Psyche, by Erwin Rohde—A Project Gutenberg eBook

41 ἀκολούθως τῇ φύσει ζῆν (but our φύσεις are μέρη τῆς τοῦ ὅλου), i.e. in harmony with the κοίνος νόμος ὅσπερ ἐστὶν ὁ ὀρθὸς λόγος ὁ διὰ πάντων ἐρχόμενος, ὁ αὐτὸς ὢν τῷ Διί, καθηγεμόνι τούτῳ τῆς τῶν ὅλων διοικήσεως ὄντι, Chrysipp. ap. D.L. vii, 87–8 [iii, 3 Arn.]. This obedience to the rational order and governance of the world—the deum sequere, Sen., VB. 15, 5; Ep. 16, 5; ἕπεσθαι θεοῖς, Epict. i, 12, 5, etc.—is more often regarded as a passive attitude of self-abandonment adopted consciously and with συγκατάθεσις: χρῶ μοι λοιπὸν εἰς ὃ ἂν θέλῃς. ὁμογνωμονῶ σοι, σός εἰμι κτλ., Epict. ii, 16, 42. θέλε γίνεσθαι τὰ 514 γινόμενα ὡς γίνεται, καὶ εὐροήσεις (this sounds very like “make God’s will your own will”), Ench. 8. Much the same idea occurs already in the lines of Kleanthes ἄγου δέ μ’ ὧ Ζεῦ καὶ σύ γ’ ἡ Πεπρωμένη κτλ. [i, 118 Arn.]. But such “affirmation of the universe”, understood in the full pantheistic sense (cf. Kleanthes τὴν κοινὴν μόνην ἐκδέχεται φύσιν ᾗ δεῖ ἀκολουθεῖν, οὐκέτι δὲ καὶ τὴν ἐπὶ μέρους, D.L. vii, 89 [i, 126 Arn.]), could not lead to an ethical teaching of active character and concrete substance.

42 The σοφός is ἐλεύθερος· εἶναι γὰρ τὴν ἐλευθερίαν ἐξουσίαν αὐτοπραγίας, D.L. vii, 121. Laws and constitutions do not apply to him: Cic., Ac. Pri. ii, 136.

43 Enemies and strangers are μὴ σπουδαῖοι to one another—πολῖται καὶ φίλοι καὶ οἰκεῖοι οἱ σπουδαῖοι μόνον. Zeno, ἐν τῇ Πολιτείᾳ, ap. D.L. vii, 32–3 [i, 54 Arn.].

