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Imagining the Afterlife in Greek Religion Radcliffe Monde S III Bryn Mawr College, Redmonds@Brynmawr.Edu Bryn Mawr College Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies Faculty Research Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies and Scholarship 2015 Imagining the Afterlife in Greek Religion Radcliffe mondE s III Bryn Mawr College, [email protected] Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy . Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.brynmawr.edu/classics_pubs Part of the Classics Commons Custom Citation Edmonds, R.E. “Imagining the Afterlife in Greek Religion” in Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion, eds. Eidinow, Esther & Julia Kindt, Oxford University Press (2015), pp. 551-563. This paper is posted at Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College. http://repository.brynmawr.edu/classics_pubs/113 For more information, please contact [email protected]. 550 JAN-MATHIEU CARBON Chaniotis, A. 2006. 'Rituals between Norms and Emotions: Rituals as Shared Experience and Memory', in Ritual and Communication in the Graeco-Roman World. Kernos, suppl. 16 ed. E. Stavrianopoulou, 211-38. Liege. ' CHAPTER 37 Davidson, J. 2007. 'Time and Greek Religion', in A Companion to Greek Religion e i D. Ogd en, 204-18. Oxford. ' c. Deshours, N. 2011. L' etc indien de la religion civique, Etudes sur !es cult es civiques dans le monde egeen c1l' epoque hellenistique tardive. Bordeaux. IMAGINING THE AFTERLIFE Feeney, D. 2007. Caesar's Calendar, Ancient Time and the Beginning of History. Berkeley, Los Angeles, CA, and London. Freeth, T., Jones, A., Steele, J. M., and Bitsakis, Y. 2008. 'Calendars with Olympiad Displa and Eclipse Prediction on the Antikythera Mechanism', Nature 454: 614-17, an~ RADCLIFFE G. EDMONDS III 'Supplementary Notes', 1-42. Gauthier, P. 1990. 'Epigraphica', RPh 64: 61-70. Georgoudi, S. 1998. 'Les douze <lieuxet les autres dans 1'espace cultuel grec', Kernos n: 73-8 . 3 Hannah, R. 2005. Greek and Roman Calendars, Constructions of Time in the Classical World. London. Hannah, R. 2009. Time in Antiquity. Abingdon and New York. INTRODUCTION Kravaritou, S. 2002. 'La construction d'un "calendrier" en Grece ancienne. Temps du rituel et temps du recit', Kernos 15:31-40. Lehoux, D. 2007. Astronomy, Weather, and Calendars in the Ancient World. Cambridge. THE question of what happens after the moment of death has always fascinated Mikalson, J. D. 1975. The Sacred and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year. Princeton, NJ. humanity-at one moment there is a living person, the next only a corpse; where did Nilsson, M. P. 1906. Griechische Feste von religiose Bedeutung, mit Ausschluss der Attischcn. Leipzig. the person go? Different ways of imagining the afterlife appear in every culture, but scholarly accounts of Greek ideas of the afterlife from Erwin Rohde (1925) onwards Nilsson, M. P. 1962. Die Entstehung und religiose Bedeutung des griechischen Ka/enders (2nd edn). Lund. have assumed a developmental trajectory, with the drab afterlife of Homer slowly being Parker, R. 2005. Polytheism and Society at Athens. Oxford. replaced by forms of afterlife where the dead are more active, closer to Christian ideas. Parker, R. 2011. On Greek Religion. Ithaca and London. While Rohde's ideas of historical evolution arising from Eastern influences and the Paul, S. 2013. 'Manifestation du divin et reconfiguration des pantheons a la periode hellenis­ internal decadence of the Greek spirit have rightly been rejected, afterlife ideas are still tique, L'exemple des Artemis d'Asie mineure', in Perception et construction du divin dans represented as a chronological development by scholars, even those, such as Johnston l'Antiquite, ed. P. Borgeaud and D. Fabiano, 237-59. Geneva. (2004), who reject Rohde's premises. Jan Bremmer (2002) provides a survey of the 'rise Reger, G. 2001. 'The Mykonian Synoikismos', REA 103: 157-81. and fall of the afterlife' that positions the Greeks as a preliminary to the Christian devel­ Robertson, N. 1984. 'Poseidon's Festival at the Winter Solstice', CQ 34: 1-16. opment of an afterlife. Albin us (2000) provides a more nuanced picture of two currents Samuel, A. E. 1972. Greek and Roman Chronology: Calendars and Years in Antiquity. Munich. of thought interacting within Greek culture, but it remains a story of the replacement Santangelo, F. 2006. 'Magnesia sul Meandro alla vigilia della prima guerra mitridatica. Nota of the Homeric view with an 'Orphic' one. I would argue that the dynamic would be sulla cronologia di I.1\!Iagn.10ob', EA 36: 133-8. better described as an ongoing contest of differing views in which the ideas appear Schadler, U. 1991. 'Attizismen an ionischen Tempeln Kleinasiens', IstMitt 41: 265- 324 . Schorn, S. 2004. Sa tyros aus Kalla tis. Sammlung der Fragmente mit Kommentar. Basel. more or less prominently in different contexts and elaborated by different individuals. Stern, S. 2012. Calendars in Antiquity, Empires, States, and Societies. Oxford. Moreover, different versions and ideas should be understood as jostling for authority in Tri.impy, C. 1997. Untersuchungen zu den griechischen Monastnamen und Monatsfolgen. particular situations, rather than simply authorizing a single canonical version. Heidelberg. The epics of Homer provide vivid images of a bleak and shadowy afterlife, but, Wiemer, H.