. IDEAS OF THE FUTURE LIFE 236

PART II

VIII. ORIGINS OF THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. THE THRACIAN WORSHIP OF DIONYSOS 253

IX. DIONYSIAC RELIGION IN GREECE. ITS AMALGAMATION WITH APOLLINE RELIGION. ECSTATIC PROPHECY. RITUAL PURIFICATION AND EXORCISM. ASCETICISM 282

X. THE ORPHICS 335

XI. THE PHILOSOPHERS 362

XII. THE LAY AUTHORS (LYRIC POETS—PINDAR—THE TRAGEDIANS) 411

XIII. PLATO 463

XIV. THE LATER AGE OF THE GREEK WORLD 490

I. Philosophy 490

II. Popular Belief 524

APPENDIX

I. Consecration of persons struck by lightning 581

II. μασχαλισμός 582

III. ἀμύητοι, ἄγαμοι, Danaids in the lower world 586

IV. The Tetralogies of Antiphon 588

V. Ritual Purification 588

VI. Hekate and the Ἑκατικὰ φάσματα 590

VII. The Hosts of Hekate 593

VIII. Disintegration of Consciousness and Reduplication of Personality 595

IX. The Great Orphic Theogony 596

X. Previous Lives of Pythagoras. His Descent to Hades 598

XI. Initiation considered as Adoption by the god 601

XII. Magical Exorcisms of the Dead 603

[INDEX] 607

[Transcriber’s Note and Extended List of Abbreviations] end