44 ὁ παρ’ ἑκάστῳ δαίμων which one must keep in harmony πρὸς τὴν τοῦ τῶν ὅλων διοικητοῦ βούλησιν, D.L. vii, 88, after Chrysipp. [iii, 4 Arn.]. In the later Stoic literature, the only part of it which has come down to us, we often hear of this δαίμων of the individual—sacer intra nos spiritus (Sen., Epict., M. Ant.: see Bonhöffer, Epiktet, 83). It is generally spoken of in language that seems to regard it as something separable from the man or his soul, including the ἡγεμονικόν; Zeus παρέστησεν ἐπίτροπον ἑκάστῳ τὸν ἑκάστου δαίμονα καὶ παρέδωκε φυλάσσειν αὐτὸν αὐτῷ κτλ., Epict. i, 14, 12. ὁ δαίμων ὂν ἑκάστῳ προστάτην καὶ ἡγεμόνα ὁ Ζεὺς ἔδωκεν, M. Ant. v, 27. ἀνάκρινον τὸ δαιμόνιον, Epict. iii, 22, 53 (one can ask questions of it, as Sokrates did of his δαιμόνιον, as something other and different from oneself). This δαίμων then does not seem to be simply identifiable with the “soul” of man like the daimon in man of which the theologians speak. It is conceived and spoken of in language that suggests rather the “protecting spirit” of a man as known to popular belief (cf. now Usener, Götternamen, 294 ff.). ἅπαντι δαίμων ἀνδρὶ συμπαρίσταται εὐθὺς γενομένῳ μυσταγωγὸς τοῦ βίου, Menand. 550 K. (where the idea of two daimonic partners in the life of man is already rejected: Eukleides Socr. had spoken of such, cf. Censor., DN. iii, 3, and in a different way again Phocyl., fr. 15). Plato himself speaks (with a λέγεται) of the δαίμων ὅσπερ ζῶντα εἰλήχει (and guides the departed soul into Hades): Phd. 107 D. The idea, however, must have been much older: it appears fairly clearly expressed in Pindar’s words, O. xiii, 28 (Ζεῦ πάτηῤ), Ξενόφωντος εὔθυνε δαίμονος οὖρον, where the transition to the meaning “fate” for the word δαίμων has not yet been completed. Later (with the Tragedians and other poets) this use became very common, but even then still presupposes the belief in such personal daimonic partners in the life of man: the use would have been quite impossible otherwise. (δαίμων = πότμος, Pi., P. v, 121 f., and already in Thgn. 161, 163. When Herakleitos says ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων, fr. 121 By., 119 D. he uses δαίμων in the sense of fortune in life. The word means both ἦθος and condition of life at the same time in Pl., Rp. 617 E, οὐχ ὑμᾶς δαίμων λήξεται, ἀλλ’ ὑμεῖς δαίμονα αἱρήσεσθε, where the derivation of the metaphorical use of the word δαίμων from a belief in a special daimon belonging to the individual man can still be seen plainly. See also [Lys.] Epit. (2), 78. But the metaphorical use comes as early as Θ 166, πάρος τοι δαίμονα δώσω = πότμον ἐφήσω.)—The personal existence of the daimon is still far removed from all danger of such abstraction in a very remarkable case: in Halikarnassos Poseidonios and his ἔκγονοι decide that on the first day of the month they will offer Δαίμονι ἀγαθῷ Ποσειδωνίου . . . κριόν (Gr. Ins. in Br. Mus. 515 iv, 1, n. 896, p. 70, l. 35. The inscr. seems to date from the third century B.C.). Here then offering is made to the ἀγαθὸς δαίμων (see above, chap. v, n. 133) of the living, just as offering was made on birthdays, and at other times also, to the genius of Romans; ἀγ. δ. is here clearly equivalent to genius. Apollo whose advice had been sought at his oracle had expressly enjoined (ib., l. 9) . . . τιμᾶν καὶ ἱλάσκεσθαι καὶ ἀγαθὸν δαίμονα Ποσειδωνίου καὶ Γόργιδος (the latter, P.’s mother, seems to have been already dead: l. 34).—This special δαίμων attached to individuals with whom it can be contrasted (as Brutus can be with his δαίμων κακός: Plu., Brut. 36) is distinct from the individual’s ψυχή, though it is natural to suppose that it may have arisen from the projection of the ψυχή—conceived as very independent—outside the man himself, in which it would again resemble the Roman genius. (The daimonic φύλακες of Hesiod [cf. above, p. 67 ff.], belong to quite a different range of ideas.) At any rate the Stoics had this analogous popular conception in mind when they spoke of the παρ’ ἑκάστῳ δαίμων as something different from the man himself and his ἡγεμονικόν. They use it, however, only as a figure of speech. The δαίμων of the individual really means for them “the original, ideal personality as contrasted with the empirical personality” (as Bonhöffer very rightly puts it: Epikt. 84)—the character the man already is ideally but must become actually (γένοι’ οἷος ἐσσί . . .). Thus the δαίμων is distinct from the ψυχή (διάνοια) and yet identical with it. It is a semi-allegorical play upon the idea of the δαίμων as individual genius and at the same time as crown or summit of the human personality—just as Plato had used the word already incidentally, Tim. 90 A. Finally—for the Stoics did not seriously wish to establish the existence of an independent protecting deity that enters man from without and rules over him—the ἡγεμονικόν is the same as the δαίμων. Thus in M. Ant. iv, 27, the δαίμων is completely identical with the ἀπόσπασμα Διός, and the ἑκάστου νοῦς καὶ λόγος (cf. also iii, 3 fin.; ii, 13; 17; iii, 7, τὸν ἑαυτοῦ νοῦν καὶ δαίμονα). The fact, however, that this ἀπόσπασμα τοῦ θεοῦ can be called a δαίμων bears witness to a tendency to conceive the soul-spirit as something independent and more cut off and separated from the common and original source of divinity than was possible for Stoic pantheism of the stricter sort (to which the terms ἀπόσπασμα, ἀπόρροια τοῦ θεοῦ were more apt). A decided approximation was thus made to the theological idea of the “soul” as an individual daimon which persists in its separate existence. To this view Poseidonios went over completely: he regards the individual δαίμων that lives in man as συγγενὴς ὢν τῷ τὸν ὅλον κόσμον διοικοῦντι (Pos. ap. Gal. v, 469), and no longer as the dependent ἀπόσπασμα of the latter, but as one of many independent and individually characterized spirits that have lived from all time in the air and enter into man at birth. (See Bonhöffer, Epikt. 79–80, and also Schmekel, Phil. d. mittl. Stoa, 249 ff., 256.)

