Everyone had to suffer an appropriate penalty for each sin, ten times over. The first group from out of the earth wept as they recounted their torments, which lasted one thousand years. When they were all reunited on the plain, they recounted their experiences. They ordered the just to go to the right through one of the openings upward into the sky, but they sent the unjust to the left through one of the downward openings.Д®r also saw from the remaining two openings some souls coming up out of the earth, covered with dust and dirt, and others descending from the sky, pure and shining. In the space between these four openings were judges who passed sentence. A man named ER died in war after twelve days his body was uncorrupted and he returned to life, sent as a messenger from the other world to describe all that he had seen.ДЄfter his soul had departed, it traveled with many other souls and came to a divine place where there were two openings in the earth opposite were two other openings in the upper region of the sky. Plato concludes his Republic with a religious and philosophical vision of the afterlife. This then is the afterlife as imagined in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. There is no mention at all of the souls of ordinary mortals, who must also end up in this realm. The group of great mythological sinners identified may occupy a special hell, but this is not clear. These souls are vague spirits with all the passions they had while alive, drifting joylessly in the gloom. The heroes seem to form a special group in a meadow of asphodel, but no special paradise is described like the Elysian Fields of later authors. The Homeric picture of the Underworld is not clearly defined. Odysseus also saw a group of sinners being punished, for example, Tantalus and Sisyphus, who will be identified below. Their interview has become most famous because of AchillesвЂ™ disparaging remarks about death are thought to mirror Greek humanistic attitudes (see MLS, Chapter 6): he would prefer to be the slave of a poor man than to rule over all the dead. Odysseus sees a group of illustrious heroes, among whom is Achilles. Many other souls come up, including a parade of beautiful heroines. This is the doom of mortals when they die, for no longer do sinews hold bones and flesh together, but the mighty power of blazing fire consumes all, as soon as the life breath leaves our white bones and flesh, and the soul like a dream flutters and flies away, This is what Anticlea reveals to her son: The hero who conquers death, like a resurrection god, experiences the afterlife, and returns to this world, knowing with certainty the ultimate truth about life and death, unlike us poor, ordinary mortals who can never do the same.

OdysseusвЂ™ meeting with his mother, ANTICLEA, or ANTIKLEIA, is of the greatest importance from her he learns about the mystery of existence. Then Odysseus conversed with Tiresias, who explained that only the souls whom Odysseus allowed to drink of the blood could converse with him. Odysseus promised to fulfill ElpenorвЂ™s directions for a proper burial. Elpenor had dies after a fall from the roof of CirceвЂ™s palace, but he did not receive burial. But the soul of OdysseusвЂ™ comrade ELPENOR came up first. Next, Odysseus drew his sword and took his post at the pit of blood and did not allow the spirits to drink the blood before he had spoken to TIRESIAS. Odysseus ordered his men to flay and burn the slaughtered animals and pray to HADES (PLUTO) and PERSEPHONE, the king and queen of the Underworld. Here ODYSSEUS (ULYSSES) dug a pit and around it poured libations to the dead then, after many supplications, he cut the throats of sacrificed animals so that their blood would run into the pit, whereupon a multitude of the souls of the dead swarmed up. To reach the entrance to the Underworld, Odysseus and his men had to go to the farthest, sunless realm of the deep-flowing Ocean.

Plato, Republic, the myth of Er, which concludes Book 10.

Homer, Odyssey, Book 11, the Nekuia (вЂњThe Book of the DeadвЂќ).

Three major ancient authors taken together provide a composite and virtually complete summary of the philosophical and religious beliefs about the afterlife evolved by the Greeks and Romans.

Views of the Afterlife: The Realm of Hades

Hades companions