Chapter I: Front Matter

AFTER LIFE IN ROMAN PAGANISM

YALE UNIVERSITY
MRS. HEPSA ELY SILLIMAN
MEMORIAL LECTURES

SILLIMAN MEMORIAL LECTURES

PUBLISHED BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

ELECTRICITY AND MATTER. _By_ JOSEPH JOHN THOMSON, D.SC., LL.D., PH.D.,
F.R.S., _Fellow of Trinity College and Cavendish Professor of
Experimental Physics, Cambridge University_. (_Fourth printing._)

THE INTEGRATIVE ACTION OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. _By_ CHARLES S.
SHERRINGTON, D.SC., M.D., HON. LL.D. TOR., F.R.S., _Holt Professor
of Physiology, University of Liverpool_. (_Sixth printing._)

RADIOACTIVE TRANSFORMATIONS. _By_ ERNEST RUTHERFORD, D.SC., LL.D.,
F.R.S., _Macdonald Professor of Physics, McGill University_.
(_Second printing._)

EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL APPLICATIONS OF THERMODYNAMICS TO
CHEMISTRY. _By_ DR. WALTER NERNST, _Professor and Director of the
Institute of Physical Chemistry in the University of Berlin_.

PROBLEMS OF GENETICS. _By_ WILLIAM BATESON, M.A., F.R.S., _Director of
the John Innes Horticultural Institution, Merton Park, Surrey,
England_. (_Second printing._)

STELLAR MOTIONS. With Special Reference to Motions Determined by Means
of the Spectrograph. _By_ WILLIAM WALLACE CAMPBELL, SC.D., LL.D.,
_Director of the Lick Observatory, University of California_.
(_Second printing._)

THEORIES OF SOLUTIONS. _By_ SVANTE ARRHENIUS, PH.D., SC.D., M.D.,
_Director of the Physico-Chemical Department of the Nobel Institute,
Stockholm, Sweden_. (_Third printing._)

IRRITABILITY. A Physiological Analysis of the General Effect of
Stimuli in Living Substances. _By_ MAX VERWORN, M.D., PH.D.,
_Professor at Bonn Physiological Institute_. (_Second printing._)

PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN GEOLOGY. _By_ WILLIAM NORTH RICE, FRANK D. ADAMS,
ARTHUR P. COLEMAN, CHARLES D. WALCOTT, WALDEMAR LINDGREN, FREDERICK
LESLIE RANSOME, AND WILLIAM D. MATTHEW. (_Second printing._)

THE PROBLEM OF VOLCANISM. _By_ JOSEPH PAXSON IDDINGS, PH.B., SC.D.
(_Second printing._)

ORGANISM AND ENVIRONMENT AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE PHYSIOLOGY OF
BREATHING. _By_ JOHN SCOTT HALDANE, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., _Fellow of
New College, Oxford University_. (_Second printing._)

A CENTURY OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. With Special Reference to the
American Journal of Science 1818–1918. _By_ EDWARD SALISBURY DANA,
CHARLES SCHUCHERT, HERBERT E. GREGORY, JOSEPH BARRELL, GEORGE OTIS
SMITH, RICHARD SWANN LULL, LOUIS V. PIRSSON, WILLIAM E. FORD, R. B.
SOSMAN, HORACE L. WELLS, HARRY W. FOOTE, LEIGH PAGE, WESLEY R. COE,
AND GEORGE L. GOODALE.

THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN MEDICINE. _By_ SIR WILLIAM OSLER, BART., M.D.,
F.R.S. (_Second printing._)

RESPIRATION. _By_ J. S. HALDANE, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., _Fellow of New
College, Oxford, Honorary Professor, Birmingham University_.

AFTER LIFE IN ROMAN PAGANISM. _By_ FRANZ CUMONT.

AFTER LIFE IN ROMAN PAGANISM

LECTURES DELIVERED AT YALE UNIVERSITY ON THE SILLIMAN FOUNDATION

BY

FRANZ CUMONT

NEW HAVEN
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON · HUMPHREY MILFORD · OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
MDCCCCXXII

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

TO MY FRIEND
GEORGE LINCOLN HENDRICKSON
1888–1922

THE SILLIMAN FOUNDATION

In the year 1883 a legacy of eighty thousand dollars was left to the President and Fellows of Yale College in the city of New Haven, to be held in trust, as a gift from her children, in memory of their beloved and honored mother, Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman.

On this foundation Yale College was requested and directed to establish an annual course of lectures designed to illustrate the presence and providence, the wisdom and goodness of God, as manifested in the natural and moral world. These were to be designated as the Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman Memorial Lectures. It was the belief of the testator that any orderly presentation of the facts of nature or history contributed to the end of this foundation more effectively than any attempt to emphasize the elements of doctrine or of creed; and he therefore provided that lectures on dogmatic or polemical theology should be excluded from the scope of this foundation, and that the subjects should be selected, rather, from the domains of natural science and history, giving special prominence to astronomy, chemistry, geology, and anatomy.

It was further directed that each annual course should be made the basis of a volume to form part of a series constituting a memorial to Mrs. Silliman. The memorial fund came into the possession of the Corporation of Yale University in the year 1901; and the present volume constitutes the sixteenth of the series of memorial lectures.