Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

42
The Elysian Way
and again from earth to heaven. One is called the gate of men, the other that
Cancer is the gate of men, because through it they descend to the
of the gods :
lower regions ; Capricornus, the gate of the gods, because through it souls
return to the seat of their own proper immortality and rejoin the company of
the gods. This is what Homer, a poet of divine foresight, intended by his
description of the cave in Ithake^. Hence too Pythagoras holds that from the
Milky Way downwards begins the realm of Dis, since souls that have fallen
from it seem already to have left the world above. Milk—he says—is the
first food offered to the new-born, because their first movement downwards
in the direction of earthly bodies begins at the Milky Way. Wherefore also
Scipio, pointing to the Milky Way, observed with regard to the souls of the
blessed :
' Hence they start, and hither they return !
Proklos (410—485 A.D.), after citing from the Pythagorising
Platonist Noumenios^ a somewhat similar account of Capricornus
and Cancer as the openings through which souls are sent upwards
and downwards, continues^
For Pythagoras in mystic language calls the Milky Way 'Hades' and 'the
place of souls,' since there they are crowded together*. Whence sundry nations
pour a libation of milk to the gods that purify souls, and milk is the first food
taken by souls that fall into birth.
This belief in the Milky Way as a soul-road is found in several
authors who, without being definitely followers of Pythagoras, are
known to have come more or less under the influence of Pythagorean
speculation. Thus Parmenides' in the preface to his great philo-
sophical poem describes how he was conducted in a chariot ' on the
far-famed way of the goddess ' (Ananke ?) and ' maidens led the
way,' to wit the Heliades, who escorted him towards the light
through the portals of Night and Day till he reached the home of
the goddess". The 'way' in question is not improbably the Milky
1 Od. 13. 103 ff.
2 Prokl. in Plat. remp. ii. 128, 26 flF. Kroll.
^ Prokl. in Plat. 7-emp. ii. 129, 24 ff. Kroll koX yap tov Ylvdaybpav 81' d-rropprjTUi' "Ai8ijv
rbv yaXa^iav Kai tottov tpvx^v awoKokitv, ws eVet avviadovfilviijv 810 irapd ticlv iBveaiv
ydXa airivheadai. tois 0eoiS Tot% rQiv xpvx^" KaOdpraiS Kai ruiv incTOVcTwv eis yev€(ni> tlvai
ydXa Tr]v TrpwTr]v Tpocprjv.
* Cp. a gloss of I'lacidus in Classicorum atictoruvi e Vaticanis codicibns editorum
Tomus iii curante A. Maio Romae 1831 p. 481 ( = G. Goetz Corpus glossariorum Latino-
ru7)i Lipsiae 1894 v. 79, 26 ff.) Lacteus circulus, via quae in spera (leg. sphaera) videtur
quasi alba : quern alii dicunt animis heroum antiquorum refertum, et merito resplendere :
alii viam esse quam circuit sol, et ex splendoris ipsius transitu ita lucere, Philop. de
aeternitate miindi 7. 20 p. 290 Rabe rices 70O1' tO^v Trap' oi^rois {sc. the Greeks) QeoKbyuiv
Kai TOV yaXa^iav Ka\oOiJ.(i>ov k6k\ov Xtj^lv elvai Kai x'^P"-" ^vx^v XoyLKwv direcprjvavTO.
^ On the Pythagoreanism of Parmenides see e.g. J. Burnet Early Greek Philosophy
London and Edinburgh 1892 pp. 181 f., 197 ff.
® Parnien.y)'^^. i, 1 ff. Diels.