45 ὁ θάνατος ἐστι χωρισμὸς ψυχῆς ἀπὸ σώματος . . . Chrysipp. ap. Nemes., NH., p. 81 Matth.; Zeno and Chrysipp. ap. Tert., An. 5 [ii, 219 Arn.].

46 Everything comes into being and perishes, including the gods, ὁ δὲ Ζεὺς μόνος ἀΐδιός ἐστι, Chrysipp. ap. Plu., Sto. Rep. 38, p. 1052 A; Comm. Not. 31, p. 1075 A ff. [ii, 309 Arn.].—ἐπιδιαμονὴ but not ἀθανασία of the human soul [ib., 223].

47 Κλεάνθης μὲν οὖν πάσας (τὰς ψυχὰς) ἐπιδιαμένειν (λέγει) μέχρι τῆς ἐκπυρώσεως, Χρύσιππος δὲ τὰς τῶν σοφῶν μόνον, D.L. vii, 157. 516 A statement often repeated without mention of the two authorities: Arius Did. ap. Eus., PE. 15, 20, 6, p. 822 A–C (the ψυχαὶ τῶν ἀφρόνων καὶ ἀλόγων ζῴων perish immediately with the death of the body, C) and others [ii, 223 Arn.]. Chrysippos’ doctrine comes also in Tac., Agr. 46, si ut sapientibus placet non cum corpore extinguuntur magnae animae (αἱ μεγάλαι ψυχαί, Plu., Def. Or. 18, p. 419 f.); cf. omnium quidem animos immortalis esse sed fortium bonorumque divinos, Cic., Leg. ii, 27, not quite accurately put.

48 The ἀσθενεστέρα ψυχή (αὕτη δέ ἐστι τῶν ἀπαιδεύτων) perishes sooner, ἡ δὲ ἰσχυροτέρα, οἷα ἐστὶ περὶ τοὺς σοφούς remains μέχρι τῆς ἐκπυρώσεως, [Plu.] Plac. Phil., 4, 7 ap. Dox. 393a.

49 The predominance of the materialistic point of view is remarkable in those Stoici who acc. to Seneca, Ep. 57, 7, existimant animum hominis magno pondere extriti permanere non posse et statim spargi, quia non fuerit illi exitus liber (which reminds us of the popular belief that the soul of one who has died in a high wind εὐθὺς διαπεφύσηται καὶ ἀπόλωλεν, Pl., Phd. 70 A, 80 D, see above, chap. xiii, n. 5).

50 οὐ τὰ σώματα τὰς ψυχὰς συνέχει ἀλλ’ αἱ ψυχαὶ τὰ σώματα, ὥσπερ καὶ ἡ κόλλα καὶ ἑαυτὴν καὶ τὰ ἐκτὸς κρατεῖ, Poseidon. ap. Ach. Tat., Isag., p. 133 E Petav., borrowed from Arist. (de An. 1, 5, 411b, 7), but a thoroughly Stoic idea as contrasted with Epicurean doctrine (see Heinze, Xenokrates, 100 f.).

