1 Earliest Rome

9.6 Death
pretend to conformity in the action, while having no religious commitment. These are
his words: 'The wise man will observe all these customs as being fixed by law, not as
being acceptable to the gods.'
1. For Varro's formulation of the three different types of religion, see 13.9.
2. That is, the Stoic philosopher.
9.6 Death
It is impossible to generalize about pagan attitudes to death; let alone be sure
whether we can securely detect changes in these attitudes. In literature and philosophy
there is a commonly expressed belief that souls (though not bodies)
survived death, and even that rewards or punishments could be anticipated in
the after-life. It is much less clear how far such theoretical views were widespread
amongst pagans and how they connected with religious practices. It has
often been suggested by scholars that it was only the oriental' mystery cults
(see, especially, 12.3; 12.4; 12.5), together with Christianity, that made access
to the after-life a central part of their message: initiates, unlike non-initiates,
would be guaranteed a place in heaven. But the evidence even for this is
extremely flimsy.
See further: Vol. 1, 50, 289-91 ;Toynbee (1971); Hopkins (1983) 201-55*;
Walker (1985).
9.6a Hell on earth
1 he avowed purpose of Lucretius' philosophical poem (written in the middle
of the first century B.C.; see further 2.4c; 2.7e) was to free the human race from
fear of death, by showing that the universe (including everything that we sense,
know or think in it, and also including the gods) was material and therefore
perishable. So, for him, hell could exist only in this life. One implication of the
poem and of its passionate attack on the power of religion over the lives of men
and women is that the idea of punishment after death was more widespread in
the first century B.C. than any other evidence would have suggested.
See further: Wormel (1965) 54-6*; Wallach (1976); C. Segal (1990).
Lucretius, On the Nature of Things in.978-97
Everything traditionally told about the depths of Acheron 1
belongs in fact to our own
real life. There is no wretched Tantalus, 2
as in the story, terrified of the mighty rock
hanging above his head; rather in real life it is an empty fear of the gods that oppresses
mortals, living in terror of the stroke that fate might bring for each of them. Nor are
there birds that attack Tityos 2
as he lies in Acheron; they do not burrow into his
mighty breast, still finding matter to last all eternity; however vast the extent of his
body, even if he stretched over the whole earth and not a mere nine acres, he could not
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