Chapter I: Front Matter

Psyche

The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks

By

ERWIN ROHDE

LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD. NEW YORK: HARCOURT, BRACE & COMPANY, INC. 1925

Translated from the eighth edition by

W. B. HILLIS. M.A.

_Printed in Great Britain by Stephen Austin & Sons, Ltd., Hertford._

CONTENTS

PAGE.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XI
PRELIMINARY NOTE TO THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH EDITION XIII
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XV

PART I

CHAP.
I. BELIEFS ABOUT THE SOUL AND CULT OF SOULS IN THE HOMERIC
POEMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
II. ISLANDS OF THE BLEST. _Translation_ . . . . . . . . . 55
III. CAVE DEITIES. SUBTERRANEAN _Translation_ . . . . . . 88
IV. HEROES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
V. THE CULT OF SOULS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
I. Cult of Chthonic Deities . . . . . . . . . . . 158
II. Funeral ceremonies and worship of the dead . . 162
III. Traces of the Cult of Souls in the Blood Feud
and Satisfaction for murder . . . . . . . 174
VI. THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
VII. IDEAS OF THE FUTURE LIFE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

PART II

VIII. ORIGINS OF THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. THE THRACIAN WORSHIP
OF DIONYSOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
IX. DIONYSIAC RELIGION IN GREECE. ITS AMALGAMATION WITH
APOLLINE RELIGION. ECSTATIC PROPHECY. RITUAL
PURIFICATION AND EXORCISM. ASCETICISM . . . . . . . . 282
X. THE ORPHICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
XI. THE PHILOSOPHERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
XII. THE LAY AUTHORS (LYRIC POETS--PINDAR--THE TRAGEDIANS) . . 411
{vi}
XIII. PLATO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
XIV. THE LATER AGE OF THE GREEK WORLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
I. Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
II. Popular Belief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524

APPENDIX
I. Consecration of persons struck by lightning . . . . . . . 581
II. ~maschalismo/s~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582
III. ~amu/êtoi, a/gamoi~, Danaids in the lower world . . . . . 586
IV. The Tetralogies of Antiphon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588
V. Ritual Purification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588
VI. Hekate and the ~Hekatika\ pha/smata~ . . . . . . . . . . . 590
VII. The Hosts of Hekate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
VIII. Disintegration of Consciousness and Reduplication of
Personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595
IX. The Great Orphic Theogony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596
X. Previous Lives of Pythagoras. His Descent to Hades . . . . 598
XI. Initiation considered as Adoption by the god . . . . . . . 601
XII. Magical Exorcisms of the Dead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603

{{vii}}