51 S.E., M. ix, 71–3. The naive but quite plain statements go back to Poseid. as has often been pointed out (e.g. by Corssen, de Pos. Rhod., p. 45, 1878, and others). So, too, do the similar remarks in Cic., TD. i, 42. Poseid. does not appear to be uttering heterodox opinions in this case, so far as we can see.

52 —καὶ γὰρ οὐδὲ τὰς ψυχὰς ἔνεστιν ὑπονοῆσαι κάτω φερομένας. λεπτομερεῖς γὰρ οὖσαι εἰς τοὺς ἄνω μᾶλλον τόπους κουφοφοροῦσιν, S.E., M. ix, 71. This physical reason was in itself enough to make it impossible for the Stoics to believe in a subterranean region of the souls: οὐδεὶς Ἅιδης, οὐδ’ Ἀχέρων, οὐδὲ Κωκυτός κτλ., Epict. iii, 13, 15. It is the regular Stoic doctrine: see Bonhöffer, Epikt. 56 f.; cf. Cic., TD. i, 36 f.; Sen., C. ad Marc. 19, 4. When Stoics speak occasionally of inferi or ᾅδης as the abode of the souls, they are only using metaphorical language. When the word is not a mere conventionalism, they mean the regions nearer the earth, the cloud regions and lower levels of the air, ὁ παχυμερέστατος καὶ προσγειότατος ἀήρ (Corn., ND. 5, p. 4, 17 L; other exx. in Heinze, Xenokr. 147, 2). Here the “unwise” souls (the moister, less buoyant ones) are supposed to remain after death (circa terram as Tert., An. 54 says, alluding to Stoic doctrine—and this is obviously where the inferi mentioned at the end of the same chapter are situated). This ἀήρ (distinguished from the higher regions of the air) = ᾅδης, must have been what Zeno referred to when he spoke of the loca tenebrosa where the souls of the unwise have to expiate their folly (quoted and varied by Lact., Inst. 7, 7, 13, in a Platonic sense [i, 40 Arn.]).

53 Abode of the souls in the air: S. E., M. ix, 73; Cic., TD. i, 42–3, both probably after Poseid. Cf. sapientum animas in supernis mansionibus collocant (Stoici), Tert., An., 54. Generally: εἰς τὸν ἀέρα μεθίστασθαι said of the departed souls, M. Ant. iv, 21. ἐν τῷ περιέχοντι . . . διαμένειν τὰς τῶν ἀποθανόντων ψυχάς, Ar. Did. ap. Eus., PE. xv, 822 A [ii, 225 Arn.]. (Gradual ascent to ever higher regions, Sen., C. ad Marc. 25, 1—hardly orthodox Stoic doctrine).—The conception may possibly belong to the older Stoicism, and may underlie the opinion of Chrysipp.: σφαιροειδεῖς—as fiery μετέωρα—τὰς ψυχὰς 517 μετὰ θάνατον γίνεσθαι, ap. Eust., Il. 1288, 10 f. [224 Arn.]. Poseid. seems to have worked it out further, probably making use also of Pythagorean and Platonic fancies to which he was distinctly inclined. The Pythagoreans had fancies about the souls hovering in the air (see above, chap. xi, n. 35), of the sun and moon as places where the souls lived (chap. x, n. 76). Acc. to Poseid. the souls inhabit τὸν ὑπὸ σελήνην τόπον (S.E., M. ix, 73) as suitable for divine but not perfect creatures. It is the souls who are meant when people speak of δαίμονες (S.E. § 74), or ἥρωες (Stoic in this use D.L. vi, 151 [ii, 320 Arn.]); cf. heroes et lares et genii, Varro using Stoic language (ap. Aug., CD. vii, 6, p. 282, 14 Domb.). The whole air is full of them: Pos. ap. Cic., Div. i, 64. Something very similar given as Pythag. doctrine by Alex. Polyh. ap. D.L. viii, 32; see above, chap. xi, n. 35. But Poseidonios (esp. if he is really the source of the Ciceronian Somn. Scip.) seems to have emulated more particularly the imaginative efforts of Herakleides Pont. and his story of Empedotimos’ vision (see above, chap. ix, n. 111). Herakl. contributed largely to popularizing the idea that the souls inhabit the air and giving it shape; the interest with which his fancies were studied is shown by the quotations from his book so common from Varro down to Proclus and Damascius. He must have been led to make the souls, on being freed from the body, float upwards (and occupy the stars or the moon—which are inhabitable heavenly bodies: Dox. 343, 7 ff.; 356a, 10) by the view—just as the Stoics after him were—that the soul is an αἰθέριον σῶμα (Philop.)—φωτοειδής, a lumen, Tert., An. 9. In this he is following an idea that had been common in the fifth century (held by Xenophanes, Epicharmos, Eurip.: see above, p. 436 ff.), and had even attained popular vogue. This idea from the very first led to the conclusion that the soul, when ready for it, enters εἰς τὸν ὅμοιον αἰθέρα and ascends to the upper regions (of the aether). Herakleides carried this idea further and embellished it with philosophical and astronomical fancies. (On another occasion he seems to have denied substance and consistency to individual “souls”: Plu., Mor. v, p. 699 Wytt.—a view to which his doctrine of the ὄγκοι might easily have led him.) Poseidonios then took up this idea of Herakl. In this way, or at least not uninfluenced by this semi-philosophical literature, the belief in the abode of the “souls” in the aether attained the popularity that grave inscriptions witness for it (see below, ch. xiv, 2, n. 135).

