Afterlife, Greeceand RomeCHARLES W. KING

Greek and Roman religion presented numerous

afterlife scenarios. Some focused on models of

where the dead dwelled and on the processes

(like posthumous judgment) that could affect

them. Others emphasized potential patterns of

interaction between the dead and the living in

the human world. Greek and Roman religious

rituals tended to reinforce the latter more than

the former. All the scenarios had variations, and

modern interpretations have sometimes viewed

the abundance of variants as evidence of general

lack of interest in the afterlife. One should,

however, recognize that equating sincerity of

interest with theological uniformity is a position

more compatible with Christianity than with

Greek and Roman religion, where there was

no mechanism for asserting a standardized

doctrine. The sheer frequency of references to

the afterlife and of rituals pertaining to the dead

shows a recurring interest in the afterlife in both

the Greek societies and Rome.

The earliest surviving Greek version of an

afterlife is that found in the Homeric poems,

particularly in the lengthy description of a

land of the dead (Od. 11 passim; 24.1–204).

Although it was only partially located under-

ground (Od. 11.36), Homer’s scenario pro-

vides certain details (the names of rivers, a

judge named Minos) that would be common-

place in later Greco-Roman accounts of the

underworld. The dead, though, were gathered

in a morally neutral way, with no overall judg-

ment of their lives (Bernstein 1993: 21–33;

Sourvinou-Inwood 1995: 10–94). Significantly

too, they seem to have had little contact with

the world, and most dead were unaware of

events occurring among the living. A few

passages suggest the poet was aware of scenar-

ios that emphasized posthumous judgment

(Il. 3.276–80; Od. 4.561–70, 11.576–600) or

of special dead humans with godlike attributes

(Od. 11.601–4). These elements are quite

marginal to the Homeric afterlife but would

become more important in later centuries.

Later Greek texts more firmly placed the

land of the dead underground. There was

never a fully standardized version of its layout.

Post-Homeric poets of the archaic period,

notably Hesiod, supplied many topographic

details that later authors would invoke. By

the classical period, and even more so by the

Hellenistic and Roman periods, there was a

familiar repertory of underworld features

from which authors could select, but they

were free to pick, choose, and modify to fit

their respective agendas (Edmonds 2004).

There were some widespread general features.

The dead lived in an underground space,

which one reached by crossing a river, and

over which the gods Hades and Persephone

presided in some general way. Other details

were in flux. A wide variety of subdivisions of

the underworld appeared in some models,

sometimes but not always linked to posthu-

mous judgment, while a variety of superhu-

man beings could also be present, using the

underworld as their base of operations. No

two models of the underworld were ever

exactly identical.

A lack of Roman texts from the Early

Republic makes it unclear exactly when the

Romans came to adopt Greek underworld

models for their own use. Images of the

Greek underworld appeared in the tomb art

of Rome’s Etruscan neighbors at the time of

the early Roman Republic (Krauskopf 1987;

Roncalli 1996). It seems reasonable to assume

from Etruscan familiarity with Greek ideas,

and from archaeological evidence of other

Roman borrowings from Greek religion in

the same era, that the Romans learned of the

Greek afterlife at the same time as the Etrus-

cans to their north. There is thus no reason to

think that Greek underworld models were

newly arrived in Rome in the first century BCE

era of Vergil’s Aeneid. Unfortunately, there is

also no way to trace the early history of these

ideas in Rome due to a lack of useful texts or

artwork.

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,

and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 153–156.

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah17011

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One feature of later Greek underworld

models and their Roman counterparts is

a significant role for the idea of posthumous

judgment (Bernstein 1993: 50–83; Stilwell

2005). The dead were judged and then segre-

gated into zones of punishment (Tartaros) and

reward (Elysion) in courts presided over by

underworld judges like Minos. Greek theories

of posthumous judgment probably drew upon

Egyptian thought (Griffith 2001; Stilwell

2005), but there is insufficient evidence to

establish the chronology of that transmission.

It may have been in the archaic period, as

posthumous judgment appears frequently in

literature by the classical period. As with the

topography, variations abound. In some cases

the guilty dead appear to be punished by other

dead persons that they had mistreated in

life (as in the painting by Polygnotos described

by Pausanias 10.28); in other cases erinyes

(see FURIES) or other categories of underworld

deities act on behalf of those with grievances

to punish dead wrongdoers. Sometimes the

division of the dead is not merely two-fold,

but there also exist other zones containing

specific categories of the dead, such as dead

newborns or those who died in a particular

manner. Such divisions are less a matter of

moral judgment than a classification into

categories. In more complex models, authors

would combine both the zones of moral judg-

ment and the zones of non-moral classifica-

tion, an approach used most famously in Book

6 of Vergil‘s Aeneid.

The degree to which the Greeks or Romans

believed in posthumous judgment doubtless

varied, but the existence of belief should not

be dismissed out of hand. Pindar (Ol. 2.53–80)

could invoke posthumous reward in a

poem intended for public performance, and

Athenian dramatists could do the same with

posthumous punishment (e.g., Aesch. Supp.

225–31), suggesting that audiences would not

greet the concepts with derision. Plato (Rep.