-U. 2009. 'Bild der Polis oder Bild des Konigs? Zur Reprasentationsfunktion although this grim afterlife is often taken to be the standard Greek vision, it is hardly stiidtischer Feste im Hellenismus', in Stadtbilder im Hellenismus, ed. A. Matthaei and the only way in which the ancient Greeks imagined life after death. In many sources, M. Zimmermann, 116-31. Berlin. life after death is a lively extension of the life of the living, either a continuation of its activities and social forms, or a compensation for its problems. 1bis is neither a mar­ ginal vision of eccentric religious groups nor a later development of the intellectual and cultural maturity of the late Classical period. On the contrary, varying visions 552 RADCLIFFE G. EDMONDS III IMAGINING THE AFTERLIFE 553 of a lively afterlife appear in sources starting with the earliest literature, and form the longer the person has been dead, as only the most memorable aspects are preserved in underlying ideology of funerary and other ritual practices in all periods. memory. Of course, memories survive only as long as those who have them are still liv­ Two forms of imagining the afterlife in Greek religion may be distinguished: sim­ ing, although stories that perpetuate the memory of an individual can prolong the pro­ pler images based on memories of particular people who have died, and more elabo­ cess, even if the stories further simplify the memory of the person-preserving (and rate visions that reflect upon life itself. Memory survival may be personal, limited to perhaps embellishing) only the most salient details. imagining a relative persisting in familiar activities and habits, focused upon main­ Funeral rituals and cultural expectations regarding the tendance of tombs make taining a relationship with them. Communities too, however, preserve the memories clear that the ancient Greeks generally assumed that the dead retained some sentience of significant individuals, through stories, monuments, and rituals. The Greek poetic in their afterlife, and that their reciprocal relations of care and respect with the liv­ traditions, especially the epics, provide a means of preserving memories of important ing persisted (Johnston 1999: 43). Sufficiently respectful performance of funeral ritu­ heroes (real or imagined) within communities. This imperishable fame remains one of als was a characteristic of the virtuous man, and Athenian legal speeches show that the most significant forms of afterlife survival in the Greek tradition. tendance of family tombs was a significant marker of proper family behaviour (Isae. More elaborate visions of the afterlife may arise from systematic thinkers who envi­ 2.10, 37, 6.65, 8.38-39; cf. Arist. Ath. Pol. 55; Xen. Mem. 2.2.13). Maintaining positive rela­ sion the afterlife as part of the larger nature of a world that includes both the living tionships with the dead could be as important as maintaining such relations with the and the dead. Such visions tend to be more elaborate, corresponding in various ways living-or even more so. Properly satisfied dead could bring benefits to the family or to life in the world of the living; the afterlife may have a geography, a social structure the polis, while the unsatisfied dead could become a source of trouble-disease, mad­ and hierarchy, and a specified relationship with the world of the living. The nature of ness, drought, and so on. While the evidence for these ongoing relationships with the that relationship varies with the contexts in which these visions are produced. The phi­ dead is relatively scarce, there is no reason to believe that it is either a later development losopher Plato envisions an unseen world of the dead that fits within a rational order or a primitive superstition the Greeks outgrew, since the earliest evidence appears in with the visible world of the living, while a social commentator like the comedy writer the earliest texts and continues through to late antiquity. The Erinyes in Homer per­ Aristophanes imagines the afterlife as a carnivalesque reflection of the normal world, sonify the anger of the dissatisfied dead, as they do in Classical tragedy, and Odysseus, turning familiar social structures topsy-turvy. These and other imaginings of the after­ while he is performing libations and sacrifices to the dead at the entrance to the under­ life in the Greek religious tradition provide models of the world as their authors under­ world, even makes an elaborate promise to perform further rituals upon his return to stand it, as well as models (positive or negative) for behaviour within it, whether the Ithaca for the satisfaction of the dead (Od. 11. 29-33, cf. Od.10-521-6). Homer's audience, afterlife imagined is the simple persistence of a remembered loved one or an elaborate in whatever era, would have understood such rituals not as pointless mummery vainly vision of the workings of the cosmos.
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