54 Cicero, following Poseid., imagines a blissful observation of the earth and the stars by the souls in the air: TD. i, 44–7 (cf. Sen., C. ad Marc. 25, 1–2); and similarly in Somn. Sci.; in both cases the idea certainly comes from Herakl. Pont.

55 ἀπόσπασμα τοῦ θεοῦ [i, 36 Arn.].

56 A frequently repeated Stoic dogma (stated with particular fullness by Senec., Ep. 93): see Gataker on M. Ant. (iii, 7), p. 108–9. The happiness of the (Stoic) wise man does not require μῆκος βίου τέλειου as Aristot. had maintained (see above, n. 32). In this point Stoic and Epicurean doctrine fully agreed: magni artificis est clusisse totum in exiguo: tantum sapienti sua, quantum deo omnis aetas patet (Sen., Ep. 53, 11, and see below, n. 92).

57 Acc. to Panaitios there are duo genera in the soul which he calls inflammata anima (Cic., TD. i, 42). It is at any rate very probable that Panaitios (and Boëthos—roughly contemporary with Pan.: see Comparetti, Ind. Stoic., p. 78 f.—acc. to Macr., in S. Scip. 1, 14, 20) regarded the soul as compounded of two elements, aer et ignis, not 518 as a single and uncompounded πνεῦμα ἔνθερμον as the older Stoa had taught (see Schmekel, Philos. d. mittl. Stoa, 324 f.).

58 φύσις and ψυχή: Pan. ap. Nemes., NH., p. 212 Matth. This clearly shows a tendency to a psychological dualism: Zeller, Stoics and Epicureans, p. 542 f. What further suggestions were made by Pan. about the division of the soul remains very problematical. The only more precise statement is Cicero’s, TD. i, 80 (speaking of Pan.), aegritudines iras libidinesque semotas a mente et disclusas putat.

59 Panaitios denied not merely the immortality but even the διαμονή of the soul after death: Cic., TD. i, 78–9. Two reasons are there given: everything that has come into being (like the soul of man at birth) must also perish—the Aristotelian principle: see above, n. 25; what can feel pain (as the soul does) must become diseased and what is diseased must eventually perish. (Here the destruction of the soul from its own inward decay is asserted—not from the effect of external force at the world conflagration, the periodic occurrence of which Pan. at least called in question.) Acc. to Schmekel (mittl. Stoa, p. 309) it follows from Cic., TD. i, 42, that Panaitios also added a third argument: that the soul being composite must suffer the dissolution of its parts in death which change into other elements. This does not indeed at all follow from the passage, but such a view would almost have been inevitable with Panaitios’ doctrine of the soul and had already been suggested by Karneades in his polemic against the indestructibility of the divine and of every ζῷον—an argument to which Pan. on the whole yielded.