330d–e, 364e–65a) not only could present fear

of posthumous punishment as a common fea-

ture of old age, but described ritual specialists

whom Athenians could consult to ward off

the danger. Wiseman (1992) collected passages

about Roman “prophets” (vates) who

predicted posthumous punishment. Lucretius

(3.41–54) claimed that even those who pro-

fessed not to believe had a fear of Tartarus

when faced with a crisis. Menander Rhetor

(2.414.15, 2.421.15) advised public speakers

to mention Elysion in funeral orations to con-

sole the survivors. It is difficult to see how

either fear of posthumous punishment or a

consolatory role for Elysion would be possible

without at least a section of the population

accepting the possibility of posthumous judg-

ment, whether or not they accepted all the

elaborate details that poets provided (King

1998: 167–223; Stilwell 2005).

Concern about posthumous judgment was

but one aspect of the afterlife, and, in religious

practice, it was perhaps a secondary priority.

The majority of known Greco-Roman ceremo-

nies relating to the dead concern interactions

with the dead in the living world, not a desire

to reach Elysion. The dead of the post-Homeric

Greek world could enter the physical world as

beings of power. Most prominent were the

heroes, a small group of the exceptional dead

whomGreek towns granted special shrines and

individual festivals, invoking their divine assis-

tance (see HERO CULT). Ordinary dead persons

also had a potential to be present in the living

world. Greek terminology (daimones, elasteroi,

etc.) stopped short of calling them “gods,”

but they had power to affect the living. Greek

communities had festivals to placate them,

such as the Athenian Anthesteria and Argive

Agriania, as well as rituals performed by indi-

viduals. The living had a concern to keep the

dead pacified and honored through rituals,

so as to prevent them from wandering and

taking hostile action against the living.

Likewise, the dead could invoke other under-

world powers such as erinyes to pursue their

grievances against the living, so that the living

would need to ward off their wrath. In placat-

ing the dead, Greeks could also call upon their

power for positive purposes, so that the com-

munity of the dead could benefit the living

(Pulleyn 1997: 116–31; Johnston 1999).

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The Romans went farther than the Greeks in

deifying ordinary dead citizens. Roman dead

became manes, deities toward whom the

Romans regularly applied the overt terminol-

ogy of godhood (di, dei, dii) and worship.

Despite the plural-only form of the word

manes, Roman worship often focused on

specific named dead at their particular graves

or within home shrines. Although manes, like

other gods, could avenge neglect, Roman

funerary cult was less focused on keeping the

dead dormant than on invoking their power to

aid their worshippers. Romans prayed to the

dead to extend their life spans, advise them in

dreams, and witness oaths, while state priests

could invoke them to assist Roman armies or

protect Rome’s grain seed supply. The criteria

determining who worshipped which dead

relied upon inheritance and ties of family loy-

alty, criteria that would, in practice, have

included most of the population (King 1998:

225–492; 2009).

It is important therefore to include interac-

tions between the living and the dead as part of

the category of “afterlife,” for the living would

have died with an expectation that they would

remain relevant to their surviving family and

communities and would receive posthumous

honor (Greece) or worship (Rome) from

them. Greco-Roman models of the dwellings

and posthumous judgment of the dead were

important, but not more so than the question

of what the dead could do in the living world.

SEE ALSO: Afterlife, Pharaonic Egypt; Anthesteria;

Apotheosis and heroization; Funerary cult,

Greek; Funerary cult, Roman; Hades; Homer;

Manes, di manes; Parentalia; Persephone, Kore;

Religion, Etruscan.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Bernstein, A. E. (1993) The formation of hell: death

and retribution in the ancient and early

Christian worlds. Ithaca.

Edmonds, R. G. (2004) Myths of the underworld

journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the “Orphic” gold

tablets. Cambridge.

Griffith, R. D. (2001) “Sailing to Elysium: Menelaus’

afterlife (Odyssey 4.561-569) and Egyptian

religion.” Phoenix 55: 213–43.

Johnston, S. I. (1999) Restless dead: encounters

between the living and the dead in ancient Greece.

Berkeley.

King, C. W. (1998) The living and the dead: ancient

Roman conceptions of the afterlife. PhD diss.,

University of Chicago.

King, C. W. (2009) “The Roman manes: the dead

as gods.” In Mu-chou Poo, ed., Rethinking

ghosts in world religions: 95–114. Leiden.

Krauskopf, I. (1987) Todesdamonen und

Totengotter im vorhellenistischen Etrurien.

Florence.

Pulleyn, S. (1997) Prayer in Greek religion. Oxford.

Roncalli, F. (1996) “Laris Pulenas and Sisyphus:

mortals, heroes and demons in the Etruscan

underworld.” Etruscan Studies 3: 45–64.

Sourvinou-Inwood, C. (1995) “Reading” Greek

death: to the end of the classical period. Oxford.

Stilwell, G. A. (2005) Afterlife: post-mortem

judgments in ancient Egypt and ancient Greece.

New York.

Wiseman, T. P. (1992) “Lucretius, Catiline, and

the Survival of Prophecy.” Ostraka 1: 275–86.

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