60 Poseidonios distinguished in the human soul not three parts but three δυνάμεις μιᾶς οὐσίας ἐκ τῆς καρδίας ὁρμωμένης (Gal. v, 515), namely, the Platonic three, the λογιστικόν, θυμοειδές, ἐπιθυμητικόν (Gal. v, 476). The last two are the δυνάμεις ἄλογοι (they only give φαντασίαι the special forms taken by their impulses: Gal. v, 474, 399). The πάθη are not judgments nor the consequences of judgment but the motions (κινήσεις) of these δυνάμεις ἄλογοι (Gal. v, 429; cf. 378). In this way alone is it possible to understand how passion or wrong-doing can arise in man; it is because soul is not (as Chrysipp. had taught) pure reasoning power (cf. also Gal. iv, 820). There exists then in man an ἄλογον καὶ κακόδαιμον καὶ ἄθεον in addition to the δαίμων συγγενὴς τῷ τὸν ὅλον κόσμον διοικοῦντι: Gal. v, 469 f. How, indeed, this is possible when the soul is a single οὐσία and in its nature nothing but divine πνεῦμα it is difficult to say.—Pos. too was quite ignorant of an evil principle in the world, not the divine or contrary to the divine principle. The ethical teaching of Stoicism had always contained a dualism which is here transferred to the physical doctrine where it was originally unknown. From the time of Pos. there is an ever growing tendency to emphasize the contrast (which was, however, always familiar to the older Stoics as well) between “soul” and “body”, the inutilis caro ac fluida, Pos. ap. Sen., Ep. 92, 10. In view of this contrast the “soul” too is no longer said to come into being with the body or with the physical conception of the individual (cf. γεγονέναι τὴν ψυχὴν καὶ μεταγενεστέραν εἶναι [τοῦ σώματος], Chrysipp. ap. Plu., Sto. Rep. 1053 D [ii, 222 Arn.]), but rather to have been living before that, in the separate life of the divine. It is nowhere expressly or authoritatively stated that Poseidonios held the “pre-existence” of the “soul”; but that view has been rightly attributed to him, fitting in as it does with his other ideas, and because it is often introduced and taken for granted in those passages where 519 Cicero or Seneca are following Pos. (see Corssen, de Pos. Rhod., p. 25 ff. But we may not read the doctrine of pre-existence into S.E., M. ix, 71, as Heinze, Xenok. 134, 2, does). If the soul-δαίμων was in existence before its incarnation it can presumably only enter the body with the conception of the individual life θύραθεν, tractus extrinsecus as Cic. puts it, Div. ii, 119; a passage obviously related (as Bonhöffer, Epikt. 79 remarks) to the statement in Div. i, 64, where he is speaking of the immortales animi of which the air is full—and there Pos. is mentioned by name as the authority. From its pre-existent life in the air the “soul” enters into man. The multitude of individual bodiless souls—not only the one impersonal soul-substance of the world—were thus living before their ἐνσωμάτωσις, and the Stoic pantheism thus turns into a rather questionable “pandaemonism”. On the other hand, Poseidonios in opposition to his teacher, Panaitios, adheres to the doctrine of the periodic extinction of all life in the one Soul of the World, the original Fire: cf. Dox. 388a, 18; b, 19. Holding this view he cannot very well have put the origin of each of the individual soul-daimones before the beginning of the particular world-period in which they live. Nor can the survival of the souls after their separation from the body be prolonged beyond the next ἐκπύρωσις (which makes Cicero’s immortales animi inexact: Div. i, 64, after Pos.). Thus, although the survival which Panaitios had denied is reaffirmed it does not go beyond the qualified doctrine of immortality which the older Stoics had held. At the same time Pos. could hold, with Chrysipp. and other Stoics, that there was a περιοδικὴ παλιγγενεσία (M. Ant. xi, 1) after the world-conflagration and even that each individual man of the previous world-period would be restored again in precisely the same place (Chrysipp. ap. Lact., Inst. 7, 23, 3, etc.; ii, 189 Arn.; cf. the Orphico-Pythagorean fantasy: above, chap. x, n. 47). But this would not amount to an ἀθανασία for the individual: the individual life has been interrupted and is separated from its ἀποκατάστασις by a long interval of time.—There is no satisfactory reason for assigning to Pos. the belief in a series of μετενσωματώσεις of the soul—as Heinze does, Xen. 132 ff.—though such an idea would not have been hard to arrive at, even while holding fast to the doctrine of the final ἐκπύρωσις. But the dubious accounts given by many δοξογράφοι of Stoic teaching on the question of the μεταγγισμὸς ψυχῶν need not necessarily refer to Poseidonios: nor are we bound to draw this conclusion because they reappear in Plutarch. Plu. does indeed here and there follow Poseidonios, but he never hesitates to add Platonic ideas or fancies of his own invention, a fact which makes it most risky to attempt to fix an exact source for any particular detail in his variegated mosaic.

61 Schmekel (Phil. d. mittl. Stoa, 1892) maintains convincingly that Panaitios was led to his view of the nature and fate of the soul chiefly by the polemic of Karneades against the dogmatic philosophers and particularly the Stoics. It is less certain that Poseidonios and his heterodox views are influenced by respect for Karneades. It is certain, however, that Pos. differs from Chrysipp., and still more from Panaitios. There is thus an indirect connexion between him and Karneades, to whose criticisms Panaitios had in the most essential points given way.

62 That Pos. is being used in the first book of Tusc. Disp. is admitted on all hands (as to the extent of that use conjecture may indeed be various). It is at least very possible in the case of Somn. Scip. (see Corssen, Pos. 40 ff.).—The attraction of such theories of immortality 520 remained an aesthetic one with Cicero (and probably among all the cultured of his age and social circle). Where he is not speaking rhetorically or in pursuance of a literary pose—in his letters esp.—he shows no trace of the conviction that he defends at other times with so much ardour (see Boissier, Rel. rom. d’Aug. aux Ant. i, 58 f.).

63 οὐ κατὰ ψιλὴν παράταξιν, ἀλλὰ λελογισμένως καὶ σεμνῶς though not always quite ἀτραγῴδως (M. Ant. xi, 3).

64 Julius Kanus when condemned to death by Gaius only attempts to enquire whether there is any truth in the belief in immortality: Sen., Tr. An. 14, 8–9. De natura animae et dissociatione spiritus corporisque inquirebat Thrasea Paetus, before his execution, with his instructor Demetrius the Cynic: Tac., A. xvi, 34. They have no firm conviction in these matters that might serve to explain or account for their heroism (Cato reads the Phaedo before his suicide: Plu., Cat. min. 68, 70).

65 nos quoque felices animae et aeterna sortitae says the soul of her father to Marcia: Sen., C. ad Marc. 26, 7, in antiqua elementa vertemur at the ἐκπύρωσις.

66 Sen., Ep. 88, 34.

67 bellum somnium, Sen., Ep. 102, 2.

68 Where Seneca admits more positive conceptions of a life after death he never goes beyond a fortasse, si modo vera sapientium fama est (Ep. 63, 16); a deliberate concession to the consensus hominum (Ep. 117, 6) or the opiniones magnorum virorum rem gratissimam promittentium magis quam probantium (Ep. 102, 3). Following the conventional style of consolatory discourses he gives such expressions a more vivid turn in the Consolationes: e.g. Marc. 25, 1 ff.; Helv. 11, 7; Polyb. 9, 8. But even there the idea of personal immortality hardly seems to be taken seriously. In the same pieces death is commended simply as putting an end to all pain, and, in fact, to all sensation: Marc. 19, 4–5. In death we become again as we were before being born, Marc. 19, 5; cf. Ep. 54, 4, mors est non esse, id quale sit iam scio. hoc erit post me quod ante me fuit; and Ep. 77, 11, non eris: nec fuisti. So that whether death is a finis or a transitus, (Prov. 6, 6; Ep. 65, 24), it is equally welcome to the wise man who has made the most of his life, however short it may have been. Whether he goes then to the gods or whether on the other hand nothing is left of the mortal creature after death aeque magnum animum habebit (Ep. 93, 10); cf. nunquam magis divinum est (pectus humanum) quam ubi mortalitatem suam cogitat, et scit in hoc natum hominem ut vita defungeretur cet., (Ep. 120, 14); ipsum perire non est magnum, anima in expedito est habenda (QN. 6, 32, 5); to be ready is everything.—Of the old Stoic dogmas the only one that seems to remain certain for Seneca is that of παλιγγενεσία at the new creation of the world, Ep. 36, 10–11: mors intermittit vitam, non eripit: venit iterum qui nos in lucem reponat dies; but that is not in any way a consolation: multi recusarent nisi oblitos reduceret. Consciousness ceases with the coming of death in this world-period.

69 It is very rarely that the utterances of the Emperor on the subject of what happens after death resemble those of a convinced Stoic of the old school. The souls are all parts of the one νοερὰ ψυχή of the world which though extended over so many individual souls yet remains a unity (ix, 8; xii, 30). After death the individual soul will survive for a period in the air until it is merged into the universal soul εἰς τὸν τῶν ὅλων σπερματικὸν λόγον (iv, 21). This implies the survival of the personal self for an undefined period, but it is 521 not a fixed conviction of M. Ant. As a rule he allows the choice between σβέσις ἢ μετάστασις, i.e. immediate extinction and merging of the individual soul (Panait.) or its removal into a temporary abode of the souls in the air (αἱ εἰς τὸν ἀέρα μεθιστάμεναι ψυχαί, iv, 21; cf. v, 53). Or else the choice is between σβέσις, μετάστασις (both in agreement with the Stoic doctrine of the ἕνωσις of the soul) or σκεδασμός of the soul-elements, in case the atomists are right (vii, 32; viii, 25; vi, 24)—a dilemma which really comes down to σκεδασμός or σβέσις (= ληφθῆναι εἰς τοὺς κόσμου σπερματικοὺς λόγους); and μετάστασις falls out. This is probably the meaning also of x, 7: ἤτοι σκεδασμὸς στοιχείων ἢ τροπή (in which τὸ πνευματικόν disappears εἰς τὸ ἀερῶδες) and τροπή only of the last πνευματικόν that man preserves in himself: for here (at the end of the chapter) the identity of the individual soul with itself is given up in the Herakleitean manner (see above, p. 370). Sometimes the choice is presented between ἀναισθησία or ἕτερος βίος after death (iii, 3) or αἴσθησις ἑτεροία in an ἀλλοῖον ζῷον (viii, 58). This is no allusion to metempsychosis (in which the envelope into which the soul goes is another but its αἴσθησις does not become ἑτεροία): it means the turning of the soul-pneuma, exhaled in death, to new forms of life united to the previous forms by no identity of soul-personality. In this case we can indeed say τοῦ ζῆν οὐ παύσῃ: but there can be no idea of the survival of the personal ego. ἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις exchanges and redistributes its elements; all things are changing (viii, 6; ix, 28). The Emperor never seriously thinks of the survival of personality; he seeks rather to inquire why things are as they are; but he never doubts that as a matter of fact even the noblest of mankind must also “go out” completely with death (xii, 5). Everything changes and one thing perishes to make way for another (xii, 21); and so each man must say to himself μετ’ οὐ πολὺ οὐδεὶς οὐδαμοῦ ἔσῃ (xii, 21; viii, 5). The wise man will say it with calmness: his soul is ἕτοιμος ἐὰν ἤδη ἀπολυθῆναι δέῃ τοῦ σώματος . . . xi, 3. Living among men to whom his way of thought is strange (ἐν τῇ διαφωνίᾳ τῆς συμβιώσεως) he sighs at times θᾶττον ἔλθοις, ὦ θάνατε . . . ix, 3; cf. Bonhöffer, Epikt. u. d. Stoa, 59 ff.